25/07/2011 Look North (Yorkshire)

later on the programme. Good evening and welcome to Look

North. Figures obtained by the BBC revealed that almost 1,000 people

in Yorkshire have managed to escape a driving ban despite having 12 or

more panty points on their licence. According to the DVLA, some drivers

in our region are still on the roads with as many as 28 points. It

is because of the leniency of the courts.

If you have been snapped by a speed camera or caught using your mobile

at the wheel, you have probably got penalty points on your licence. The

law says that drivers who get to 12 should face a ban but we have

discovered that is not always happen in. In Yorkshire, 964

drivers are on the road with 12 or more points. These figures have

come from the DVLA's database and they are broken down into postcode

areas. Here is something you might find surprising. Some of the areas

where drivers have more than 20 points on their licences. We have

discovered two drivers who are still on the road with 25 penalty

points. As you can see from these postcodes, they live in Bradford

and Wakefield. Finally, the driver with the highest number of penalty

points on their licence in Yorkshire and lives here, in the

Chapeltown area of Leeds. How are some people getting away

with it? This solicitor has become famous for defending celebrity

drivers in court. Once you get to 12 points, the

court have to disqualify you for a minimum of six months. The

exception is if the defendant can prove exceptional hard fit --

hardship. There are extreme circumstances where people argue

several exceptional hardships. The norm would be two.

Bradford is one area where hundreds of drivers have successfully argued

hardship in courts. I have a friend with 24 points, all

for speeding offences, but he runs an antique firm where he employs

eight people who rely on him being able to drive, so every time he

goes to court he gets away with it. If I had more than 11 or 12 I would

go to court and do the same. It is shocking and completely

unacceptable that there are drivers with up to 28 points on their

licence in Leeds. At 12 you should have a ban and these drivers are

repeatedly breaking the law. Now the Magistrates' Association

has agreed that some of these cases need further investigation.

Thank you. I am joined now by Chris Hunt Cooke, the chair of the

Magistrates' Association Road Traffic Committee. An awful lot of

drivers with more than 12 points still on the roads. Doesn't it make

a mockery of the system? I don't think it does necessarily. What I

am surprised about is the number with 20 or 28 points. That really

should not happen. But the system is that once you get 12 points you

have to go to court. If you can convince the court that

disqualifying you would cause exceptional hardship to you or to

other people, the court may decide not to disqualify you. But you

can't use that same argument more than once every three years. Why

people are getting up to 20 points, I think, is not anything to do with

exceptional hardship or leniency by the courts, it indicates something

has gone wrong in the system. have heard from somebody who has 28

points on their licence. That is incredible, isn't it? It is. It is

an indication that something has gone wrong. Getting to 12 points,

it gives you another chance but it does not give you a Get Out Of jail

Free card if you go on doing that. Isn't the Road Traffic Committee

there to make sure that persistent bad drivers are not on our roads?

We have to obey the law. People can argue that they have exceptional

hardship, but they can't use that argument more than once in every

three years, so they should not be getting up to that number of points.

I suspect that what is happening is that something has gone wrong in

the system and they are not been correctly identified to the court.

If the court does not have the information available at the time

the person appears, they are not going to be able to dispose of them

appropriately. As ever, we want to know what you

think. Should drivers be allowed on the road with more than 12 points?

You can leave for comment on our Police are warning parents to make

sure that tablets are securely locked away after a two-year-old

boy in Yorkshire died when he swallowed his mother's anti-

depressants. Today Sophie George was spared a prison term after

admitting child neglect. The judge said it was something all parents

dread. This is the child who found some

tablets in Leeds. And they were not locked away and he swallowed four

or five. They belonged to his mother, Sophie George. The court

heard she was taking an anti- depressant which helps adults sleep

but in children causes fits. Sophie George found the boy having a fit,

called an ambulance but he died in St James's Hospital.

I would advise parents that if they are aware of their medication but

it is locked away or certainly out of a child's reach. That goes for

household things as well. Clearly the medication was accessible by

the child and the consequences were that the child took the medication

and subsequently died. The court heard evidence that so be

George's other child also played with the tabloids but did not

swallow them. The judge said that she had showed reckless

indifference by not putting the tabloids out of harm's way. The

maximum sentence for child neglect is 10 years in prison but he

sentenced her to a two-year community order, saying she had had

a difficult background as an asylum seeker and, although this may seem

lenient to some, she deserves a great deal of sympathy. What

happened to the boy, the judge said, was something that all parents

dread. What happened remains subject to a serious review.

Later in the programme, Yorkshire's Olympic dreams - we will introduce

you to one of our leading hopes for London 2012.

First, Annan is in a critical condition in hospital tonight after

being found floating unconscious in the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. -- a man.

