20/02/2017 East Midlands Today

for Mosul underway, there will have to be some follow-through. So what

comes next? Join And now the news for

the East Midlands. First tonight, striking teaching

assistants are more than ten hours into a 24-hour vigil -

their latest protest in their eight-month dispute

with Derby City Council. They're angry over cuts to their pay

and are threatening to continue with industrial action

despite council bosses Our reporter Navtej

Johal is in Derby Navtej, not huge numbers

of protesters there tonight. What's support been

like throughout today? Good evening, Anna. Yes, just a

handful of protesters here tonight but they have been taking it in

shifts throughout today and we will be here until midday tomorrow,

making it a full 24 hours outside the council house. However, one of

the issues the object be facing at the moment is waning support among

parents and I have been speaking to some of those parents earlier today.

Parents and school support staff protesting together against Derby

But many parents say they've now had enough of both sides.

Jemma Walker's son George has severe learning disabilities

and relies on teaching assistants.

His school has to close with every strike.

They were both that the council protest but now

They are just using our children as pawns.

Without a doubt, you know, they're just using them as pawns.

A recent letter from Unison to members urged

them to increase disruption and schools.

Jemma says that despite still appreciating what the TAs

do for her son, it has shaken her trust in the union.

Because it was just like, I wish they could see the

impact that this has had on their families.

I've never felt that my son has been a burden on society before

At two schools in the city, almost every parent we spoke to this

afternoon had lost at least some sympathy for TAs.

Yes, I think I was sympathetic at the beginning, but

now it's been going on for quite awhile I think I've lost sympathy

Yes, they're thinking of themselves,

but they're not thinking of the children.

I understand that the teaching assistants are losing money,

but at the end of the day, it's the kids' education

You still sympathise with them, but just not as much.

We're going to be put in the situation where we're

going to feel like we shouldn't be behind them.

I think that's what they want us to feel like.

Meanwhile, for Jemma, this has been the final straw.

If Unison came to you and said, we really need your support for

our next battle against the City Council,

what would you and other parents say?

Well, Ali, Unison apologised to I'm doing my own thing.

