The head of Britain's online child protection agency has quit over government plans which would curtail the body's independence.

The number of children in care has dramatically risen following the death of Baby Peter, official statistics showed yesterday.

A teenage girl killed a "dirty paedophile" who she said had abused her, the Old Bailey heard.

The mother of schoolgirl Sarah Payne today applauded the introduction of a scheme that seeks to protect children from paedophiles in the county where her daughter was killed 10 years ago.

Baby P's mother and her boyfriend have been denied public funding to be represented at any resumed inquest into the child's death, it was revealed today.

Children are at risk because local authorities are failing to safeguard them from sexual abuse, experts will warn this week.

In yesterday's article, ' Catholic Britain rejoices,but abuse overshadows first state visit by Pope' (15 September 2010), we wrongly stated that the Church's Child Protection Advisory Service met survivor groups for abuse victims. In fact it was the Catholic Safeguarding Advisory Service which held these meetings and not the Church's Child Protection Advisory Service which is an independent organisation. We apologise for the error.

A 14-year-old Dutch sailor departed in secrecy from Portugal on Saturday on her quest to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world, avoiding the media because her manager said she didn't want the attention.

Vulnerable children could be left at risk because new Government migrant limits have made it even more difficult to fill social worker vacancies, it was claimed today.

What do "delivery", "safeguarding", "integrated working", "targeted services" and "ECM" have in common – aside from their leaden effect on the ear? They are among the expressions that the Education Secretary wants to ban from his department. And an excellent ambition it is, too. If Michael Gove has a bit of a blind spot where numbers are concerned – his attempts to slash the school buildings programme showed an imperfect command of the arithmetic – he seems admirably at home with words.

The shocking death of Khyra Ishaq, who starved after months of abuse at the hands of her mother and stepfather, has drawn attention once again to the failings of child protection services. Publication this week of the full serious case review into Khyra's death has revealed for the first time the extent of the communications failures and missed opportunities that contributed to the death of seven-year-old Khyra.

A Dutch court cleared the way yesterday for the teenager Laura Dekker to try to become the youngest person to sail round the world solo, ending state supervision of the 14-year-old.

Baby P's GP was suspended by the General Medical Council for 12 months today for a series of failures in his care of the toddler.