Australian Rules coaches have been accused of pressuring a player to have his partner’s child aborted so he could concentrate on football.

The allegation was first reported by the Australian broadcaster ABC.

An independent review commissioned by the Hawthorn club of the period 2010 to 2016 recounts the story of one indigenous player whose partner became pregnant. When he told coaches the news, they allegedly ushered him into an office, urged him to have the pregnancy terminated, ‘get rid’ of his partner and move into the home of an assistant coach.

“It was so intimidating, confusing and upsetting,” the former player is quoted as saying. “Clarkson [one of the coaches] just leaned over me and demanded that I needed to get rid of my unborn child and my partner. I was then manipulated and convinced to remove my SIM card from my phone, so there was no further contact between my family and me. They told me I’d be living with one of the other coaches from that night onwards’.

The report states the player “felt he had no choice. ‘He told me to kill my unborn kid.’”

The continued incarceration of a secondary school teacher for contempt of court after a row over transgender policy in his school has been described as “heavy handed” by the leader of Fianna Fail in the Seanad.

Lisa Chambers (pictured) addressed the situation of Enoch Burke yesterday after Senator Ronan Mullen raised the possibility that he may remain imprisoned until Christmas.

Senator Chambers agreed with his concerns and expressed her surprise that Mr Burke ,“ended up in Mountjoy Prison, which is usually home to some more serious offenders”.

“I think the matter should be expedited. Having spoken to the governor of Mountjoy previously on a visit, he would be of the view that there are many people in that prison who should not be there and would be better served with other solutions, and I believe Enoch Burke is one of those people”.

She added, “The charge against him in terms of contempt of court was correct and he does need to come forward on that front, but I do take the Senator’s point that it seems a very heavy-handed outcome in terms of the actual offence”.

Meanwhile, Mr Burke himself returned to the High Court on Tuesday asking that an injunction against him be lifted. He did not appeal the Court’s orders committing him to prison for contempt, nor did he purge his contempt.

He has been behind bars at Mountjoy Prison since early September.

A Catholic mother who has been subjected to a targeted campaign of harassment for questioning transgenderism has blasted UK police after they forced their way into her home and arrested her over a series of ‘allegedly malicious’ posts on an internet chat board.

Caroline Farrow, a journalist and mother-of-five, shared a lengthy thread online detailing her experience with Surrey Police on Monday night.

The row stems from a series of anonymous posts shared on an internet forum in June – in which Mrs Farrow is accused of posting ‘malicious’ content and ‘harassing’ other users on the online platform.

Mrs Farrow has strenuously denied the accusations, explaining that she was playing the organ during Mass at a local church at the very time the posts were published.

Speaking to GB news Tuesday evening, Mrs Farrow said: ‘I have been arrested for what was a twitter spat about gender issues.’

Mrs Farrow was previously investigated by the same police force in 2019 over allegations she had used the wrong pronoun to describe a transgender woman.

She has complained of her life being ‘invaded and dominated by insane trans rights activists’, and has been publicly supported by Harry Potter author JK Rowling.

Denmark and Greenland have formally agreed to launch a two-year investigation into birth control practices carried out for many years by Danish doctors on Inuit Greenlanders without their consent or proper explanation. Scandinavian countries had decades-long eugenics policies that lasted until the 1970s.

Thousands of Inuit women and girls were fitted with an intrauterine device (IUD), commonly known as a coil, during the 1960s and 70s, to prevent pregnancy.

A recent podcast, Spiralkampagnen (“coil campaign”), found records indicating that up to 4,500 women and girls – roughly half of all fertile females – had an IUD implanted in Greenland between 1966 and 1970. But the procedures continued into the mid-1970s.

Of these, it is unclear how many cases lacked consent or proper explanation.

Among those affected were girls as young as 12, and several have stated publicly that they were not properly informed. Some women unable to have children suspect the coil is to blame.

People who have no medical need should be able to avail of surrogacy and donor-assisted IVF, according to a Fine Gael Senator.

Emer Higgins told the Tánaiste, Leo Varadkar, that draft legislation being prepared may be medically and scientifically out of date and could have unintended consequences as it “provides for treatment for those with a specific need”.

“Today, people without specific needs can and indeed do avail of fertility treatments. Who do I mean by that? I mean same-sex couples, who avail of surrogacy, and women, particularly single women, who choose to preserve their fertility by freezing their eggs. It is essential that all fertility treatments currently available remain legally permissible, and both publicly and privately accessible, once the Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill becomes law”.

Addressing the €10 million allocated in the budget to provide IVF services, the Tánaiste said work is to be done “in establishing the criteria as to who qualifies, how many cycles, and so on”.