The man was in his Fifties and had been cycling. The police have

sealed off a large part of the total of -- towpath in Leeds. What

do we know? I am alongside the Leeds-Liverpool

Canal. Whatever happened was further along towards the Abbey.

This is a busy towpath. Thousands of people are going to and for a,

joggers and cyclists. Police hope that somebody saw exactly what

happened because at the moment they do not know whether they are

working on an accident or this man been the victim of an assault. They

have established that he was in the water, found unconscious floating

at 7 o'clock on Saturday evening. They say he was cycling along the

towpath but his bicycle is now missing. I have had the underwater

search team end but have not been able to find it. I have just bumped

into one eyewitness who said it was quite a distressing scene when they

saw the man being pulled out of the water. He was taken to Leeds

General Infirmary, where he was -- where he is in a critical condition.

The police are seeking to reassure members of the community to use

this towpath. The man was 51, tall, 6 ft 2, with a bright red T-shirt

and a stocky build. If you saw him on Saturday evening you should get

in touch with police. More than 100 staff at TJ Hughes in

Sheffield say they are looking forward to a more certain future

after pot of the chain has been bought out. The company went into

administration in June but some stores have now been sold to

Lewis's Home Retail. A buyer has yet to be found for other stores,

including the Doncaster branch. A demonstration was held outside

the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield today.

Protesters are angry about the closure of the last elderly care

ward. They fear that people will not get the treatment they need.

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals Trust is also considering closing a

similar award at the Northern General, saying it will allow more

money to be invested into care in the community.

Two people have been taken to hospital after being chased through

the streets of Leeds by a gang, one armed by -- with a machete. It

happened between Chapeltown Road and Leopold Street. The couple are

believed to be from York. Police are appealing for witnesses.

Mahfouz Ahmed has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for smuggling

heroin. The former council worker who was given money to combat drug

abuse in Halifax has pleaded guilty to smuggling more than �1.3 million

worth of the drug. A suitcase containing 50 blocks of heroin was

dropped by an accomplice in Halifax. People in Hebden Bridge have had

bad headlines about drug and alcohol abuse but now Labour

revamped skating facility is turning their lives around.

This turnout is not just for the cameras. Around 150 people use the

bank's here every day. But it has not always been a hub of healthy

activity. There have been tales of drug and alcohol abuse and the

meeting point was the old skate park.

People were coming down and getting wrecked. There were more people

drinking than skating. People did not want to come and skate for that

reason. It did not look very good. Skaters and volunteers took their

case to the council. Improve the skate park, improve the area.

This was a positive piece of work by young people. Young people worry

about anti-social behaviour, drinking, all sorts of things, and

I hope that this will contribute to showing that kids are good!

Good at working money as well. They helped secure more than �180,000 of

funding people have something to do now instead of just taking drugs

and drinking. It has definitely helped. Getting

everybody together has raised the money. Everybody was working

together and they saw that there was more to do.

It is good to meet everybody. Everybody comes and chills out.

There of people who skated and then started to drink but they have come

back to skating. Until recently the park could only

hold eight to 10 skaters and bikers but now it can hold up to 80. It is

hoped that more people spend their time experimenting here will mean

less spending their time on the Now, over the next 12 months we'll

be following some of Yorkshire's finest sportspeople as they try to

achieve their Olympic dreams. Sarah Stevenson from Bentley near

Doncaster is hoping to pick up Gold in Taekwondo. Neil Smallburn went

to meet her and asked how she was A I think it will be the same as

every other year preparing for a big competition like a European or

world. We will not do anything different. We will get better each

time we compete anyway. If we look at it like that, but winning is

better than anything else. That is the biggest difference. She is a

fighter. Both her parents were diagnosed with cancer and since the

interview was recorded, her father passed away. It has changed me a

lot. The way you focus, sometimes you get less patient. It is

difficult to try to remember other people are not going through what

you're going through. What will you do this year? Just keep going to

whatever competition with the same mentality and focus. And hopefully

that will be enough for golden 2012. She is a lovely lady. You can

follow it the fortunes of our athletes on the radio.

Stay with us, what will life be like in Wakefield without John

Kear? The best of the rugby action. And on Yorkshire Day we bring you a

little of the symphony for Quite right to have a fanfare, What

could be more appropriate on Yorkshire Day than a lad born in

Pontefract, who went to Castleford High School and today played the

match of his life? We're talking of course about Yorkshire cricketer

Tim Bresnan who was instrumental in England's victory against India.

Tim was brilliant, astonishing, so confident, a far cry from the young

man called up five years ago for his first Test. It didn't sink in

it for a couple of hours. I sat there thinking, I wonder what it

will be like, that is when you get the butterflies and nerves. And he

was all right today on his way to 90 glorious runs. Then, he was

sensational, his first wickets nicely caught. The next ball, plum

lbw. Enjoy it. And his 5th wicket, a higher Bijan to seal a remarkable

personal performance and England are the best Test team in the world.

