22/02/2012 Look North (Yorkshire)

Good evening. On Look North tonight - a world first for Bradford. A

groundbreaking new piece of heart equipment, which could save

thousands of lives, is tried out in the city. Also - more allegations

of a cover-up in the Hillsborough disaster. A former Sheffield

special constable says she was persuaded to alter her account of

the day. They said to me at one time, there are you and a few

others like you. We need to get this story rounded off. And we

reveal the mystery artist causing a stir with these carvings in

Knaresborough. A lot of cloud tomorrow, but it should be mild.

The details coming up shortly. I suppose for those of us of a

certain age, the words "heart attack" have a particular fear. So

much so that the British Heart Foundation launched this TV

campaign to get all of us aware of what to do if we witness one.

# Staying alive # Staying alive... # Remember, do

999. But sometimes, as a friend of mine experienced, it's not always

immediately clear whether you're actually having a heart attack. So

that's why what's going on in Bradford Royal Infirmary is not

only a world first, but could save countless lives. It's a hi-tech

vest which can diagnose an attack almost instantaneously. Nicola Rees

has the details. Bradford has one of the highest rates of coronary

heart disease in the country. The Infirmary treats around 300

patients every single year, suffering major heart attacks and

another 1,200 having minor ones. Currently, it can take up to 12

hours to confirm if someone is having a heart attack, but this new

vest can provide an instant diagnosis. The critical thing here

is to get all of these electrical contacts to work. Staff at the

hospital have spent the last few days getting to grips with some

state-of-the-art technology. Rest your head back and stay still. It

takes ten seconds to analyse. vest was developed in America. It

uses 80 sensors to provide a 360- degree view of the heart. The idea

is that it gives you much more of a 3D image of the heart. If you look

here, green is good. Red and blue are bad. If someone is having a big

heart attack then it shows up red. If this was Paul's trace, we would

be very worried about him and want to treat him as an emergency.

Luckily for Paul, his heart's fine. Every year thousands of patients

arrive at this hospital with suspected heart attacks. The

limitations of the current technology mean many face long

delays in diagnosis. Norman arrived here with severe chest pains, but

it took nine hours for doctors to confirm his heart attack. The ECG

gave an indication, but they didn't know whether it was one or not. Not

absolutely. They took a sample of blood. I could have had another

heart attack while they were deciding. The new technology means

doctors here should be able to diagnose patients in just three

minutes. Heart attacks are a really big problem here. The city has one

of the highest rates of heart disease in the country. It's no

surprise that staff here are so excited to be trialing this state-

of-the-art, new cardiac vest and if it proves to be successful here, it

could be rolled out across the NHS. So far, trials have shown a 50%

increase in the number of heart attacks that can be diagnosed using

the new kit and that's good news for patients in Bradford. Joining

us now is Consultant Cardiologist with the Bradford Teaching

Hospitals, Dr John Kurian. Why does Bradford have one of the worst

problems as far as this is concerned? The patients of Bradford

have a high proportion of the risk factors. Some of the things we know

about, I think, like hypertension, diabetes, risk factors like smoking

and a lack of exercise, diet. I suppose one of the particular

problems in Bradford is that patients of a south-east Asian

ethnic orgin have perhaps a 50% higher risk. Why particularly those

people? We know they have a higher risk of heart disease and a number

of theories have been suggested. One of the things is that they have

a genetic predisposition and that might be linked to the fact that

they have a predisposition for more diabetes and more high blood

pressure, a lack of exercise, diet, which is high in fat and low in

fruit and vegetables. All these things contribute to that. The vest

is important, but more important I suspect is to try to make sure that

patients come in without the symptoms in the first place?

think in terms of preventing heart disease, that is really where we

are focusing some of our efforts. For example, one of the initiatives

that the hospital doctors in Bradford have done is to work more

closely with our colleagues in general practice. How successful is

the vest? Is there an excitement there? I think there is evidence to

suggest that it would be very helpful. As one of the reports

mentioned earlier, the uncertainty which surrounds confirming the

diagnosis does delay treatment and of course the quicker we can

deliver treatment, the better it is in terms of patients. How quickly

will you be able to assess its success? We are hopeful that over

the next six months or so we will evaluate this and certainly, if we

start seeing similar outcomes, as what the trial data has shown from

elsewhere in the world, then we should be in a position to start

using it in six months from now. Thank you very much. Also tonight,

the Attorney General has said he may be prepared to look again at

the case of one of the Hillsborough stadium victims. A coroner had

returned a verdict of accidental death on all of the 96 who lost

their lives that day, ruling they were all dead by 3.15pm. But today

a mother forced a Parliamentary debate, saying there was compelling

evidence her son was alive later and that more could have been done.

