24/10/2013 North West Tonight

Monday. That is all from the

Good evening. Welcome to North West Tonight with Annabel Tiffin and

Graham Liver. Our top story: The pensioner ordered

to pay thousands of pounds to his carer for cutting her hours after

his wife died. I feel awful about it. I don't know how it will be

paid. Tonight we examine how the law

works. Also in the programme: Manchester

University gets millions for revolutionary X`rays that could

could bring us closer to beating cancer. I'm outside Lancashire

County Council. In August, its chief executive was suspended. Today, he

resigned. And 18 marathons in 18 days in

memory of 18 fallen soldiers. One Lancashire man's mammoth challenge.

And join me at Martin mere, where thousands of pink footed geese are

making a flying visit. A widower has been ordered to pay

more than ?3,500 to a carer who sued him after her hours were cut when

his wife died. George Lomas from Cheshire was taken to an employment

tribunal by Jayne Wakefield after his wife Rose passed away in March.

She lost the case but won on appeal. Mr Lomas does not know how he is

going to pay it. Abbie Jones reports.

George Lomas has looked after his wife Rose since she was diagnosed

with Parkinson's disease. Five years ago, he accepted help from a carer,

Jayne Wakefield, funded by his local council. When Rose died, he asked

Mrs Wakefield to stay on, to help him, on a private basis for fewer

hours. She did this but there was no written contract ` and the carer

took him to court. I feel awful about it. I couldn't understand why

the judgement had gone against me, because I didn't know the rules and

I couldn't have insured against redundancy. This seems to be the

stumbling block. But how it is going to be paid, as yet, I don't know.

Mrs Wakefield was paid for at least 30 hours a week to care for Rose

through Cheshire East Council. After her death, that stopped. Mr Lomas

paid his carer privately for a few days for 16 hours a week. But

nothing was put into writing and Mrs Wakefield resigned. She then sued Mr

Lomas for breach of contract and unfair dismissal, which she won on

appeal. The judge ruled she'd been unfairly treated. When Mr Lomas paid

the carer privately after his wife's death, he was legally classed as her

employer. The council says it's not liable for any claims because of

this. But his son says others should be aware this could happen to them.

I think it ever you are paying anybody to help you in any shape or

form, you have to make sure you are doing the right thing, whatever that

is. My dad did not know what to do, but this has raised a big question.

You must be so careful when employing people. Mrs Wakefield was

not available for comment today but her husband told a newspaper she had

been given the redundancy money she was entitled to. But Mr Lomas says

he doesn't know how he'll be able to afford to pay it.

Well Abbie is here now. We heard from Mr Lomas' son. This could

possibly raise issues for other people who are paying people for

care. Yes, and if you pay somebody privately, as Mr Lomas did, you

become an employer, as Mr Lomas and out, and you are liable. There may

be many other people like Mr Lomas out there who do not realise that.

That can also happen with the care packages. It you have packages to

local councils, you may find yourself liable. Sometimes you get

the money direct, which gives you the ability to spend it as you see

fit, but also gives you responsibilities, potentially. You

might be responsible for holidays, or even redundancy payments. The

council say they give that information out to be but with those

kind of packages, but it is an issue they need to be aware of. Thank you

very much. Next tonight, the family of an

unarmed man shot dead by the police in Warrington is angry that a report

on the killing has been leaked to a newspaper before being given to

them. Anthony Grainger's family has been waiting to see the report by

the Independent Police Complaints Commission for 18 months. According

to the newspaper, the report is critical of the police. The officers

involved may yet face criminal charges. Stuart Flinders reports.