Well, Ali, Unison apologised to parents for a business option but it

has room for the fact that its members have lost up to 25% of their

pages to changes in contracts. Meanwhile, the council says we are

committed to ending the dispute and want to see Unison suspends their

action and that action is five days of strike next week as those bitter

dispute shows no sign of ending. Live in Derby, thank you very much

indeed. Two men are tonight starting jail

sentences totally 41 years and six months for the brutal murder

of a man in a Leicester park. 23-year-old Brendan Mason

suffered 99 injuries at the hands of his killers,

two men he considered to be friends. Leicester Crown Court heard how

Joshua Hack and Keith Lowe then stripped Brendan naked before

dumping his body in a pond Shocked and devastated

is an understatement on how we felt when we had the police at our house,

telling us they had recovered a body It is not right how

two evil can do such a horrific thing and leave

amassive hole in our lives A doctor who was sent

into a Nottingham school to support staff after a pupil died,

has told an inquest how so many teachers raised child

safeguarding concerns, that she advised them

to call the police. Seven-year-old

Shanay Walker died in 2014. Her aunt and grandmother are serving

jail terms for child cruelty. Dr Gail Holliman visited

South Glade Primary School following Shanay's death

and was told by staff they feared safety issues

weren't being passed on. Drivers are being asked

what they think of plans to extend the smart motorway network

in the East Midlands. The system already runs

on the M1 in Nottinghamshire with overhead signs indicating

variable speed limits and instructing drivers to use

the hard shoulder at busy times. Now Highways England wants our views

on bringing the smart motorway south between junctions 25 and 23A

to cope with increasing traffic. Career advisers in Nottingham have

spent today paying home visits to some of the city's NEETS to offer

face-to-face tips on job hunting. NEETS stands for "Not in Employment,

Education or Training." And today's initiative comes

after the City Council guaranteed a job, training or place in further

education for every Earlier, I spoke to Michelle Wright

from the careers service, Futures and asked if there's

a risk of stigmatising We've had a really

positive response today. Particularly parents are

so welcoming that somebody's coming The thought is, you know,

they have only just left school. Should this be happening

before they leave school? And most of it does

happen before they leave school. I mean, we've got 94% of young

people aged 16 to 18 are in work or learning, so we're looking

at a tiny percentage. It's actually 5.6%, just

less than 300 people which in a town the size of

Nottingham I think is pretty good. We're going out and

reaching out to those And how do they get

into their situation where they just kind of fall

through a gap somewhere? I think a lot of it can be maybe

family influences, maybe not having good role models that

other people have got. Sometimes they start

something that just doesn't work out for them and then

it's hard to sort of admits that All sorts of different

reasons really. And if there's anybody

watching here tonight who maybe know

somebody or is that person who is on the situation

between 16 and 24 who hasn't got employment, who hasn't got any

training, I think anybody who is

unemployed, either if they're 16 to 24 or any age really,

Futures, we can help people. We can help people with

advice and guidance, We can give them

pre-employability training. It's there to help

people get into work. Thank you very much

for speaking to us. Throughout this week,

we're taking a look at sugar. With a controversial sugar tax

on soft drinks looming we'll be examining some of the health

arguments, but first, where And you might be surprised to learn

that much of it is grown and processed here

in the East Midlands. We've been given rare access to

the British Sugar plant in Newark. And our reporter Rob Sissons has

been following the origins of sugar A lot of sugar beet is grown

in the East Midlands. There are 600 growers

supplying the new factory. They've been growing it

here since the 1950s. They're getting more

sugar from these fields The 1990s, compared with today's

crop, we've probably got Why is that? Investment in varieties

and plant breeding. The it is washed, topsoil is

removed, the beat is then shadows and then threw boiling processes

crystallised. It has taken approximately eight hours to get

Bromley field, to where we picked up the sugar beets to the final product

here at the factory. Nearly 100 years old, then threw boiling

processes crystallised. It has taken approximately eight hours to get

Bromley field, to where we picked up the sugar beets to the final product

here at the factory. Nearly 100 years old, the new super consumption

has declined slightly proud of R in the last 15 years or so but

population is, so total sugar reserves Smith about the same. A

controversial tax on sugar in soft drinks is looming. What impact it

will have is not square and every night in East Midlands today this

week, we'll be looking at the health arguments around sugar.

Finally tonight, how many rugby players does it take

Well, an East Midlands ambulance crew found out

at the weekend when their vehicle got stuck in the mud next

Players from Aylestone Athletic and Aylestone Saint James had

That's your news, so it's goodbye from me.

Thank you. Good evening. Having mild start to the week today.

Temperatures well above the average we would expect that this time of

year. We recorded a maximum of 15 degrees across the East Midlands.

But as we go through this week, we asked going to start to see more

unsettled and changeable weather, some spells of wet and windy

weather, particularly as we go into Thursday and it will turn that it

bit colder. Putting the detail onto the map then, plenty of cloud around

as we move to tonight. Outbreaks of rain as we move into the early

hours. Temperatures falling to an overnight low of between eight and

nine Celsius so a mild night on the way. It will be a cloudy start to

the day tomorrow. Rain fizzling out towards the south through the

morning. The best of any brighter intervals in the north-east of the

region but it will be a fairly cloudy afternoon with temperatures

reaching a maximum of 12 Celsius, cooler than we have seen to date

with that south-westerly breeze. We will see some rain coming through

overnight on Wednesday. That will clear out through the morning but

could be quite heavy at times. Into the afternoon, brighter intervals.

Temperatures slightly down again, a maximum of 11 Celsius but does look

as if it will be quite a breezy day. As we move into Thursday then, all

eyes on this low-pressure system coming in from the Atlantic, it does

look as though it is going to bring a spell of wet wet and windy weather

for a time. As usual, we are a little bit uncertain to its track

and the depth of that low-pressure, so stay tuned to the forecast and

we'll keep you updated as we get closer to the time. Cooler air

tracking in as we move through into Thursday so feeling noticeably

cooler than we have seen to begin the week. As we move into Friday, we

will seize on sunny spells. I think we could see one or two wintry

showers. Those temperatures closer to what we would expect to see for

the average for this time of year with a north-westerly breeze. I will

leave you with the outlook. Changeable and unsettled

As you have just seen, after a day in which some of you have been

shedding the layers, you will be putting them back on for the rest of

this week. Big changes ahead, all down to where the air has been

coming from. Today, it originated in the Caribbean, hence the name

tropical maritime air. Temperatures peaked