20/12/2016 Look East (West)

Another death at Woodhill prison in Milton Keynes -

campaigners and families call for action...

Owners of the Northamptonshire company are said to be

And after a chilly night, some milder temperatures expected later.

Join me later for all the details. An inquest opened in Milton Keynes

today into the death of an inmate at Woodhill prison -

the seventh at the jail this year. The man, thought to have had mental

health problems, died just a day Pressure groups say Woodhill has

the highest rate of inmate Woodhill prison officers attended

the inquest opening into the death of a man with mental health issues

who was sent to the jail for the weekend ahead of an appearance in

court on a charge of dangerous driving. Prison officers had

reported him for his bizarre behaviour and within 24 hours of

being put inside Woodhill prison he was found dead at his cell. One

prisoner, and so many to end their lives behind bars here. So far this

Year Seven prisoners have died at Wood Hill, more per head of prison

population than any other jail in the country. He was sent to Wood

Hill on December the tenth and he was known to mental health services

and of December the 11, he was seen by an officer at 7:15am and found

unconscious at five past eight. He had been found hanged in his cell

and police say that he was arrested on the M1, he had been a passenger

on a bus when he grabbed the steering wheel causing the vehicle

to crash. A paranoid schizophrenic, the least described him as highly

vulnerable. Coroners, the prison and probation ombudsman who investigated

the death and the Inspectorate of prison have repeatedly spoken out

about their concerns that the recommendations made following the

deaths are simply not being implemented by Woodhill prison. The

fact that death after death happens fact that death after death happens

at Wood Hill in very similar circumstances suggest that things

are fatally wrong at Woodhill prison. Kevin Scarlet had mental

health problems when he killed himself at the prison in 2013. Staff

had missed the warning signs, his self harming, his previous suicide

attempts. His stepbrother says no lessons have been learned. It is

shocking, especially when you think that the highest rate of self harm

in prison is within the first three days. And if he is showing bizarre

behaviour anyway, why is he not being monitored a bit more? Why is

he being put in a position where he can take his own life and why are

the safer sales not been utilised? The inquest into the latest death

was an postponed until next June. It is in the wake of legal action being

taken by families of prisoners who have died, they have launched a

review to enforce safety procedures in the prison. In a statement, the

Ministry of Justice then we have invested in mental health training

for officers, allocated more funding for prison safety and launched a

suicide and self harm reduction process.

