11/08/2011 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Welcome to Thursday's Look North. Tonight, another scandal at one of

our care homes. Inspectors found appalling levels of hygiene. One

the residents have been given an overdose and one had not been fed

properly. We have given for warning notices and Middleton Lodge are now

required to meet several targets very quickly. Guilty of this

conduct - the police officer who used his position to have

relationships with women. Torrential rain put a stop to one

of hour annual shows. And a campaign to honour one of the

country's first MPs. And Alan Pardew heads towards the new season

of one man down as Jose Enrique it makes his way to Liverpool.

Appalling levels of cleanliness and hygiene. One of residence seriously

underweight and poor administration of medicines. Just some of the

findings from the inspector and -- inspection of a care home.

Middleton Lodge was given for warnings by the care home quality

commission. Behind this door, regulators found

a mountain of problems. It is home to people with mental health

More alarmingly, won a resident was not getting enough to eat and the

regulators had to call in medical help. No-one knew Pete nutritional

intake of people and it was not being monitored properly. In the

case of the person who had been lowered body mass index weighting,

we sought immediate medical help to make sure they were not at risk of

further harm. Since the inspection in June, the home has become

compliant with one of the four warning notice. It immediately

improve its cleanliness and hygiene. Another inspection is imminent to

see whether it the other matters have improved. The owner of

Middleton large is a Merseyside based company. It has 11 more homes

in our region as well as to care centres. It says it cares for the

highest standards at all times. -- it strives. And if you have a

relative their lives in Middleton Lodge, please get in contact with

us. -- that lives. A police officer faces a possible jail sentence

after being found guilty of abusing his position to meet women for sex.

Detective Constable Mark Fisher access complete -- police computers

to find details about women he'd targeted. He tried to pay off the

drug debt of one of the women he targeted. He will be sentenced

tomorrow. Detective Constable Mark Fisher had

been in a position of trust and today a jury decided he had abused

that trust by using police time and equipment to get in contact with

vulnerable women, some of whom he went on to have sexual

relationships with. The father of two had been accused of nine

charges of misconduct in a public office. The jury of nine men and

three women at Carlisle Crown Court found him guilty of five of those

charges. They related to Detective Constable Fisher showing an assault

victim and a photograph of her alleged attacker, potentially

He was found not guilty of a 4th charge relating to using the data

The five women that came forward were extremely brave and I am

grateful they have spoken to us in the first place and Stockwood ask

right the way through to court. He has definitely gone on to be wrong

side. He has lost perspective and has let the organisation down, his

colleagues down and the public. After the five guilty verdicts were

returned, the judge remanded Detective Constable Fisher in

custody. He told the officer there was only one sentence he would be

considering an that would be a custodial one. That sentence will

Torrential rain and flood warnings. Not that whether we want and to

date came the first major casualty. In its 150 year history the Slaley

Show has only been called off because of war and the full turnout

disease, Until now that is. Organisers say the relentless rain

has put a stop to the show. Our correspondent is at the Showground.

When you stand in a wet field in a middle of August for several hours,

it prompts several questions. One, is it really augurs and not

November? Is this really summer? And just how wet can a Look North

reporter get? The organisers of the Slaley Show also asked themselves

questions. The marquees are but nobody is coming this year because

it is closed. It is augurs and it is an English summer. You might

need a reminder of what August should look like. We are shown

renewed these pictures of August. Think of it as a handy reference

guide. Wonderful, warm and summary. And this year, a complete washout.

It is absolutely coming down in buckets. It is 14 Celsius and

somewhere, probably, is an object we know as the sun. This is Slaley

Show's ground. We studied the weather forecasts for this week and

were horrified to see that it is going to rain all week. There is an

awful lot to do between Tuesday and Saturday, the day of the show. We

consider the conditions were too serious to allow people on to the

show ground and to be able to hold the show it safely and in good

order. The event has been running for over 150 years. They even

managed to organise one in the First World War in 1916, but not

this time. It is probably more disappointing for the committee who

had pulled in nearly 11 months were setting the show on its way, and

financially, obviously we have some insurance to cover a work major

costs, but we will be out of pocket. So, 150 years of the Slaley Show,

but not this one. They are confident, weather permitting, they

will be back next year. Back to the studio.

A man has admitted raping a pensioner 30 years after he was

acquitted of the crime. It's thought to be the first time

Northumbria Police has secured a conviction using the recent change

in the law relating to double jeopardy, where someone can be

tried twice for the same offence. John Renner Dillon, who's now 45,

stood trial in 1983 for the rape of a 63-year-old woman. He was

acquitted and she died in 1992. He was jailed in 2008 for the rape of

a 15 year-old girl. Following a positive DNA match, he appeared at

Newcastle Crown Court yesterday and admitted the rape of the pensioner.