Stuart Broad and Tim Bresnan leave the arena with a wicket each as a

souvenir. Just fantastic. Well done to him and the England team. Let's

stay with sport and an eventful day in Super League yesterday with a

return to form for Huddersfield Giants but disappointment for

Castleford Tigers. Harry starts his round up though in Wakefield where

their day of celebrations on maintaining their super league

status didn't quite turn out the way it should have done. Not helped

by the announcement that coach John John Kear, a few days ago, happy

with the future. As were his team, a chance to celebrate Super League

status. Yesterday's a lamentable display made a mockery of weak

fields survival. It sent a message the loss of John Kear as their

coach was a hard one to bear. Look at this try it from the Crusaders,

nothing to play for, a beauty. John James started with this drive. And

this was the most appropriate of them all, scored by Elliott Becchio.

An unlikely win for the team. The Castleford were well behind St

Helens but fought back with passion. Dixon scoring. The high kick set it

Saints seal their victory with this try, Wilkins kick, Gaskell getting

a touch down. Both sides in the semi-finals next weekend. This was

much better from Huddersfield Giants. A couple of tries to savour.

Robinson's kick caused mayhem. A nice bit of juggling. But this is

my favourite. A powerhouse display. More like the giants we know. He

scores in the corner. It It is of course the 1st of August and that

means one thing - Yorkshire Day. Up and down the county people have

been celebrating. But in the shadow of Ilkley Moor a little bit of

history has been made. Tony Parker reports on a local delicacy that's

set to create a bit of a bang in Yorkshire and hopefully further

afield. It is about good products and locality, getting Yorkshire on

the map. With no further ado, all I have to do is open his up...

sizzling start to mark Yorkshire Day, the county gets its own

sausage. Revealed by someone who knows a thing or two about good

food. Cumberland Katharine sausage, Lincolnshire do and it is about

time Yorkshire has its own sausage. Where the largest county in the

country. So, it's about time we had our own.

The winner was chosen by the public following a county-wide selection

campaign by an Ilkley Butcher and tourism agency. Yorkshire people

are conservative in their taste, they don't want anything too weird

or wacky. It is a good sausage of herb and spice. A nice all round

sausage. More than 3,000 people voted with a few friendly critics

on standby. It will go with Yorkshire pudding with gravy. It

will. I don't think it will topple Yorkshire pudding. But his

worldwide. There is an old saying in Yorkshire, if nobody does knout,

nothing ever happens. It is not happening here. The Yorkshire pork

sausage with its own blend of spices will soon be available in

one supermarket chain, the recipe is also available for others to

follow. But the proof, as they say, is in the eating. Quite spicy. A

bit of a pick. It has a little spice to it. People will love that.

Fantastic. The people have chosen, that is what is nice.

Where is our sausage? I have no idea, you have probably

eaten it. The hay fever has been bad.

I am losing my voice. You will be thrilled with that.

The pollen count is high. Let's An iconic picture for Yorkshire Day.

The second, a beautiful one. Not to ignore our friends in Derbyshire.

The reservoir. I have covered everyone and everything. Keep your

pictures coming in. You can also tweet. It is overcast, temperatures

have been impressive despite cloud. 26 degrees at Robin Hood. 24 down

the Vale of York. There is a lot of cloud but it is warm and humid.

More brightness, the risk of one or two thundery showers. This cold

front trying to get in it from the West. So, you can see how much

cloud the Rhys. It is clearing from the south so with any luck the

North Midlands may brighten up. There are a few showers around, and

they will fizzle and then dry tonight before clouds thickens in

the West bringing patchy rain, prolonged rain to the top of the

Pennines but further east it is dry and uncomfortable for sleeping.

Lows of 16 Celsius. So, the sun rises in the morning: the high

water times: quite a bit of cloud first thing, a bright start in the

east, the weak weatherfront pushing eastwards breaking up, sunshine

coming through, it may be that we create a few sharp showers as we

head though the day, the rumble of thunder. Quite hit and miss. We

will see more sunshine than we have this afternoon. The top

temperatures, similar to today. 25, possibly 26. The coast not doing

too bad, a South easterly breeze. The hottest day will be Wednesday,

a high risk of catching a thunderstorm, back graphic is

impressive. Much cool and fresher on Thursday and into the weekend.

Again the or wife could hardly speak to date so you have had a

good day. Fantastic, peace and quiet!

Nearly a 1000 motorists and -- had 12 points on their licence but are

still on the roads. Judith said 28 points, the driving is so bad they

should not be on the roads at all. Hardship, my foot. Charlotte said

her father said does it suit government have large fines rather

than banning people and any Melk says all drivers should resit their

Test if they get more than six points. It is a nonsense. Now it is

Yorkshire Day and the perfect way to end a perfect day is to have