A single shot fired through the windscreen of a red Audi that had

been under surveillance by officers from Greater Manchester Police. It

killed Anthony Grainger, a father of two from Salford. No weapons were

found in the vehicle and two men arrested at the scene, a car park in

Culcheth near Warrington, have since been acquitted of conspiracy to rob

along with another man arrested later. Today the Manchester Evening

News claimed that a report by the Independent Police Complaints

Commission criticised the police for flawed intelligence gathering and

suggested the officer who pulled the trigger may have a criminal case to

answer. It's 18 months now since Anthony Grainger was shot dead, and

his family are still waiting to see that report or themselves. Their

solicitor says they should not have been reading it first in a

newspaper. We have had to give very strict undertakings about the

reports when we have seen it, but we are not allowed to disclose it, and

yet, GMP seem to have released quite pertinent details from the report,

and the family have found out from a local reporter. Greater Manchester

Police and the IPCC say they can't comment on the case. The Crown

Prosecution Service says it will decide if the officers involved are

to be charged with any offences as soon as possible. Mr Grainger's

family, which has mounted a public campaign for justice, has made its

views plain. I want justice for my son. I wonder the police officers

charged with murder, and I want all the other officers that were there

on that night charged with corporate manslaughter. A year and a half

after his death, Anthony Grainger's family say it's time the truth was

made public. Other news, and a retired police

Sergeant has been jailed for raping and sexually abusing two children

while he was an officer serving in Lancashire and Merseyside.

78`year`old Jeffrey Lake was extradited from Australia in March.

His crimes date back to the 196 s and '70s.

A woman from Oldham has been charged with the murder of two children in a

house fire more than 16 years ago. Fiaz Begum Munshi appeared at Oxford

Magistrates' Court this morning Majid Khan, who was 15, and his

8`year`old sister Anum Khan died following the fire at a house in

Oxford in 1997. A man's body has been found in

Alexandra Park in Manchester. Police were called at 2:30 this afternoon.

It's not yet known how the man died. The park has been closed to the

public and the surrounding area is also cordoned off.

Imagine taking an X`ray image of a tumour and lifting it off the page

to find out exactly what the tumour's made of, how quickly it's

growing, and how treatment is working. Scientists at the

University of Manchester have begun doing exactly that. They've just

been given a share of a ?35m research grant, and as our Health

Correspondent Nina Warhurst's been finding out, it could halve the time

of clinical trials, saving the NHS millions, and more importantly bring

us closer to beating cancer. If the tumour cannot grow, cannot get blood

vessels, it cannot grow, that is the theory. This woman volunteered for a

drug trial last year after being diagnosed with Colon cancer. It is

being tried on 80 different people will stop it is terribly important.

Like how quickly things have moved for us over the past ten years, and

the next ten years, perhaps your generation will have a gene known,

and things will be able to be found out much more accurately. That will

be terrific. Margaret's trial and others like it are set to be

exonerated by a share of ?35 million given by Cancer Research UK to the

YouTube is the Manchester. They are using it to revolutionise tumour

scanning. Instead of traditional 2`D scans, which simply show where and

how big a tumour is, they will detect what sells and chemicals the

tumour is made of, how much oxygen is getting in, and most importantly,

how it is reacting to different drugs. One thinking of it is,

traditionally, people would look at pictures and make observations from

that. We are turning a scan into a measuring device. You can actually

extract measurements that you about the tumour. It is quite profound. It

means Alan will be able to work out how well a drug is affecting

different tumours like Margaret s in a fraction of the time. Just like a

digital camera, you take multiple samples from within the tumour, and

each of those is a number which represents something. We can do very

constipated mathematics on those numbers, from multiple images, to

work out what we really want to know about. The new trial will begin next

week, and the potential impact on the next major treatment is

enormous. The chief executive of Lancashire

County Council, Phil Halsall, resigned today. He was already

suspended and an inquiry was underway. It revolves around the way

a contract was awarded to maintain the council's cars and vehicles Our

political editor Arif Ansari is at County Hall in Preston for us this

evening. How much of a surprise is his departure, Arif? I think the

timing is certainly a surprise, because Mr Hal Saul has been under

investigation, and an enquiry has been underway, and we were not

expecting him to resign before it had been concluded. Mr Halsall is

the most senior officer here at Lincolnshire County Council, a very

important player when it comes to delivering services in Lancashire.

