03/03/2014 Inside Out South East

User rooms for addicts in Brighton and Hove. The former top cop who

thinks they are an option. Ht has to be better that they take thdir drugs

in a supervised setting. And the rehab expert who thinks not. The

problem is, it has distractdd us from the real issue to do whth a

sustainable recovery progralme across the city. Where is the best

place to send your child to school ` Kent or Sussex? We can get people

from every social class to universities such as Oxford and

Cambridge. And one needs br`in and the other needs brawn, so how is

chess boxing spreading to Stssex. The idea goes back to a verx old

concept of the warrior poet. This is something that is almost at the

logical in human culture. I'm Natalie Graham with untold stories,

closer to home. From all rotnd the South East, this is Inside Out.

Hi, I'm in Frant, right on the borders of Kent and Sussex. The

boundary between the two becomes very important later on. But first `

he was Brighton and Hove's top policeman, committed to fighting

crime and making society safer. So why does he want to provide special

rooms for heroin and cocaind users to get high? Glen Campbell dxamines

the former police commander's case. Brighton and Hove. The Pier. The

Beach. The Pavilion. It's a special city. Some call it London bx the

Sea. It's quirky, liberal btt has always had its dark side. No one

comes to brighten cars of the good services. They come for the party

scene. For a decade or more, Brighton's secret shame was drug

death. More people died frol overdoses here than in any other

British city. Fortunately in 20 1 that changed. Brighton lost its top

slot, but it still has a big heroin problem. To give you a visu`l

example of just how bad things are here in Brighton and Hove, here is

one freshly discarded needld right next to the Children's Centre, it

doesn't get worse than that. And it's scenes like this that have

provoked a controversial debate Last year Brighton's top cop, Graham

Bartlett, provoked controversy when he suggested the city should think

about getting its drug addicts off the streets and into Consumption

Rooms, places where addicts could safely inject and smoke thehr drugs.

Graham's reasoning was it would be better than having needles littered

everywhere. I've been fairlx sceptical about drugs consulption

rooms during my career, but, if asked whether better people take

drugs in there or back stredts or car parks, then better to t`ke in a

supervised setting. Now rethred does Graham Bartlett still think

rooms like these, successfully run in Germany, are a good option for

Brighton? To find out, we wdnt with him on a fact finding mission.

Destination ` Frankfurt. As cities go, Brighton and Frankfurt have

striking similarities. Liberal leaning. Both with a thriving

artistic and cultural scene. Tolerant cities. But in the

mid`1990s, Frankfurt found htself blighted by drug addicts. Ldt's not

mess our words here. The misery The crime. The detritus of drugs. And

that last straw for Frankfurt happened in this now quiet city

centre park. Welcome to Frankfurt's heroin hell. 800 addicts all in one

city centre park. They calldd it Needle Park and it was a no`go area

until in the mid`1990s, the Germans decided enough was enough. Nearly

every day, 500, 800 people dealing and consuming, real cruel condition.

Here is that park now. Wolfgang Barth played a central role in

opening Frankfurt's first drug consumption room. Graham went to

meet him. So if Brighton Hove wanted to do this, what advice go `bout

doing that? The first step hs all those professions who have something

to do with this problem to come together on a round table and they

should decide together that they want new steps in the drug helping

system and also in the politics Next step, build up crisis centres

with a basic helping system where homeless drug consumers can stay at

night`time and stay in the daytime where they get medical help they

need. Getting the police's support is crucial because they're the ones

on the front line, trying to keep law and order 24/7. Most people have

a view that the police are tolerating it, that the polhce

doesn't not do anything. Whhle Graham was out on patrol in the

consumption room district, H headed off to do some detective work of my

own. I've got a very simple question. Do Frankfurt's drtg

consumption rooms really stop the addicts from taking drugs in public

places? I've come back to Ndedle Park to look for some evidence. It

didn't take long to find frdsh needles littering the park. The

Consumption Room may allevi`te the problem but it certainly dodsn't

eradicate it and for the local businesses on its doorstep, some saw

the Consumption Room as a social blight. It's awful, it's disturbing,

very simple. I'd strongly rdcommend to convince city authorities to

places where no business or tourist environment. We are very happy about

the consumption rooms because we had the addicts between the cars and

everywhere on the street so now we gather them and support thel well so

that's a great progress. Thd dilemma for the police in Frankfurt is, just

as in the UK, the possession of heroin and crack is illegal but for

the consumption rooms to work, the officers have to turn a blind eye.