He'll be sentenced in six weeks. Five more men have been arrested,

after a police car was set alight in Washington. The window of a

police station was also smashed in the attack early on Wednesday

morning. Two people were arrested at the time,they are still in

custody. Northumbria Police insisted the incident was not

linked to this week's riots elsewhere, but they have praised

people in the area for remaining calm over recent days. The

territorial army will soon make up 30 % of soldier numbers. Well TAs

from the 4th Battalion and, the Yorkshire government are completing

their training before going to Afghanistan.

The possibility of active service is now a reality for these

volunteer soldiers and the nerves are growing as they reach the end

of their training. We are on our final exercises. I am looking

forward to it. We are training hard and a lot of guys are looking

forward to using their skills on the ground. Now their deployment

has been confirmed, their training has been stepped up. By the end of

October at the soldiers will be doing this for real in Afghanistan.

The emphasis now is on helping the Afghan people. We will continue to

provide security in those three key areas of Helmand province. We will

also be helping the Afghan army take control. So in a recreate it

Afghan village they practise securing the area and all the time

working alongside the Afghan national army and police. We would

get in with the population and try to get them on our side a bit more

and then hopefully it sort out the bigger picture. The MoD recently

announced a bigger role for the Territorial Army in the wake of

cuts to the regular Army. This battalion are already training with

regulars and will serve alongside each other in Helmand. Their

performance on the grounds and therefore Foreman's -- on the

ground and their performance in general has been exceptional.

the end of next month they will be heading to the front line in

Afghanistan. The best of luck to them. You are watching Look North.

Coming up - Alan Shearer as you have never and it's seen him before.

And somewhere in our region it was the wettest place in England this

week. Join me for the forecast later.

She was a left wing firebrand they dubbed Red Ellen. Now, more than 60

years after her death, there are calls for a proper memorial to

Ellen Wilkinson in the town which first elected her. She was one of

the trailblazers for women in politics when she became MP for

Middlesbrough East in 1924. But some feel the town has forgotten

her. Daughter of a cotton worker, Ellen

Wilkinson died a Cabinet minister. Ellen had been a fighter all her

life. A fighter baulk the common people. But Ellen Wilkinson's

journey to the stop started here in Middlesbrough. In 1924 the only

women who had the vote were those with a property all over the age of

30. It was thought that by then they would be more mature. Against

that backdrop, Ellen Wilkinson was elected as an MP. She has been

overlooked for too long. We need to recognise the importance of Ellen

Wilkinson in the history of Middlesbrough, the History of

Parliament and the history of the North East. It is a great story.

That stories are Ellen Wilkinson become MP for Middlesbrough of

seven years. She had been part of the suffragette movement and was a

leader of the Jarrow March. She was also an education minister, but

many have not heard of her. Wilkinson? Aren't they the company

that makes thoughts? I don't know what she has done for the town.

Ellen Wilkinson remains a significant figure in British

political history, even if Middlesbrough it seems to have

forgotten. Farewell, Ellen. Great creative soul. We will carry on

your work. An amazing woman. Vandals are often to blame, but it

was rats chewing through cables at the side of the East Coast main

line that caused chaos for railway commuters this morning. Some

services were cancelled and many other trains were delayed while

repairs were carried out to signals at Morpeth. The timetable is back

to normal now. Borrowers have stacked up hundreds

of thousands of pounds in unpaid library fines across the North East

and North Yorkshire. Using the Freedom of Information Act, the BBC

has discovered nearly �400,000 is owed to libraries in the region.

�180,000 of that was in North Yorkshire. The largest amount owed

by an individual was in Gateshead where one borrower owes more than

�500 in fines. John Grundy has been to Nenthead Mines Heritage Centre,

up on the border of Cumbria and Durham.

For nearly half of my life, probably more, fast part of the

North have been covered by it signs of mining. Huge areas that had

industrial minds of every type. But where are they now? They barely

exist. It seems that the moment the mines were no longer needed, we

felt the need to obliterate them. We did not need to do that with

other redundant buildings of. -- buildings. However, here there are

some of the old mines and I love the landscape. If I was one of the

famous five I would explore down there and have spiffing adventures.

I love the whole landscape. There is something desolate and

magnificent about it. It is like something from the American Wild

West during the Californian gold rush. All of that Stone came out of

here, which is where I am going now. Wish me luck as You Wave Me Goodbye.

I am down here to meet and experts on the local mines. It is a bit

scary down here. It needn't be. That is fantastic. These tunnels go

several miles into the hillside. They say there are over 100 miles

of tunnels in the valley here. This level was dog over 200 years ago.

There has probably been at mining here from Roman times. Watch your

head here, John. They were following the these cracks in the

rock and as they were going higher, they had to build platforms so they

could reach higher. And what they were looking for was this - led off.

