07/01/2013 Inside Out East

Then it was when Margaret developed dementia that her family had to

face the fact that she needed care. They found a place for her at a

It is the hardest decision in the world to put your parents in our

home. Then to think they are not safe.

Everyone has the right to feel safe to. In the last year there have

been allegations of abuse across the region.

We have uncovered evidence that the system designed to maintain

standards was feeling. There was a new carer who was on an

induction programme. She was told to shadow the night carer. She

witnessed what she felt was definitely abuse. She went to their

authorities the following day. This person went into my mother's room

at quarter to five in the morning. She turned the light on and quite

roughly wash her face with cold water. The thing that really upset

their carer on the induction was that she crab my mother's face. My

mother said, few are being horrible to me. She grabbed her face and

said, I hate you to go. To think that my mother was sitting in a

room from 5 o'clock in the morning is unbelievable. It was not just

the abuse. The carer was not doing her job.

It she seemed to falsify the lists. They would include things like

going to the toilet. I thought that was amazing. I am amazed that this

had not come to light before. have discovered that last year in

Essex alone there were 299 proven cases of abuse in care homes

covering everything from financial, to sexual abuse. That is double the

number of the year before. Even if this is due to more people coming

forward there is clearly a problem with some homes. There is also a

problem that some are not been inspected to check standards. Even

this one, is supposed to be inspected every year. That has not

happened. The job of the Care Quality

Commission is to inspect homes. It promises to inspect everyone wants

per year. Now it says it cannot guarantee this will happen. They

are saying they can do one inspection per year. I am not

convinced they will meet that target. There are a couple of

reasons. It has taken a long time to recruit enough staff because

they held back on the agreed bid for too long. If you do in

inspection and the care home is who you have got to go back and check

again. They are over wording inspectors all the time. We invited

the Care Quality Commission to take part in the programme. They refused.

They told us: Compliance teams are working hard to complete their

inspections. There are places in the UK where 80 % of care homes

have got one or more inquiry against them. The local

population's do not even know that. How do you make a choice about

where to put your relative if 80 % of the care homes are not have --

have a creepy. In Essex 70 % of homes do not meet standards.

Ever since this care home opened there have been problems. Five

years ago inspectors were not satisfied that residents would be

protected from abuse. Improvements were made but not enough. In 2009

inspectors consider taking action. It was only last year but warning

notices were issued. The Care Quality Commission coal

was that with regard to the warm: Emphasis is on rectifying problems.

Each inspection found improvements. It also said failure to meet

standards: Should not be seen as indication of abuse. Where people

are at immediate risk making use hour burgeoned powers.

The council which have placed elderly people there have since

moved them out. The home is now closed.

When a you have got care homes that are not delivering then we need

urgent action. We do not need to see a situation where it takes nine

months, Denmark, two years, and all the time people are suffering, they

cannot escape. It is almost like a life sentence. Eventually the local

authority and police took the carer to court. Her daughter wishes she

had acted sooner. With hindsight my mother did a lead

in more lucid moments to the fact that they were cruel to her.

Because of her over all state of dementia I did not take a lot of

notice of it. I did see fought a couple of months before this

happened there were bruises. But she used to fall out of bed, she

used to bang against all. I did not good two and two together. Angelica

Mendoza was sacked from her job and found guilty last year.

Before being convicted she was tracked by police and found guilty

of working in another care home. That she could walk off and go to

Dorking in Surrey and get another job - I am fearful she is working

in a care home now. I have got no real trust in the system. The she

moved her mother out of the care home, but a few months later her

mother died. It makes you wonder why we went an

older person is injured ear is no serious response. It should not be

the way it is. You are watching Inside Out. Still

to come - we are searching for medieval graffiti. There are lines

This week we are going to have some of the dark skies of the year. You

can join as live all week on BBC Two. But the night sky is not what

it used to be. In some places you can only see a tiny fraction of the

start. Many children have never seen the Milky Way. It is because

As a turns into night it should be the transfer our stars to shine but

many people feel we are not getting the night skies we should get

because of light pollution from our homes, offices, street lamps,

industries. The 24 allah universe that we live in. We need some

lights for safety and security, or the perception of safety and

security. Over and above those And this is what we're missing.

