A four-year-old boy has been killed after he was mauled by an illegal breed of dog. The dog was a “pitbull-terrier type” and as such was banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act. John Paul Massey died from head and neck injuries following the attack at his grandmother’s home in Wavertree.

According to the BBC, his grandmother, Helen Foulkes, was also attacked as she tried to protect her grandson from the dog and received bites to her legs and body. Merseyside police have been forced to apologise, as they failed to follow up the complaints of a housing officer, who suspected illegal dog breeding was taking place. The police are alleged to have stated that it was not a police matter.
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Road traffic accidents are the more common cases of personal injury claims. We at The Injury Lawyers don’t half see a lot of them!

Road accidents are common; and no matter how big or small the incident, the injuries a victim of a negligent driver can suffer can be sometimes be quite serious.

Here are some common examples of where you may stand should you be injured in an accident:
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A new law will come in to effect in Scotland this week preventing under 18s using sunbeds.

According to the BBC, the Public Health Act will see an end to unmanned, coin operated tanning salons and a ban on the sale or hire of sunbeds to those under 18, with fines handed out for those caught flouting the law.

This comes on the back of statistics stating that skin cancer rates have quadrupled over the past 30 years.

Cancer Research UK are delighted with the ruling and are now lobbying for further legislation to cover the rest of the UK.

Sarah Woolnough, head of Policy at Cancer Research stated that “…sunbeds [are] now classified in the highest risk category for cancer” and that there is “…strong scientific evidence to show the damage that they are causing to skin- both increasing skin cancer risk and ageing the skin.”
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The Health Protection Agency is investigating a number of cases of E. Coli O157 in travellers returning from Benidorm in Spain. According to the BBC, the Health Protection Agency (or HPA) have already been made aware of 14 confirmed cases of gastrointestinal infection.

Four of those suffering have been admitted to hospitals in the UK as a result of the bacteria, two of whom have now been discharged.

The HPA is now working in conjunction with the Spanish health authorities to investigate the illness and plans to interview the confirmed sufferers to try and identify a possible source which may have led to the outbreak of the illness.

E. Coli O157 is a particularly nasty strain of bacteria and while some people may be unaffected, others may suffer from mild or bloody diarrhoea. However, it is possible that some people may suffer from kidney failure. Children are the most vulnerable in this respect.
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A man who has been left with serious brain damage has been awarded £3.2m in damages after “critical delays” during his hospital treatment at Manor Hospital, Walsall, the mirror.co.uk has reported (source).

Doctors at the hospital failed to spot the telltale signs of meningitis when 20 year old Mark Thomas was admitted to hospital at the age of 12. Medical staff only took action a considerable five days later after his parents rushed him back to hospital in severe agony.
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New Look, the high street fashion chain, have been fined £400,000 for fire safety breaches following a blaze at one of their branches in London.

 According to the BBC, staff ignored smoke pouring out of a window at the shop, located on Oxford Street. The fire alarm sounded but was then switched off. Shop staff initially failed to react before panicking and evacuating customers from the shop. No-one was hurt in the accident; however judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC, sitting at Southwark Crown Court, stated that the fire could have been “a disaster almost too awful to contemplate”.

The fire occurred in April 2007 and began in the shop’s second floor storeroom. According to shopper Joanne Weaver, the fire alarm in the store went off intermittently but the initial absence of staff reaction did not “suggest there was a problem”. Ms Weaver and as many as 20 other shoppers were allowed to continue down to the basement floor before a member of staff announced that the shop was being evacuated.
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More than 150 people have been forced to evacuate their homes after a fire broke out and spread fast in the Peckham area of South London early Friday morning, according to a report from the BBC (source).

More than 125 fire-fighters are tackling the blaze which has so far consumed an entire construction site and spread to two blocks of apartments and a local pub at 04:30 this morning, with reports of “flying debris” and “cars ablaze” in the streets. An eyewitness stated to have seen flames shooting 20ft in to the air from apartments and mass pandemonium.

Reports have so far indicated that only one person has been admitted to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation, deemed not life threatening, with no other known casualties, and ambulances on standby at the scene.
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Around one million women are victims of domestic violence at least once a year (that’s just shy of 1 in 60!) according to the British Crime Survey statistics outlined in the BBC’s recent report on a new Government scheme aimed at stamping out  domestic violence at a grassroots level (source).

According to the report every school pupil from the age of five in England as part of the curriculum will be taught that domestic violence is unacceptable under new plans coming in to force in 2011. Under the plans children will be taught about gender equality and how to prevent violent relationships as part of the reformed curriculum in the statutory Personal, Social and Health Education (PSHE) lessons. Trainee teachers will have to be have to learn about teaching the new curriculum before being able to qualify.
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Patients in Scotland are facing an average wait of almost 2 hours in hospital casualty departments. The good news is that this falls within the national waiting time targets of four hours. The bad news? Waiting times are increasing.

According to The Times, Nicola Sturgeon, the Health Secretary has announced that waiting times have risen from an average wait on one hour and 10 minutes in 1999, the year of Scottish devolution, up to one hour and 44 minutes in A&E’s in Scotland between April and June 2009.

Conservative public health spokesman Jackson Carlaw was damning in his critique of the statistics stating, “they do not reflect well on the health policies of any administration since the advent of devolution” and urged the Health Secretary to “investigate these appalling figures before making clear what the government intends to do to turn things around”.
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Two men have been executed in China following their role in a scandal involving tainted milk powder. The powder resulted in the death of six children and left more than 300,000 other infants ill.

According to the BBC, the milk powder became contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical used in the making of plastics and fertilisers. When mixed with food products it can cause kidney stones and kidney failure.

Between July 2007 and August 2008 over 770 tonnes of the tainted milk powder was sold in China.

Mr Zhang Yujun was convicted of endangering public safety by dangerous means, and Mr Geng Jinping was convicted of supplying milk containing melamine. The Xianhua news agency confirmed that both were executed on Tuesday, but did not reveal where.
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