Frederic I used to command the police in Brighton and Hove, how do

you advise the people working there now if they were to have a

consumption room? How do yot exercise their policing? Ond of the

biggest advantages is to have the scene located in one area so you

have these people in one pl`ce you don't have to go round and search

for them and look in other `reas but big need of officers to control 24/7

a day. So what is it like inside a drug consumption room? It w`s time

to find out. Hello Wolfgang, hello good to see you. Open 12 hotrs a

day, between 120 and 150 heroin addicts come here to inject. Drugs

workers supervise. Addicts bring their own heroin. Clean needles and

spoons are provided. So this is the Consumption Room? Yes, open six to

nine. Wolfgang's team operate a one`in one`out policy so thd

Consumption Room doesn't get too crowded. Now you are here what do

you think about it? I think saving lives and impressed partnership with

the police. Yes, hope you gdt some ideas taking back to Great Britain.

Back in Brighton and Hove, ht's a lively debate on whether we should

follow Wolfgang's lead and open a Consumption Room or pursue `

different route. In principle, a lot to commend consumption rooms,

because evidence suggests that first of all gets drug needles out of

parks. It also means you reduce overdose deaths. Crucially, for me,

but they appear to do is to attract people who otherwise not known to

the services will stop by and up trust over time, you can get those

people who are not known to the health services in the city, into

that relationship and hopeftlly on the road to recovery. But not

everyone is a fan of Consumption Rooms. For the last 30 years Andy

Winter has worked tirelesslx getting addicts clean and back into society.

His thinking is simple. Why help them poison themselves? Surdly we

must help them get clean? I think they have a very marginal ilpact

across the city. Whether thd cost justifies the result. If we spend

that money in a different w`y, we could achieve far greater rdsults.

The problem with the consumption rooms is that it has detracted us

from the real issue to deal with a drug recovery programme across the

city. As a police officer, he advocated a more caring approach to

drug addicts. Now retired, Graham Bartlett's view remains the same.

Tough on crime but compassionate to the addicts. What would you say to

people who say, hang on, I pay for the police to be the police not

social workers? I would say that people for the police to cut crime

and you only have to look at the figures here in Brighton and Hove,

that how we have done that hs getting people into treatment so

they don't have to go breakhng into people's houses, don't have to go

robbing people or stealing from shops, they can get off thehr drugs

and lead a more productive life So how close is Brighton and Hove to

getting something like this, a drug user Consumption Room? Well the

Council is conducting a feasibility study that's due to report back in

April. A decision one way or the other will be made then.

Schooldays, the best days of your life, and the time when the seeds

are sown for a successful ftture. The good thing about school,

obviously you learn and you get all the life opportunities that you get

from learning a variety of different subjects. In some lessons you get

tonnes of homework. I like drama and PE. It's got a good social side But

Kent has a type of school that East Sussex doesn't ` grammar schools.

Grammar schools only accept bright students. In order to get in, you

have to pass the Kent Test, also known as the 11 plus. So Kent has a

selective system. East Sussdx doesn't. So bearing that in mind,

which is the best place to dducate your child ` Kent or East Stssex?

What actually are the facts about GCSEs? And how does a countx with

grammar schools measure up to a county without them? We askdd two

teachers, one from each county, to explain the benefits of each system.

You have got these quotations. Sally Porter teaches English at a

comprehensive school in East Sussex. Willingdon Community School in

Eastbourne. At nonselective secondary schools there's no

discrimination on the basis of a student's academic or sociodconomic

background. Students are all treated equally and are all integrated

together. What we are going to talk about is

meaningful and meaningless language. Craig Lowis is a teacher at the

Chatham and Clarendon Gramm`r school in Ramsgate in Kent. Grammar schools

are the most egalitarian system of school. We aren't interested in what

your address is, what your postcode is, what fees you have to p`y or

anything else. We only want to know what sort of learner you ard. So

it's the only kind of school where you'll find all walks of life who

are able to learn in this p`rticular way. However it is a fact that

poorer families are eligibld for free school meals. And the number of

students on free school meals in grammar schools is only 3% compared

with a national average of `bout 18%. So where does that leave our

teachers? Both are correct, they don't discriminate. The Kent grammar

school system doesn't discrhminate. It sets a test, anybody is free to

enter that test. But of course, the crucial thing is, who actually does

enter the test? Not every ptpil will enter the Kent Test and therefore,

if you've got parents who are motivated, who see the gramlar

school system as something that they want their child to be a part of,

they will be motivated to enter them into that test.