Regarding upcoming legislation, he said the it will have to be examined “to ensure we do not inadvertently cause something to be unlawful when it is not the intention that it would be made unlawful”.

A tribunal has begun into the case of a Christian doctor who was placed under disciplinary measures for offering to pray with his patients.

In 2019, the General Medical Council (GMC) launched an investigation against Dr Richard Scott after the National Secular Society (NSS) raised concerns about him.

It argued that a “highly vulnerable” anonymous patient felt “discomfort at the use of prayer” by Dr Scott during a consultation at Bethesda Medical Centre in Margate, Kent.

The GMC ruled that no guidelines were breached and that “discussion of faith in consultations is not prohibited”.

However, the NHS England sustained a separate inquiry and ordered Dr Scott to attend a £1800 “professional boundaries” course designed for medical professionals who face sexual allegations. He was asked to pay for it himself.

Dr Scott refused to undergo the three-day course arguing NHS bosses were trying to “humiliate” him.

Now, supported by the Christian Legal Centre, Dr Scott has started to make his case at a tribunal hearing in Kent.

Belgium violated the European Convention on Human Rights when it failed to properly examine the circumstances behind a controversial euthanasia case, a court ruling said today.

In the case of Mortier v. Belgium, the Court held that there was a violation of Article 2 of the Convention that everyone’s right to life shall be protected by law.

This judgment was with regard to the way in which the facts surrounding de Troyer’s euthanasia were handled by Belgium’s Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia and the promptness of a criminal trial following de Troyer’s death. It did not, however, rule that there was any violation of Belgium’s legislative framework for the practice of euthanasia itself.

“We welcome the Court’s finding of an Article 2 violation, which demonstrates the inadequacy of ‘safeguards’ for the intentional ending of life”, said Robert Clarke, Deputy Director of ADF International, who represented Tom Mortier before the Court.,

“Unfortunately, while the Court indicated that more ‘safeguarding’ is an appropriate solution to protecting life, in its own ruling it makes clear that laws and protocols were indeed insufficient to protect the rights of Tom’s mother”.

The National Gender Service (NGS) has estimated that as many as 90pc of the people who used its service in 2022 may be autistic.

Each year, the NGS carries out an audit of its service users. A spokesman for the Ireland East Hospital Group said: “Based on these audits the NGS has seen an increase in the number of people attending their service with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD).

“This number was as low as 3pc in 2014. The last time a full-service audit looking at the prevalence of ASD was in 2019. At that stage, the number was 34pc. A repeat audit is ongoing and the expectation for 2022 is that figure will increase significantly and may reach as high as 90pc. This will be confirmed at the end of this year when the audit is finalised.”

The Scottish Catholic Church has labelled as “absurd and alarming” comments by Scotland’s chief legal officer regarding the alleged dangers of praying outside abortion clinics.

Addressing the UK’s Supreme Court about abortion facilities in Northern Ireland, Dorothy Bain KC said that prayer vigils outside facilities offering abortion could be “far more damaging” than verbal protest, and “standing in judgment” may be “just as psychologically damaging” for women.

She was making the case for prayer vigils to be included in so-called ‘buffer zones’ outside abortion clinics – areas where certain types of activity are banned such as protesting or handing out leaflets. A similar law has been proposed by the Irish Government.

Peter Kearny, spokesperson for the Catholic Church in Scotland, told Premier Radio they have condemned her comments “in defence of religious freedom and practice.”

“For people to be told they can’t stand silently in prayer, in this case, outside an abortion clinic or a hospital that carries out abortions is really, frankly, chilling and extremely worrying.”

“The job really, I think, for all churches, and not just for Christians, but for people of all religious beliefs is to raise concerns about the destruction of, what I would describe as the ‘sledge hammer’, that is being taken to our civil liberties.”

“This is something that is part of the fabric of our society and one of our fundamental rights and it would be appalling if it was to be removed,” Kearny continued.

Church leaders have adopted new measures to ensure that those teaching religion in Catholic schools will have a good grounding in Catholic theology and belief.

The hierarchy decided at a recent meeting in Maynooth that “any graduate seeking employment as a religion teacher in a Catholic secondary school from 2023 must have a qualification” based on a thorough understanding of magisterial teaching.

It comes after the State body which regulates the teaching profession lowered the level of understanding of Catholicism necessary to be employed to teach religious studies at second level.

According to a document seen by The Irish Catholic and circulated to Catholic school leaders the Bishops are now insisting on new minimum requirements.

These are meant to ensure that an authentically Catholic Faith is taught in the schools and that candidates for employment in such roles will have a solid grounding in the Faith.

Church moves to protect quality of Catholic teaching in schools