She's had the backing of a South Yorkshire policewoman who tended to

her son that fateful day. Here's our crime correspondent, John Cundy.

Like all the victims, Kevin Williams was declared by the

coroner to have been dead by 3.15 that day. Not so says his mum. She

believes he and many others were still alive some time after that

and more lives should have been saved. Special constable Deborah

Martin, who attended Kevin, agrees. He was still breathing at 3.15. I

stayed with him and I was definitely sure that between 3.50

and 4pm that is when Kevin died. He didn't die at 3.15. I was wearing a

perfect, that was working. This afternoon's debate is an attempt to

re-open the inquest. The evidence was highlighted. She has stated on

numerous occasions that she stands by what was in her first statement

and bullied by senior police officers to sign the second

statement, which was wholly inaccurate. We need a new inquest,

because the evidence that was suppressed at the time by the

falsification of police statements, as it appears, that evidence is now

emerging very clearly. After today's debate, the results are

awaited in the spring of the scrutiny board, examining whether

police statements may have been altered after the tragedy to

protect the image of police's handling of the disaster. It's

claimed more than 150 statements may have been involved. Deborah

Martin told us she was forced to change her original statement,

after repeated visits by senior officers. There's only one thing

for it, it's been a cover-up and it proves it for to me now, having

seen my original statement, that the second statement made out by

this woman is the only one that people have seen. They've never

seen my statement, which in all honesty is the truth. The police

say Deborah Martin's allegations have previously been examined

independently. 23 years on, the families of the victims believe at

last they are getting closer to the truth of the Hillsborough disaster.

John joins us from Hillsborough now. John, we have had the debate. Do we

think anything will come from it? Well, the Attorney General said

quite clearly after this debate that he had listened with great

sympathy to everything that had been said, but he said when he

eventually had to make a decision on whether there should be a fresh

inquest on the test case of Kevin Williams, it would be based on the

hard facts of law. He said he had a lot of sympathy for the families,

but couldn't make the decision on the grounds of sentiment and also

said that he wouldn't make a decision about this crucial case

until after the scrutiny board, which we heard about there, have

delivered their findings, which was originally going to be about April,

but now we think that may have gone back to June. We think the panel

has a really big part to play here? There's no doubt at all about that.

They were set up by the last Labour Government under immense pressure

from the Hillsborough campaigning families and their basic condition

is there have been for the past two years, looked at every single

document they can lay their hands hands -- their hands on with any

relevance and what they are going to say we don't know. We suspect

that they will say that some statements were altered. Whether

significantly or not in due course. Until they have reported, the

Attorney General will not take action on the inquest or the

possibility of a new inquest on Kevin Williams. If there was to be

one, then this would re-open a whole Pandora's box, 23 years after

this dreadful tragedy. Thank you. We'll follow this story. Later -

how to lose millions of pounds in one go. Councils face the reality

of the cuts today. Later on the programme, look who I've found.