So whist the school doesn't discriminate, the parents do. Kent

is selective, East Sussex is nonselective. How did this come

about? Well, the first gramlar school was set up in the ye`r 5 7 by

the first Archbishop of Canterbury, St Augustine.

The idea behind grammar schools was that they taught the grammar of

Latin. More than 1000 years later, the 1944 Education Act divided

education into three types of school ` grammars, secondary moderns and

technical schools. Then in 1965, the Labour government

decided they wanted just ond type of school for all types of puphls ` a

comprehensive school. The government encouraged local

authorities who run the schools to convert. But that's the important

point. They didn't order thdm, they encouraged them. East Sussex

complied. But one county in particular resisted ` Kent, partly

because parents were unhappx with the idea. By the time we get to the

1990's, new grammar schools ` or any school which selected by abhlity `

was banned. What the selecthve system delivers is that you do get

schools that can take the most academically able pupils and enable

them to fulfil their potenthal to the fullest possible degree. But are

they the most academically `ble There is evidence that it is the

more well off families that are getting into the grammar schools.

There is I think, an issue but it's not one of the selective system

There is an issue across thd whole national education system around

better off families undoubtddly tending to congregate around what

might loosely be described `s better schools. But that applies in

nonselective systems just as much as selective ones. East Sussex County

Council declined to be interviewed for this programme. They did give us

a statement saying: The advantages of comprehensive

education include the opportunity to offer a broad and varied curriculum

for young people and removes the requirement for selection at a young

age, which does not always take into account different rates of cognitive

development. This is twin brothers Dave and John Hill. They grdw up in

Brighton in the 50s when it still had the 11 plus. John failed and

went to a secondary modern school and became a carpenter. Davd passed

and went to a grammar school, spent a time as councillor for East Sussex

and Brighton and is a university professor. They both now believe

selection is a bad thing. You were labelled as being not fit for higher

education. You were labelled as only being fit for the manual working

class labour market. So we build the houses and construct the thhngs for

the people who went to gramlar school. You're making it sotnd as

though we're not important. Without us, you wouldn't have a house to

live in. Not in the slightest. I'm a Socialist, I stand for election on

behalf of the working class. The schools should have all abilities,

all types of people, all types of social class mixing together as a

preparation for life in sochety We've looked at the arguments, but

what are the facts? For those James Williams recommends, you go to the

Department for Education website. For instance let's look at GCSEs and

the percentage of pupils who got five or more grades A* to C. If you

look at Kent, 86.5% of pupils in the Kent authority are getting five or

more A* to C. How about East Sussex? We c`n see

that the figure there for the local authority is 82.3% so yes, ht is

slightly lower than Kent but we re not talking a very signific`nt

margin here. It's 82.3% compared to 86.5%. A grammar school per se will

obviously always get better GCSE results. But between the two

counties, there's very little difference. In any case, Jales says

education is not all about passing exams. Do visit the schools. Are the

children looking happy, do they feel happy? If they are looking happy,

then the chances are your child going there will be happy.

Chess and boxing may appear to be at opposite ends of the sporting

spectrum, one needing brainpower, the other brawn. But a sport merging

the two, called chess boxing, is taking off in the South East.

A boxing match with all the razzmatazz of a big showbiz event.

This is a modern event known as chess boxing.

The origins of chess boxing owe as much to art and music as thdy do to

sport. Martial`arts film Thd Mystery Of Chess Boxing came out in 197 and

US rappers the Wu`Tang Clan brought out an album of the same nale. A

round in the ring, a round on the board. Chess boxing as a re`l`life

competitive sport has a small but growing fan base in the UK. Centred

around London, there are fotr title matches a year at the Scala, and

training sessions in the capital's gyms. The idea of the sport goes

back to the old concept of the warrior poet. This is something

that's almost mythological hn human culture, someone who is both a

physically`powerful protector and hunter but at same time emotionally

sensitive, intelligent and capable of strategic thought and pl`nning.

Anthony Wright is a former heavyweight boxer and is now a

chess`boxing coach. Boxing takes people off the streets, and I

believe chess as well is a way of, when you are bored, it's solething

to do. Both have the same concept of taking away boredom, you know,

giving kids something to do instead of being in the street, up to no

good. Chess and boxing saves lives. The rules of chess boxing are pretty

straightforward. It's three minutes of boxing followed by three minutes

of chess. Either until your opponent has had enough of being punched or

it's checkmate. Lieven Van Larke is an internet entrepreneur and former

City broker trying the sport out for the first time.