Well the Howard League for Penal Reform campaigns

Rob Preece from the organisation joined me earlier to explain

We have seen a rise in prison population which makes overcrowding

a huge problem in Woodhill prison has got room for about 550 prisoners

and it is currently holding more than 700. That means you're finding

prisoners crammed into small spaces without being able to get out of

their sails because there is not enough staff to take them to

training, education, exercise and to get the skills they might require to

fine work on the outside. Does the government need to build more

prisons? The government has announced plans to build more

prisons but we do not think it will work. By the time you have built

these projects, the prison population has risen by such an

extent that the older prisoners that you planned to close, you have to

keep them open because the prison population has grown by so much. We

need to be serious about this and recognise that we will only solve

this problem by reducing the number of people in prison. Why do you want

to reduce the number of people in prison? Victims groups might say if

a criminal has done something wrong they should be incarcerated for the

good of the public. Reoffending rates after prison are much higher

than after community punishments. They enable people to be in the

community with support from family, better axis to drugs services,

alcohol, debt, although services that will better tackle the root

causes of offending. What happens in prisons, we put people in

overcrowding positions, deprive them of axis to training, exercise and

education and we set ourselves up to fail because when it comes to

release those people from prison, they are less prepared for the world

outside them when they went dead. One person has died and three people

have been taken to hospital after a multiple-crash

on the A142 in Cambridgeshire. It happened at 6am in Mepal

and involved three cars - The road remains closed

with diversions. Weetabix factories in Corby

and Kettering which will be hit by strike action in the New Year,

could be up for sale. Chinese owners The Bright Food

Group, which is a major stakeholder, is reported to be working on a deal

worth a billion pounds. Well, Clare, the Weetabix Food

Company has been making one of our best known British breakfast

cereals at its mill And it only uses wheat grown

on local farms within 50 miles Today it exports from mills

at Kettering and Corby to 80 The majority share in the company -

some 60% - is owned It hoped to change the palate

of Chinese consumers And two years ago, former

Chancellor George Osborne visited the Corby plant to witness

the manufacture of a product specifically for China -

this is what he said. Britain was not exporting enough and

we have got more to do, but it is very encouraging to see companies

like Weetabix, if famous household brand here in Britain selling

products to China and that is a reverse of what has gone wrong in

our country, we got ourselves into debt and were buying things from the

Chinese and now we are dealing with our doubts and selling things to the

Chinese. She But since then, according to reports

from news agency Reuters, the bulk of its sales still come

from the UK. The mills, already affected

by strike action early in the New Year, will now have

to wait to find out who the new buyer of the majority

share in the company, will be. A Weetabix spokesperson said tonight

that they won't comment. It's been revealed the new joint HQ

for Northamptonshire's fire and police services will be

on Cherry Hall Road in Kettering - and the move will

happen late next year. The previous HQ at Wooton

Hall is being sold. This is the new police headquarters

of Jerry Hall wrote on the outskirts of Kettering, the building should be

finished by the summer. It will replace the hall in Northampton

which has been the force headquarters since the 1960s. There

will be a big upheaval for the force. This is a really exciting

opportunity, we have not invested in our estate for quite some time and

the building we have was built for old police purposes and this is a

bespoke building that has everything we need for modern policing. The new

headquarters was due to has 20 sales and the forces investigation centre

and is learning and development centre and out it will be joint

headquarters with the Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue

Service. The police have decided they are moving out and into the

stew building. We discussed about the fact that we wanted to go with

them, we wanted to continue our collaboration,. In the new

headquarters, senior police and fire officers will sit side-by-side

rather than being on separate floors. It's another example of the

police and Fire Service working closer together, something the

government has been encouraging. Northamptonshire 's previous police

and crime commissioner decided to shut down the old force headquarters

and sell it for ?3.5 million. Given that we are an emergency service, it

is imported to get that right, and off a lot of work has gone into

making sure that it works. It is the new commissioner who has chosen to

move it to this new building and sharing with the Fire Service. I

will give you some idea, across Northamptonshire we have 37

buildings, they've got 22, by bringing some of those buildings

together, we can get a better service,, some places were

co-located about sharing of knowledge and resources has got some

real benefits. The first people should be there to this new building

next summer and the police headquarters staff will start moving

here a few months later. Sport - and Peterborough United

will take on Premier League leaders They won their second

round replay against Notts County two-nil tonight -

with goals from Gwion The original match at Meadow Lane

ended in a two-all draw. But it's Posh who go

to Stamford Bridge for the third round on Sunday the eighth of

January. That is all for me, time for the

weather. Some fairly chilly temperatures

across the region and certainly cold enough for a touch of frost

in places but as we go through the night, a weather front

pushing in from the West, bringing cloud and patches of rain

and temperatures are expected to recover as they get to the end

of the night. Wind picking up, potentially a windy

day for tomorrow but a slightly We have got this weather front close

by, some outbreaks of patchy rain to clear first thing and then

the middle part of the day looking largely dry,

a little cloudy with some brighter spells and quite breezy,

but as we go through the afternoon and evening, rain moving

in from the West and some of this could be heavy

as we get into the evening. Temperature wise, nine or 10 degrees

with a moderate south-westerly wind. The national weather is coming up,

but here is the outlook, it will be a bright and sunny day

on Thursday, a little chilly, and the wind is picking up

for the end of the week country it's worth knowing the

national forecast. Over now to Tomasz.

So, the weather's going to blow a few cobwebs away in the coming days

and maybe a few other things, as well. How stormy is it going to get?

For most of us probably not too terrible. It is, however, going to

be very nasty across parts of Scotland on Friday. The clouds are

racing across the Atlantic and we will see a storm by the time we get

to around about Friday and then Friday night.

At the moment we have a weather front crossing the country, we have

had dreadful weather in the north-west, it was cold and raining

in Northern Ireland and western Scotland. This band of rain will be

somewhere here by the end of the night. Behind it a shot of cooler

air, colder air and frequent showers. This is what Wednesday

looks like. Lots of showers around across northern parts of the

country, some of them with hail. Maybe even thunder crossing