David Bell my. I'm on the north York moors. Find out why we are

freezing our bits ovulater in the programme. More news from around

Yorkshire now. A convicted drugs baron from South Yorkshire has been

found guilty of organising a smuggling plot from inside a

Nottinghamshire jail. A five-month trial heard that Russell Knaggs,

from Conisborough in Doncaster, met a Colombian drug trafficker while

he was locked up at Lowdham Grange. He sent an accomplice to buy

millions of pounds of cocaine from South America. It was shipped to

Britain via the USA and Germany. Millions of pounds, the value, the

profits would have been enormous for them. If they've -- they'd have

been successful none of them would have had to work ever again and the

streets of the United Kingdom would be flooded with cocaine. The father

of Claudia Lawrence is calling on the Government to accept

recommendations for a change in law to make it easier to deal with the

financial affairs of missing people. MPs say new legislation is needed

to help relatives administer their business details. Claudia was last

seen in March 2009. Despite a huge police investigation there's been

no trace of her. It means that instead of all the difficulties

which arise from just a few weeks after an adult goes missing with

all their insurance, their cards, their house, their life insurance,

their mortgages, everything else, it is a very difficult thing to

deal with at the moment and at a time when the family are at their

lowest. This will help enormously. Four people have been arrested on

suspicion of fraud at a Sheffield- based company which helps get

people back to work. The agency, A4e, receives millions of pounds of

taxpayers' money to help the long- term unemployed. It was recently

criticised by MPs for paying its directors handsomely' but failing

to meet targets. A4e says the fraud allegations date back to 2010 and

were uncovered by the company themselves. Electricity generating

company, Drax, who own Drax power station, has scrapped plans to

build a dedicated biomass plant on its site in North Yorkshire. But it

will continue to burn some biomass fuel as well as coal at it's Selby

power plant. It now wants to see government subsidies for biomass

increased If you want more on this Paul's been blogging about it.

Yorkshire Cricket Club's announced a loss for the second year running.

This time for nearly �500,000. The club says the figures were in line

with expectations due to there being no Test match at Headingley

last year. It predicts an improvement next year because of

two international games scheduled there this summer. A man has been

taken to hospital with burns at Foxes' Biscuits in Batley. The

blast happened in a fuel storage area while diesel tanks were being

drained and a small number of people were treated after breathing

in smoke. Protests have been held in West Yorkshire as councils

announce further cuts. They are slashing tens of millions of pounds

from their budgets because they are getting less money from the

Government. Councillors in Leeds met this afternoon and a meeting

it's been held in Kirklees right now. Here's our local Government

Families, furious that plans to make cuts at this children centre.

This is one of the ideas the council has to save money. The

councillors in Huddersfield Town Hall tonight can hear the protest,

but with less money coming from the Government, they are once again

talking about cuts. The council says they need to save almost �16

million this year. How will they do that? They are looking at closing

two day centres for adults. They are looking at cutting opening

hours at swimming pools, museums and galleries. Even public toilets

could be shut down to save money. It is claimed facilities like this

are used so rarely bettered costs the council up to �7 every time

somebody comes here to spend a penny! There are some people that

for political reasons they denied that the deficit exists. If the

council did not make cuts, we would go bankrupt and we could not

provide any services to anyone. When they say cut back, we say

fight back! The protesters showed up in Leeds this afternoon as the

councillors met to set their budgets. Leeds city council plans

to make cuts of up to �55 million for this year. One idea is to pilot

fortnightly bin collections to save money. A big part of the savings

would be jobs with 400 at risk. you're a member of staff tried to

do your best for public service and you have this hanging over you,

then you would be extremely worried, because it is not just people and

numbers, it is people with families, homes and aspirations. There could

be more protest tomorrow as other local councils need to discuss

their local rounds of cuts. We'll have the latest on that meeting in

Kirklees on the late Look North at 10.25.

And you can see more about the authorities that are planning a

rise in council tax bills on the Sunday Politics from midday on BBC

One on Sunday. Before seven o'clock: We'll catch

up with last night's football. And Look North identifies the

phantom tree carver drawing Now, working long hours and in all

weathers isn't everybody's idea of fun but for North Yorkshire game

keeper George Thompson, its all in a days work. And today his

dedication was recognised with a national award- presented by

environmentalist David Bellamy. Amanda Harper put on her walking

boots and met up with the pair high in the hills.

Out in all weather, the life of a gamekeeper is not for the faint-

hearted. George has been taking care of the animals here for 21

years. It is a live style, being during the of plans, it is the

birds, the animals. Others like you think you could drop me blindfolded

anywhere on this 7,000 acres and I could tell you were I was. Today he

had professor David Bellamy for company presented him with an award

for all of the work he does shaping the land. It is nice to meet you at

last, George, and you really have won this, and there it is! And look

after it! The role of a gamekeeper is not celebrated by everyone.

Recently, the National Trust banned shooting at one of its

Northumberland properties. It is a subject that will always divide

communities. It brings money into allow the management to go on.

There have been lots of people in it. If you took away the skin

keeper is, they, very soon, these things would disappear. -- if you

took away the gamekeeper. This opens up public pathways to enjoy.

On a day like today, the view is spectacular. It is what is going on

beneath the feet that keeps George busy. 10 years ago, this area was 2

ft high. There is a season for the shooting, there is a season to

control predators, it is a marvellous recognition from

Professor David to consider us for this award. It is great. With 7,000

acres to patrol, George and his dog will continue to be part of this

landscape for many more years to come.

