£1m lottery couple backtrack on toy shop ‘promise’

12:36am Wednesday 7th January 2009

A couple who won more than £1m on the lottery yesterday said they had to "backtrack" on a promise to buy their eight-year-old son a toy shop if their numbers came up.

Fears of rise in jail sentences played down as community service workers go on strike

12:36am Wednesday 7th January 2009

Justice chiefs yesterday played down trade union claims that an indefinite strike by community service supervisors would lead to a rise in jail sentences for minor offenders.

VIDEO: Tears as the wonder goes out of Woolworths

12:35am Wednesday 7th January 2009

Shelves once brimming with toys, DVDs, children's clothes and household products lay empty, while the only items left to buy were fixtures and fittings at discount prices and a few stray boxes of pic'n' mix. Welcome to Woolworths in 2009.

Godless advertising campaign launched

12:33am Wednesday 7th January 2009

An atheist advertising campaign was launched across Britain yesterday, with the slogan: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Row over knife-crime data prompts call for independent statistics body

12:30am Wednesday 7th January 2009

The UK Government was last night called on to hand full independent control of crime statistics to the Office of National Statistics after a “damning indictment of its cavalier use” of official data.

Hospital phone ban stays year after guidance

12:25am Wednesday 7th January 2009

A blanket ban on mobile phones is still in force in some Scottish hospitals despite health boards being given new guidelines to relax the rules a year ago.

Train death woman was due to marry

12:10am Wednesday 7th January 2009

The family of a teaching assistant killed as she tried to reverse her car out of the path of a train said yesterday she planned to marry this year.

MSP's relative waits eight hours for hospital bed

4:30pm Tuesday 6th January 2009

The elderly mother-in-law of a Labour MSP waited for eight hours on a hospital trolley before being found a bed, it was claimed today.

House prices in Scotland fall less steeply than rest of UK

9:32am Tuesday 6th January 2009

Property prices in Scotland have been hit less badly than in other parts of the UK, new figures have revealed.

We need progress towards United Nations standards

2:01am Tuesday 6th January 2009

Pro and con: Two experts weigh in on either side of the debate on raising the age of criminal responsibility.

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