Just curious, I read about ht. It sounded pretty interesting. I

thought I would give it a go. But whether it's chess or any other kind

of boxing, is the thrill worth the risk? Many doctors would like to see

all boxing banned. The Brithsh Medical Association wants the sport

outlawed at both amateur and professional level. The concern is

over potential brain damage from blows to the head. Not all

neurologists agree with the need for a ban, but most acknowledge there

are risks. I think there is a concern that if boxing is more

popular, we will eventually see more people with head injuries. Because

there is a risk of acute br`in injury as well as chronic brain

injury, and although those risks may be low, every time they occtr they

are a tragedy for the peopld they affect and their families.

Boxing professionals believd it is no more dangerous than some of the

sport. Boxing is lower than rugby, cricket, football. Chess boxing is a

sport in its infancy, but now it's coming to East Sussex. Mike Laver

from Brighton took up chess boxing last year. He's decided to set it up

a club locally, and his target for new recruits is the Sussex

University Chess Club. He s`ys there are similarities between thd two

games. It's really about mahntaining concentration and being abld to

respond to your opponent's `ttacks and not giving up, so from the

training sessions I went to, they are really enjoyable, so th`t's

really what motivated me to try to set up a club in Brighton. The chess

club has some keen and very serious players, but what do they think of

combining chess with boxing? Might you try chess boxing? No, not for

me. Not for you? Why not? Not enough strategy, not enough thinking. I

like a long game, where you can plan, take time, feel the adrenaline

and the intensity of the gale. I'd definitely give it a go, ye`h. I'm

just not really sure how well I d be able to do the boxing part. Chess

boxing appeals to women as well as men. Sina Krause is an artist living

in Brighton and is entering the sport competitively. She pr`ctices

chess with friends whenever she can. She trains for boxing every day Her

first competitive bout takes place next month. She will fight tnder the

name Zena The Technician. I think I like it because you don't h`ve to

punch in order to win. You obviously do the boxing, but you can win the

fight on the chessboard. But who exactly is chess boxing going to

appeal to? Is it the tradithonal boxing lover or is it the f`n of

Kasparov? Can the cool, calculated chess contest ever thrill those who

love the heat of the boxing ring? Here at a hotel in East Grinstead, a

Queensbury boxing night is tnder way. Queensbury is a relatively new

league, somewhere between alateur and professional boxing. Thd

audience is definitely here for the thrill. I'm so excited, I love

seeing men beat each other tp. It's great. Why do you like that? I don't

know, I think it's great th`t men just have fights and punch dach

other. It's hard to imagine the crowd here

wanting to watch a quiet few minutes of chess. But backstage, sole of the

boxers were interested in the idea of chess boxing. Have you ever

played chess? I like it, ye`h, when I was kid I used to play it all the

time. I used to love chess, actually. Do you think you light

give that a go as well? Yeah, why not? I'm undefeated at boxing, so I

might give my opponents an opportunity to beat me at something

else! It sounds really good. It is more mental, the chess, and when you

get into the ring, it is more physical, so you have to work on

both of them. It's a big night in Brighton at the Stables boxhng gym.

It's a chess`boxing trial nhght that's attracted quite a crowd.

Some new players flexing thd muscles of mind and body. The Sussex

University Chess Club are spuaring up.

You might be good at chess, but I will smash your head off in boxing.

And Sina, who has her first competitive match at the Sc`la in

London on April 12th, is tr`ining hard. I like the crossover from

sport into art, because if `nything could be art, it's chess. Loads of

artists have played chess in their time, and I like the idea of not

looking at it as a sport, btt as an art in practice. Is it art? Is it

sport? Or is it just plain terrifying? Whatever you thhnk about

chess boxing, it's making an impact on the South East.

For more information about our show tonight, you can go to the Kent

Sussex websites, and you can watch the programme again on iPlaxer. That

is it for our current series, but we will be back in the autumn. Have a

lovely summer, and we will see you soon.

Hello. The 92nd update. The Oscar Pistorius trial has begun in South

Africa. He pleaded not guilty to murdering his girlfriend at his home

last year. A neighbour said she had terrible screams on the night.

Russia sends more soldiers into Ukraine and will stay there until

the crisis comes down. A corporal killed herself and her Wiltshire

barracks, today a coroner said bullying and an alleged rape were

two factors. A good night for the bit at the Oscars, Gravity won an