Without light pollution we should be able to see our own galaxy, the

milky way. We should be able to see thousands of stars on a clear dark

night, but in the worst affected areas we can only see a couple of

dozen of the very brightest. According to the Campaign for the

Protection of Rural England, light pollution is increasing and we're

seeing fewer stars every year. of the children in Britain are not

able to see a small portion of the Milky Way. They have no idea what

they should be able to see up there. If they are cut off from this

experience, they are missing something. Being able to see the

sky at night, shows us all reveals to us our place in the bigger

scheme of things. What are we going to see here? We are in one of the

highest parts of Essex. You have a good view it.

Daniel Nixon also wants more stars for his money. When he was at

university, he started a campaign and website called Needless. He

grew up in South Essex, one of the worst places in the region for

light pollution. The London glow doesn't help. From the church yard

on the hill at Rettendon, the effect is startling. Welcome to

People don't see the light pollution as a real pollution. It

is not a toxin that it is degrading our environment. Half of our

environment is rendered invisible through careless use of light.

you see any beauty in this at all? From up here, looking down on these

orange lights sparkling away, it does not compare to looking up at

the lights from space, the twinkling stars. This does not

compare to the beauty of being able to see what nature has to offer.

Daniel's Needless website has a simulation of the kind of lighting

he'd like to see and the difference he believes it would make. Here is

the night sky. If we add the sodium orange glow, there is loads of

spillage and our vision of the night sky is impaired. This is the

SME cut of light, a halfway house and again, our vision of the night

sky is diminished. If we go to fault cut off lighting,

straightaway, that light is concentrated downwards. There is

very little spillage and it is energy efficient and you can see

all of the night sky it in all its glory.

Councils are starting to replace sodium lamps with energy efficient

white ones. They're not doing it, so we can all wonder at the galaxy,

it's to save money, but a happy bi- product is a reduction in light

pollution. These are the old sodium lights that served us well for the

best part of 30 years. They were never really that efficient. They

are destined now for side -- recycling. Their future is bright,

the future is white. Many Councils, including Northants and Norfolk are

rolling out new lights. In Norfolk a �25 million scheme will see the

orange lamps consigned to history. It's not really state of the art.

Airports have been down lighting in this way for years, but now the

technology is more affordable and efficient. They are now available

in bulk. They use less energy, they require less maintenance and they

are a benefit all round. One of the side-effects of that is they have a

better light pattern, a better recognition. They also shine down

and not up. And the future is white out of town

too. In many parts of our region. This is the A140 in Suffolk. White

LED lights are happily breeding and campaigners against light pollution

want councils to go further down Maldon in Essex was the first and

now many councils are turning off the streetlights at midnight. In

Hertfordshire, it's saving 1.3 million a year. In Northants,

they've removed half of the light bulbs saving two million a year.

It's austerity over astronomy, but the net effect is darker skies.

have struck a chord with many people.

The Councils say it hasn't led to an increase in crime, but it can

increase the fear of crime. Daniel Graham has started a petition in

Hertfordshire to switch the lights back on. Crime is one factor within

this equation. The other is health and safety and people being able to

go about their daily lives without fear of curfew. Turning the lights

off isn't the solution. The likes that have been in place, have been

a place for a long time. OED lights are better option.

But what about the bright lights of industry? Austerity measures are

making public lighting less polluting but private lighting on

retail parks, industrial units, lorry parks and farms is largely

unregulated. The Fendercare HQ is in rural Norfolk, right next door

to the Norwich Observatory. The company is mindful of how much

light it pours into the night. have to look at cost for the

business but we are very mindful of the Environment, the pollution. We

have to put that into the mix itself. We still have the duty of

care for our employees to come into work as well. When we did the

planning application, it did come back from the council that we

should feel our lighting because of the observed a tree nearby. That is

what we did. It's bad, but there's hope. At the

University of Hertfordshire, they have one of the largest robotic

observatories in Europe and the latest data on the extent of light

Some parts of Hertfordshire and Essex, it contaminates the light

which reduces the amount of stars that we can see. As we move up

further away, coastal areas of good because they are away from major

lighting. They have light coming from one side. Isolated areas in

Essex are particularly dark. It is distance and the volume of lighting.

We have a growing population, housing targets, and 24 hour living.

But light pollution should improve. Because we're tightening our belts,

and because of better technology. The night sky has a dark future.

Children should have a right to see the stars. So many children and

adults have never really seen the stars. It is one of the great,

natural wonders of our world. You can find out more about this

week's programmes events are by going to the website. A new kind of

graffiti has been discovered that his 500 years old and it is helping

uncovering mistress from our past. -- mysteries from our past.

