01/04/2014 East Midlands Today

Dan, thank you. That's all from us.

Now the news for the East Midlands. I'm Geeta Pendse.

A murder trial was told that 'bad feeling' and long`running rivalry

led to a street confrontation and the fatal stabbing of a football

coach in Leicester. The victim, Antoin Akpom, was said to have led a

group of men from a nearby gym and was carrying a dumbbell when he was

attacked, as Quentin Rayner reports. 20`year`old Antoin Akpom was

described today by a close friend who tended to him after he was

stabbed as an all`round great guy. But for a year there had been a bad

feeling between him and Abdul Hakim. In the early evening of

September the 12th last year, the football coach spotted him and

another 19`year`old, Hussain Hussain, in Kent Street. After an

initial confrontation, Antoin Akpom ran to a nearby gym. Seconds later,

he ran back with a group of nine men he ran back with a group of nine men

to confront the teenagers again. Witnesses say they saw the football

coach carrying a dumbbell and one of his group shouted, you're a dead

man, and appeared to be the aggressors. The court heard Mr Akpom

was seen exchanging punches with the two teenagers before emerging with a

blood stain on his upper back and then collapsing in the street. After

fleeing to London, the 19`year`olds were arrested. Both deny murder. The

prosecution claim Hussain Hussain wielded the knife but he claims

Abdul Hakim told him he'd stabbed Antoin Akpom because he was scared

after he swung a dumbbell at him. Abdul Hakim says he never saw a

knife. Mr Hakim told the police he intended to return to Leicester

after hearing about a fire two doors down from his mother's home. Four

members of the Taufiq family were killed. The jury was told the

tragedy was that the occupants had nothing to do with the Kent Street

incident. Richard Latham QC said whoever did this, if it had anything

to do with the stabbing, got the wrong house. It was a ghastly,

ghastly event. The trial is expected to last just over two weeks.

Loneliness is as damaging to the long term health of the elderly as

smoking or obesity. That's the claim being made by Age UK. Today the

charity held a conference in Nottingham to give advice to anyone

struggling to cope on their own. 64`year`old Colin Harrison was

there. He lives alone in sheltered accommodation and says he found

giving up work very tough to deal with.

I had a lot of issues with depression. Serious issues with

depression. I do think that work provides structure to your life and

gives you the reason to get up and to go out and do things. And

unfortunately when you retire you've then got to go out and find those

things for yourself. With me now is Maria Cooke of Age UK

in Nottinghamshire. What's the scale of this problem? It is pretty big in

Nottinghamshire. 100,000 people use TV as their main form of company and

39,000 people in Nottinghamshire alone see people less than once a

week. How is the campaign hoping to reach people? We want to encourage

people to reconnect with their neighbours or family. It can be as

simple as smiling, saying hello or contacting your family more. It can

really make a difference. Is there are long`term impact of free don't

look at the situation? Yes, increased cost of the NHS. People

would use doctors more and are more likely to develop dementia. In

addition to the fact that being lonely is a very miserable state to

be in and people need help to do that. It will save us money in the

long run but it will make us all feel better in the meantime. What

would you like to see? People smiling at their neighbours more.

A schoolboy's been given a new lease of life thanks to pioneering surgery

on his spine. The parents of Thaine Marston, who's from Long Eaton,

fought for him to get the new procedure after discovering his

spine was curved. Jo Healey reports. Doing this was something Thaine

feared may never happen. He was diagnosed with early onset

scoliosis. It felt like a strain on my back, but I also felt upset and

hurt emotionally because I would not believe that it could happen to me.

But it did. You can see here the curves in his spine. Traditionally

he would have endured many operations, his spine fused and

unable to grow much. But this surgeon agreed to fit Thaine with

new magnetic rods. He basically has something like a scaffolding which

holds his spine upright, as well as allowing us to distract these rods

according to his growth. We can locate them on the x`ray and put a

strong magnet on the skin and that causes the motorised section of the

rods to lengthen. So no operations and Thaine it can move and crucially

grow. I feel really happy. I think I have been one of the luckiest boys

in the UK. He could have been in a wheelchair. I could have been

pushing a wheelchair around. But with this magnetic spine he has got,

it is fantastic. It is pioneering work and that is what we are trying

to push forward at the Queen's Medical Centre.

On to football and there's one result from tonight. It's in the

Championship ` league`leaders Leicester City drew with Wigan

Athletic 2`2. That's your news. So, it's goodbye

from me but with your weather now, here's Kaye.

It has been a cracking start and it is not over yet. It will be even

warmer tomorrow. It could get up to 19 Celsius. It has been a fine

evening. warmer tomorrow. It could get up to

19 Celsius. It has been a Staying in drive for the first part of the

night. We will see some showers in their early allies. They will be

isolated but a few could be heavy. Tomorrow morning, showers move

northwards. The cloud will break up to give us some sunshine. This will

vary through the day. Many of us will have a gorgeous afternoon. As

you can see, it will become a little more cloudy and

the afternoon. The outlook, rather cloudy with some rain on Thursday.

Good evening. Before we get to the weather details, little bit about

the pollution which we have been talking about in the weather reports

over the last couple of days. The pollution levels actually during the

course of Wednesday, tomorrow, will be very high across a large swathe

of the country. A couple of reasons why this is happening. During today,

high levels of pollution across parts of East Anglia but you can see

how extensive it becomes tomorrow. One of the reasons this is happening

is because of a light wind dragging pollution from here in our direction

and on top of that, our own pollution from industry, industrial

pollution, but by Thursday, the weather pattern will change so we

think the pollution levels will tend to go down a little bit. Certainly

by Thursday. On top of that, we also have the dust which has been driven

in from the Sahara Desert