One thing I have not said about the lead at all mining industry in is

how beautiful it is. The surrounding fields are a riot of

colour. I have one more thing to show you. One more piece that

evidence. At the bottom of here there is a ton of five miles long

and the shaft is 328 ft deep. If you want to hear how deep that is.

-- that is, listen while I'd drop a virtual stone down it.

And now for the sport. Another of Newcastle United's big

name players is tonight on the verge of leaving the club. Spanish

left-back Jose Enrique has spent the afternoon on Merseyside trying

to finalise a move to Liverpool, which has been talked about all

summer. But the Magpies are confident of drafting in a

replacement sooner rather than later, as Mark Tulip explains.

He was one of the few good things to come out of Sam Allardyce's

short-lived reign as Newcastle manager. Overcoming a shaky start

to become one of the first names on the team sheet in his 4 seasons on

Tyneside. But after Jose Enrique rejected the offer of a new

contract at St James's - it was fairly obvious that his time in the

North East had come to an end. This morning as his former team mates

took the training ground - the Spanish defender was already on his

way to Liverpool to undergo a medical. Last year he made it clear

he had no motivation to re-signed. We could not afford not to take the

best price we could get and that is what has happened. Now we need to

find a replacement, which is ongoing. United should get back

more or less what they paid for the 25-year-old around �6 million and

Alan Pardew says he will have the funds from the transfer to re-

invest. The Newcastle manager hopes to bring in two or three players

before the end of the transfer window. The exact number will

depend on Joey Barton, who's future at the club remains unresolved.

have no problem with each other and we will see what happens. I am

optimistic he can still feature on Saturday and at Sunderland. If he

doesn't, we will have to fight a replacement that is just as good.

Meanwhile, Newcastle have announced that fans who attended the

abandoned friendly against Fiorentina can claim a ticket for a

selected Premier League game. The match was called off after an hour

due to a heavily waterlogged pitch with the score goalless.

Well, over on Wearside Sunderland's players are preparing to line up

against their former team-mate Jordan Henderson. The sale of the

21-year-old to Liverpool has financed a major overhaul of the

Black Cat's squad, with manager Steve Bruce brining in ten new

faces to the squad, in what's been a busy summer. We hope we can get

all the boys hitting the ground running and can we improve on last

year? It will be difficult. If we stay up this year, it will be the

first time the club has gone six years in the Premier League.

Meanwhile Newcastle full back James Tavernier has joined Carlisle on a

month's loan. The 19-year-old will go straight into Gregg Abbott's

squad for their trip to Bury at the weekend. Tavernier spent last

season on loan at Gateshead, who get their Blue Square Premier

League campaign underway at Kidderminster on Saturday.

Finally, sporting victims of the weather today have included the

county cricket at Chester-le-Street where no play was possible between

Durham and Hampshire on Day Two. Meanwhile tonight's Redcar Bears

speedway meeting was postponed earlier.

We're going to stay with the football theme now and a Geordie

hero. As journalists, we know there's an art to making fresh news

headlines, but how about making fresh art from old headlines? Well

Tony Montague of Whitley Bay has done that by recycling his

newspapers into a picture of Alan Shearer and prints will be sold at

a charity auction tomorrow. It started off as a photograph from

the Evening Chronicle. I like the man and I like the poets where he

has obviously just scored a goal. He is no stranger to headlines.

Alan Shearer sporting hundreds of strips of newspaper. It is headline

art created by a Tony Montagu. one is text from sports pages. You

get different tones depending on the texts and the size of it. The

small text, like league tables, it give a great background. The first

Prince will be sold at a charity. have got in be careful with my red

and white vans. -- fans. When I first saw it, I thought it was

fantastic. Or you going tomorrow? am not. I want to keep out of the

limelight. Tony is already planning his next project. That looked

fantastic, unlike the weather map. It has not stopped raining in many

places, but I had been digging deep for some good news for you. More of

that in a second, but one of our towns has the dubious accolade of

being the wettest place in Britain. 115 mm since the start of August,

which is more than we would expect through the entire month. Very wet

there. When I last look -- looked, it was still raining in

Northumberland. There is a ray of hope. There will

be a stark blue -- slight blue of hope over the weekend. Tomorrow,

mainly clear in the east, but tomorrow night the next band of

rain comes through. Saturday, showers left over. Sunday, a little

bit of brightness over central part of the region. This evening, the

rain continues. It is working its way southwards. Many places well

have a dry end to the night. It will be mild and humid with

temperatures ranging between 12 and 15 Celsius. Friday morning, many

places will be tried to start with, but do not be fooled. We will have

some sunshine and dry weather, but later in the day that next batch of

rain will come in with a vengeance. So it will be another day of

reduced temperatures that this time of year. It will be 15 degrees in

Newcastle and elsewhere the maximum will be 18. For the weekends, rain