Let's go over the details of this. He himself was appointed as chief

executive in 2011 on a salary of ?195,000. It was in August that he

was suspended. That was over questions about a ?5 million

contract and the way that had been tendered to look after the

council's cars and vehicles. That is what led to his suspension, and an

independent enquiry which was being conducted by a London barrister But

today came the news that he has resigned, and that in exchange for

him stepping away from his job, the disciplinary enquiry and

investigation have been dropped It's been a very turbulent time for

the County Council. What happens next? Yes, it has been a very

difficult time indeed for Lancashire County Council, which still needs to

find a replacement, of course, poor Mr Halsall. One County Council

e`mail be Labour leader here, saying well done again, it was a big risk

for UN could have gone either way. I am not certain which way it has

gone, because Mr Halsall had always said he was going to fight this and

clear his name. He has not been able to do that, but that the same time,

the admitted patient has not been able to prove that he did anything

wrong either stop `` administration. So I think it is the case that both

sides have decided it would be best to come to an agreement and walk

away. I think that with Mr Halsall's suggestion. He has got a

payoff, but nothing more than what he was entitled to under the law.

Crucially, my understanding is that white enquiries as to what happened

at the council continue. Thank you very much.

Meanwhile, plans for a 9,000`space car park for Manchester Airport

passengers have been approved. The site in Wythenshawe on Shadowmoss

Road is the size of 70 football pitches. Local people had objected

to the plans, arguing it would cause traffic problems and take away green

space. Planners say the car park is vital to the expansion of the

airport. It's been announced that regular

club nights at The Warehouse Project in Trafford will not take place as

normal next year. Organisers say there will only be "a handful of

special events". Nick Bonnie from Gloucestershire was taken ill at the

event last month and later died Greater Manchester Police say he may

have taken what he thought was ecstasy.

And the Royal Liverpool Hospital is considering banning smoking across

all its grounds. At the moment, patients and visitors use designated

shelters, but the Royal, which cares for more cancer patients than any

other hospital on Merseyside, is now asking people whether or not there

should be a total ban. Suppose there was an energy source

that was totally natural, could be extracted cleanly and didn't depend

on the wind or the waves. Well, there is and it's as old as the

Earth. It's geothermal energy and it lies deep below the ground.

Councillors in Manchester have today given a company permission to check

the viability of extracting it in one part of the city. So how would

that work? Our Chief Reporter, Dave Guest, is here to tell us. In a

nutshell, geothermal energy is heat generated by the earth's core. It

warms up water reservoirs deep below ground. That water is tapped via

bore holes up to three miles deep, pumped to the surface, the heat is

extracted via a heat exchanger and that heat is distributed to homes

and businesses. The cooled water returns from whence it came. Dr Jase

Curriacos of Manchester University's centre for Climate Change Research

is a big fan. This is the greenest possible energy you can extract It

is formed naturally from the Earth, and it replenishes by it self, and

once the capital investment is made, it just comes constantly. So,

its fans say it ticks all the boxes: it's natural, it can be extracted

cleanly and there's a never`ending supply of the stuff. But where can

you find it? Well, as we recently reported, Cheshire East Council is

investigating possibilities near Crewe. And one specialist company

now believes there could be a fair amount deep beneath this site in

Ardwick, Manchester. The City Council this afternoon gave GT

Energy permission to carry out detailed geological evaluations of

the site. We know that the resources there, that approximately three

kilometres deep, and that it can supply a lotta V2 the local area, so

there is very little doubt about what it do. It is how much it can do

with a future and how much energy can supply the future. And this is

how they say it would look above and below ground. Some environmentalists

share the view that geothermal energy is a way forward. Greenpeace

told me this afternoon: "We support geothermal energy. What we need is

clean sources of energy." If the Manchester scheme works out, it

should be producing energy