A SPECIAL court being set up in Camden to protect the children of drug addicts and alcoholics will be the first of its kind in the country.
Under a pilot scheme at Inner London Family Court in Well Street, Fitzrovia, a specially trained judge will decide who has custody of children where a parent’s drug or drink addiction is a key factor.
Town Hall social services chiefs say the current court system makes it too hard to take children into care.
They are working with district judge Nick Crichton to develop the new court, based on ideas borrowed from America’s drug-blighted inner cities.
Mr Crichton, who hopes to have the court operating by next year, said: “One of the things that is very depressing is the number of children born to drug users.
“The children suffer withdrawal symptoms from the moment they are born and the distance they start behind the line compared to other children is immense.
“We take many children into care but there is more we could do.”
The issue of protecting children on the council’s at-risk register came into focus earlier this month with the revelation that murdered Somers Town six-year-old Ukleigha Batten-Frogatt had been on the list.

THE locations of hundreds of potentially dangerous sites contaminated by chemicals across Camden have been uncovered by the New Journal.
Schools, homes and workplaces in all corners of the borough are on an official list of more than 1,000 properties thought to be at risk of contamination from Camden’s industrial past.
Residents in the streets surrounding Ascham Street, Kentish Town, learned earlier this year that high levels of carcinogenic substances had been found in their back gardens, which would have to be dug up.

HUNDREDS of bottlenecked licensing applications could leave Camden Council with an even bigger headache than anticipated.
The Town Hall has long been bracing itself for a deluge of requests from pubs and clubs for later opening hours under new licensing rules.
But, five weeks after fixed pub hours were scrapped by the government, only three of the borough’s 1,700 nightspots have asked for a change in hours.
Even if pub bosses do not want to vary their opening hours, they still have to update their licences under the new system by November.

AN unemployed homeless man has been remanded in custody until May 13 at the Old Bailey charged with murdering Somers Town mother and daughter Nicole Batten and Ukleigha Batten-Froggatt.
Mark Nicholas, 29 appeared by video link, accused of murdering Nicole, 34, and six-year-old Ukleigha, six, at their Ossulston Street flat earlier this month.

A SCHOOLBOY whose acting career stretched to not more than a supporting role in his primary school’s nativity play has landed a dream role in a blockbuster film about teenage gun culture.
Luke Fraser, 14, who lives in Camden Gardens, Camden Town and goes to St Aloysius school in Highgate, staved off over a thousand others at an audition and will star alongside ex-So Solid Crew member Ashley Walters, who pleaded guilty to possession of a loaded firearm in 2001. The film, called Bullet Boy, tells the story of two brothers growing up in one of London’s most volatile neighbourhoods, where a minor street clash escalates into a cycle of violence that has tragic repercussions.