East Anglia has always been famous for its Medieval Churches, in fact

we have more of them than anywhere else in Britain. Over the centuries

every detail has been studied, researched and examined. But it

seems we missed a major part of the story. Pioneering research being

undertaken in this region has revealed many of our churches are

covered in graffiti, much of it more than 500 years old and a whole

new history is beginning to emerge. Our journey starts here in north

Norfolk. This church is about to reveal its past in a way that it

has never done before. Matt Champion is the Indiana Jones of

the Medieval Graffiti World. This isn't the usual way people look

round the church. If absolutely not. We normally look at de France, the

history. Now we are looking for medieval graffiti inscriptions. We

are looking at scratched images in the walls. We have found lots of

things but here you have a wonderful example. That is

incredible. It is so clear. You can pick out the detail as well. We

have the main mast and a rudder. It is a ship. It is not the only

graffiti ship here. There are several, including one so detailed

he can tell what vessel it was. you pass me that piece of paper, we

can see a clear area with flag us coming up. All of these rigging

ropes are going to the rear. This design is typical of what we would

be seeing from the late 14th century. How come these haven't

been spotted before? We haven't been looking for them. These days,

these are really difficult to see without the use of the torch. These

were painted black years ago. When these inscriptions were made, they

were scratched through the pigment and became highly visible. Drawings

of similar ships have also been found at other coastal churches in

Norfolk, but what do they mean? These are either prayers of

thanksgiving for they are asking for a safe journey to come. The

whole surface is covered. How did people get away with this?

Basically, they were de facing a church. Graffiti now is seen as

something that is very destructive stop it was acceptable than. If you

look over here, it is a merchant mark. This would have belonged to

someone who was quite wealthy, a merchant. He didn't have any

problem leaving his mark in here. When Matt first started looking at

Norfolk Churches he estimated there would be graffiti in just a handful,

but the more he looks, the more he is uncovering and just a few miles

down the road he made a startling find.

This is Binham Priory. It is best seen at night, and delight. It is a

fantastic discovery. Come here at night, it shows up much better and

a single light source. What he has found could solve one of the

biggest debates in British architecture, how Binham's West

Window originally looked. Only two engravings of it exist and they

contradict each other, one showing a four panelled window, the other

eight. Now Matt thinks he has the answer and its all down to 800 year

old graffiti. It suddenly struck me that the whole thing is covered in

a large, architectural and engraving. There are lines all over

this surface. There is an arc. There is the top of the window arch

there. The reason these faint lines on the wall are so important to

architectural historians is because the style of the window at Binham

is the oldest of its kind anywhere in Britain. It even predates

Westminster Abbey so it's a crucial stepping stone in our church

history. This is my particular favourite, that little hall there

is the point in which the master mason put his compass to mark out

that circle now. This since done by the Mason in -- at that time. This

is a man working out a new idea. What we found here was the first of

five. These are rare things to find. There is only about a dozen of them.

To find five in the same building is massively important. Has this

finally solved the mystery of what the window looked like? The window,

rather than being a revolutionary stepping-stone, was a revolutionary

step forward. Incredibly special. With so much graffiti being found,

Matt set up the Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey. It has now

examined more than 125 churches in Norfolk as well as some rather

unusual religious sites such at St Benets Abbey on the Norfolk Broads.

The building is currently being restored which has allowed unique

access to all its nooks and crannies. A ship their. Exactly

like the ship graffiti we were looking at. We have a lot of it all

the way up. Graffiti has been found in more

than 80% of the buildings surveyed. Nearby Ludham Church has such a

rich source of grafitti, Matt uses it to train up new volunteers and

I'm the latest. I have my it sticky labels and my torch and the

challenge is to find as much I have found 25 pieces of graffiti,

most of it text, circles and stars. That is pretty good. We have found

probably 100 inscriptions in this church but we have been doing it a

lot longer. Some of the best and more complex designs are actually

here in the Tower. You didn't actually come in here. Some of the

ones here are more complex. They are beautiful. We have a beautiful

daisy wheel design here. There are lots of other ones around the side.

Thanks to the success of the Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey,

the idea has now spread to six other counties including Suffolk

and Bedfordshire and Matt hopes one day there will be a graffiti

database covering the entire country.

Many of our volunteers have been trained. They are the first person

to see some of these inscriptions That is it a from Dunstable. I hope

you have enjoyed the programme. If you think there's anything we

should be looking at, send me an e- mail. Join me next week when I will

have these stories from the east. They are heroes of World War II.

Why is the British Government stopping these veterans received no