7,000 acres! A fantastic place as well! A big

football match tonight, you're taking on gates had, York City need

a win. On to sport now and in football it

was a frustrating night for two of our South Yorkshire clubs last

night. Rotherham United took a 400 mile trip to Gillingham only to

draw 0-0. Mark Bradley's effort from the half-way line was as close

as the Millers came to scoring. Meanwhile back in South Yorkshire,

Barnsley lost 3-1 to in-form Birmingham City with Craig Davies

scoring his 10th goal of the season for the Tykes. And Harrogate's

chapel or has qualified at the diving World Cup in London. He said

a purse of best along the way. Two of Yorkshire's top sporting

stars have received MBEs from the Queen at Buckingham Palace this

morning. The Taekwondo World Champion Sarah Stevenson is being

honoured for her services to Martial Arts. The 28-year-old

Olympic hopeful who lost both her parents last year, has recently

undergone surgery to her knee. Leeds Rhinos prop and England Rugby

League captain Jamie Peacock was also honoured for services to his

sport. And Cheney deserves it, a fantastic game the other night!

Now to the artworks causing a stir in North Yorkshire. Mysterious

carvings have appeared on trees along the river bank in

Knaresborough. The artist has been dubbed the Yorkshire Banksy,

leaving intricate etchings without being spotted. But our intrepid

sleuth Michelle Lyons may have tracked down the culprit.

Knaresborough's renowned for it's quirky architecture and annual arts

festival but now it has a few more exhibits to add to its portfolio.

And these ones are causing quite a stir. The carvings appeared in the

past few weeks on Abbey Road. Tree stumps transformed into works of

art leaving passers by intrigued. We usually come along here every

week for a walk, and when we first saw them... I took photographs.

They Brighton everything up. would be nice to see some more,

whoever has done them, come and do some more for us. A sentiment

shared by Knaresborough's Civic Society, which believes the

sculptures will attract more tourists to the town. I love them.

I just love them. It is another added attraction and this is a very

nice part of the town. It would be lovely for people to come here and

see them. The land belongs to David Brown, who lives nearby. He wasn't

available for comment today - but his house-keeper revealed all.

took a lot of them down, and they were felled, and David thought it

would be good to have the sculptor to come along and do so Margaret to

bring the tourists to the town. They are lovely to we look at.

sculptors name is Tommy Craggs. He's from Durham and here he is in

action. What started as a hobby, has now become a very successful

career. Rainy days in Knaresborough now brightened up by some new

forest friends. And here's a two more you won't see from the road,

hidden away in MR Brown's private gardens.

Very impressive! There are few trees outside the BBC, maybe we

could car viewers and crystals faces into the trees! Did you watch

the Brit Awards last night?! No, I did not.

Congratulations to Halifax-born singer Ed Sheeran who picked up two

BRIT awards last night. The 21- year-old won Best British Male Solo

Artist and Best British Breakthrough Act. Sheffield's

Arctic Monkeys lost out to Coldplay in the Best Group category.

Very mild, with the weather. If you think back to last Saturday, we cut

down to minus 60 degrees in Lincolnshire. Tomorrow, a few

places could reach 16 degrees. -- A few pictures that came in. More

pictures of snowdrops. Keep your They had line, very mild,

exceptionally mild across eastern areas. A lot of cloud. That cloud

could be thickening for the Pennines to produce some drizzle.

We can trackway the air is coming from down to the south of the

Azores. That is why it is mild and cloudy. The best of the breaks

towards the coast. It has been windy with some outbreaks of rain

and drizzle. The dreary on the Pennines with some cloud. The

drizzle and light rain will peter out. Eastern areas will become dry

and become mild. Western areas will stay drunk and drizzly and quite

windy. Temperatures with an average daytime temperature of eight

degrees. The sun will rise in the morning at 7:09am and setting at

5:31pm. It is a cloudy start and there will be some drizzle in

eastern areas. Persistent drizzle over the Pennines. A risk of

drizzle coming through on the westerly breeze will stop a lot of

cloud around, a few cloud breaks coming through with sunny intervals.

Temperatures will respond. Certainly, eastern areas, we could

have 15 degrees, but possibly, York, south into Selby and Doncaster, 16

Celsius. Remarkable for February. A lot of cloud, 13 degrees in Skipton,

55 Fahrenheit. The Further Outlook, Friday, patchy rain. That will

clear. Saturday, bright with sunshine. Predominantly dry over

the weekend. The odd bit of rain in the Pennines. Looking pretty good.