Up to a quarter of a million vulnerable people are not being supported by an ‘appropriate adult’ while in police custody, a Home Office report suggests. It said lack of awareness and a shortage of trainees meant that police often ended up questioning adults with mental illness or learning disabilities without one. Appropriate adults are trained volunteers who help with communication during police interviews. They are supposed to ensure that mentally vulnerable people who are arrested or questioned understand what is happening, and that their legal rights and welfare are safeguarded. They were introduced in the 1980s following miscarriages of justice involving vulnerable people. Local authorities are required to provide appropriate adults whenever children are in contact with police and there is no parent or guardian present, but there is no duty to do the same in respect of vulnerable adults, many of whom only have the comprehension of a child.

Last week Sebastian Coe was elected as president of the world governing body for athletics. This week Usain Bolt’s victory over twice banned drug offender Justin Gatlin delighted many who still appear not to trust athletes with regards to cheating. Bolt is a worthy champion and so is Jessica Ennis-Hill, winning the gold medal in the women’s heptathlon just 13 months after giving birth. Not everyone has the endurance, perseverance, ability and training to compete in any kind of athletics competition, never mind a world championship. Now that Lord Coe heads the IAAF he will look to the International Olympic Committee which is the only agency with both the funds and the vested interest to operate an effective drugs-detection programme . However, if the IOC is unwilling to exclude rogue nations from membership, no amount of testing will make much difference. Historically international governing bodies don’t cast off member nations, regardless of the depths of their offences. Witness state-supported athletes, Nazi repression of Jewish sportsmen, and twenty years of communist-bloc drug-programmes. All passed without a whimper.

In a day of remarkable evidence before the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson offered damning assessments of the most senior Catholic clerics on the planet. Pope John Paul II ‘handled the abuse poorly’. Cardinal George Pell was a ‘most ineffectual bishop’ and ‘the majority of the priests wished he’d get transferred somewhere else.’ Even Pope Francis is not providing ‘real leadership’. But his most chilling and telling statement about the Catholic church was the one he made about the church hierarchy’s response to revelations about child sexual abuse: ‘What we got was silence, so bishops were loyal to the silence.’ It speaks of the extent to which the church hierarchy exercises control – and enforces silence – through a combination of rigid orthodoxy, secretive practices, intimidation, and threat of exclusion or excommunication. Even many Catholics may not be aware of how the church leadership manages the institution, as most of us in the pews interact only with our local parish priest.

A new review of a wide range of evidence on assisted suicide has been released ahead of a debate at Westminster when MPs will consider Rob Marris’s Bill on legalising assisted suicide  on 11 September. This review has revealed that the practice becomes more widespread and more routine in places where the law has been changed. Produced by the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, the review links directly to official data from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Oregon and Washington, as well as UK parliamentary reports and journal research. It says there are ‘common patterns’ emerging from places where assisted suicide has been legalised. In every jurisdiction numbers have increased over time and continue to do so; there has also been a shift from permitting assisted suicide for cancer victims to include other diseases. In Europe, this includes psychiatric conditions and problems related to old age, which are non-terminal. For helpful prayers into this subject, go to http://www.care.org.uk/our-causes/sanctity-life/assisted-suicide-euthanasia/what-you-can-do