24/03/2014 East Midlands Today

Luft III. That is all from us. Don't forget,

first Good evening. Now the news for the

East Midlands. First tonight, a Catholic priest,

who abused children across the East Midlands for four decades, has been

jailed for 15 years. Today a court heard claims that the church covered

up Francis Paul Cullen's crimes. To some, he was an enthusiastic,

charismatic and friendly priest, but to others, a predatory paedophile.

Last month, Francis Paul Cullen admitted 21 counts of sexual abuse

against seven boys and girls, over a 34`year period from 1957 to 1991. It

began here at a church he'd helped to set up Christ the King in Derby.

Altar boys and school children in his care were abused. A complaint

about his conduct was lodged as early as 1964, but he stayed in his

job and later moved to Buxton and then near Nottingham. Many of the

victims say Cullen stole their childhood and deeply affected their

adult relationships. In a personal letter to Cullen, read out in court

today, one told him, "You had a calling from the devil. I'm sure

your maker can't wait to meet up with you. I don't know if you're

going to rot in hell. I hope you rot in jail." Today's sentence, 15 years

in prison, goes some way in providing a degree of closure for

the victims of this case. Any sentence passed will never truly

reflect the damage that has been caused by Francis Paul Cullen

towards his young and vulnerable victims. Confident that the measures

we have taken, as a response to what has happened before, have led to the

Catholic Church being a much better safeguarder of children and

vulnerable adults. On the run from the authorities for more than 20

years, living here in Tenerife. While here, he told others he had

been a priest in the UK and witnesses say from time to time, he

even wore a priest's dog collar. He was finally arrested last summer.

It's expected Cullen will be aged almost 96 before he can be

considered for parole. Nottingham Forest chairman and

owner, Fawaz Al`Hasawi, has asked fans to be patient as looks to

appoint a new manager. Billy Davies's reign came to an abrupt end

today after an embarrassing defeat at Derby. Forest hadn't won in eight

games. There's been intense speculation that Neil Warnock, who

started his managerial career at Meadow Lane, will take over at the

City Ground. Our sports editor is with me now. Is Warnock the man?

Well, it's been quite a saga today. This morning, we were told by

somebody very close to Neil Warnock that they were going to be appointed

at the City Ground this afternoon. Then Lee Peltier, Warnock's former

captain at Leeds United, arrived at the training ground, the club

announced that he had signed on loan. Later, the chairman left the

training ground and denoid that, even though it had been announced on

the club website that Peltier was to sign for the club. This evening Neil

Warnock has come out and ruled himself out of the job. There were

quotes around saying, "I did not feel the conditions of the job were

right for me to manage." Academy manager Gary Brazil is in charge at

the moment. It looks likely he will lead the team out tomorrow for the

game. So it rumbles on. Thank you very much.

Next, a controversial scheme in Derbyshire is offering women

hundreds of pounds in shopping vouchers to quit smoking during

pregnancy and just after giving birth.

It's thought to be an East Midlands first, offering financial rewards to

help pregnant women who smoke kick the habit. Just over 200 women in

Derbyshire signed up. Their challenge ` to be smoke`free from

around 12 weeks into pregnancy right the way through to six months after

the birth. Their reward, up to ?752 in shopping vouchers. But the prize

proved too difficult for most of them. Just 56, only a quarter,

managed to stay off the cigarettes all the way through to birth and

only 26 resisted smoking all the through to the finishing line, which

is six months after the baby arrived. On the face of it, then, a

poor success rate, but those behind the experiment insist it's money

well spent. The maximum is just over ?700, which is very small when you

consider the cost of special baby units and the cost to NHS of smoking

in pregnancy is very high, ?6,000 a pregnancy. In my view the cost is

small compared to the result. So how does it work? Well to make sure

there's no cheating, the women were given regular breath tests. Every

time they passed, the vouchers stacked up. Starting at ?8, the

incentives went up to a maximum of ?32 for each clear test. The less

you smoke, the more you can shop. Now there's talk of expanding it

from one part of Derbyshire to the rest. With the risks of smoking in

pregnancy well known, should it really take vouchers for women to

put down their cigarettes while the taxpayer picks up the tab? It sends

out the wrong signal. It's morally wrong. It's wasting taxpayers'

money, it doesn't work. It's taking valuable resources from other

schemes that might work. In what way is this a good idea? In what way can

rolling out the scheme be justified? It can according to those at

Derbyshire County Council, ?37,000 has been spent and they say you

can't put a price on the health of a baby and its mum.

That's your news and sport. Goodbye from me. We leave you with the

weather. We had super sunshine around today.

But the spinning globe gives the game away, we have rain on the way.

It's courtesy of a weather front spilling in from the west as we

speak. This one is going to hang around for much of the day tomorrow.

So, a completely different feel to things tomorrow. It will be cloudy,

it will be damp. Outbreaks of rain and it will feel colder as well. The

clouds are starting to thicken now. The rain pushes in over the next

couple of hours. It will be light and patchy. There's nothing

particularly heavy with the rain. It gives a cloudy and damp night.

Temperatures, a milder night than last night. Lows of four or five

Celsius. It's a milder start tomorrow morning. But a cloudy, damp

start. Outbreaks of rain through the morning. It should start to fragment

into the afternoon and become more showery in nature. But it is still

going to feel on that chilly side. Highs of around seven or eight

Celsius.