10/02/2014 Inside Out West Midlands

After a 10`year battle, this building is finally being restored.

Tonight, impressionist Alistair McGowan investigates at risk

buildings in the Midlands. Proud industrial buildings like this are

at the top of the critical list. Fighting back, I will meet the blind

and partially sighted people learning to defend themselves. I am

Mary Rose, and this is Inside Out. In 2010 we spent some time following

West Midlands Police's newly`established Football Unit as

they launched a crackdown on football`related violence and just a

few years on we were told that things are very different now. So

when Aston Villa met West Bromwich Albion in November we tagged along

to see for ourselves. Two proud clubs, one of the longest`lived

local rivalries in the English game. The last two times these teams have

played each other we have had large risk groups come out from both

sides. It will be a great surprise if we don't get risk groups out

today. You don't have to tell us that, our

cameras have followed this Police Unit before. We know all about risk

fans, or hooligans to you and me, because five years ago we brought

you dramatic scenes of violent confrontations between rival West

Midlands firms. You wear your colours, you're sweet, but if you

come looking for it you're going to get it. We thought it was time we

came back to see if things have changed. During the 2008/2009 season

over 3,500 fans were arrested at football matches but what about now?

West Bromwich Albion versus Aston Villa live on BBC WM 95.6. Tonight

it's a big local Derby. It's still two hours till kick off and there's

already trouble. We have got a disorder in the Jewellery Quarter in

Birmingham. We have deployed resources but we already had

resources there is. We are deploying spotters there to try and identify

who the individuals are and we are arranging for more resources to go

and join up with them. Over in the Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham,

football intelligence officers and spotters are already on the scene.

Aston Villa fans have been drinking in the Rose villa Tavern. We've been

called to a disorder. It would appear a group of WBA have gone into

the pub caused the disorder. One male has been assaulted. The

suspects have run off so now we've got officers in the area trying to

round up those who went in and caused the disorder. PCs Stewart

Bladen and Martin Portman are specialist officers who know the

faces of the people most likely to cause trouble. To supporters have

been arrested, one with some injuries to his face. It's a small

scuffle but Inspector Howard Lewis Jones wants to make sure it's the

first and last fight of the night. What we want is the normal fans to

be treated in a nice friendly. Those risk fans, we'll start off in a nice

friendly way but if they don't take any notice of what we're saying then

we deal with them very very robustly. Back at the ground and

some of the fans who were drinking in the Jewellery Quarter have

arrived. Can we have all of you with tickets over on this side, please?

Now all the police need to do is get them through the turnstiles without

any more problems. In the past we did tend to do it all one way, now

it is about looking after the decent fans who come to a football match.

The police say they now treat a football match like a simple

community event. Before it was more like they were preparing for battle.

Nowhere is that change more evident than in this moment from our last

film. Back in 2009 our camera crew got caught in the crossfire between

Police and Birmingham City supporters. The newer tactics are

that we're trying to engage as much as possible with normal supporters.

So that people go away with a good impression of West Midlands Police

and that we're here to assist in event rather than to deal with

trouble. Even the fans just here to watch the match are noticing the

changes. They are here but you do not see them as much. Obviously, you

have got a few fans but for a derby game, there would normally be

thousands. It is more low`key and create less of a tent atmosphere. I

always feel very safe knowing that they're there. I think they're doing

a sound job. It is not the regular fans that need policing but the

people intent on trouble that Howard and his team need to watch. Why do

they do it? I just got a buzz, at the time I was professionally

fighting so it was just like extra fights. I can't speak for anyone

else but I had a buzz. Barrington Patterson, also known as One Eyed

Baz, used to be a notorious member of the Birmingham City firm The Zulu

Warriors. We'd have a nice day out, do this do that, and have a fight `

hopefully not get arrested. That was my day. The Zulu Warriors first

appeared in the 1980s and fast became one of the most prominent

firms in the country. Those days may be behind him, but his reputation

still makes enjoying the football difficult. Even today, I will go to

a football match and the police will be on my case. I have to tell people

to keep away from me because the police are watching me all the time.

It is history for him but back at the hawthorns, will there be people

still looking to feel that same buzz? Spirits are high. Villa have

managed to claw it back from being 2`0 down to a draw. But Howard is

confident the new tactics mean there won't be any more trouble. In the

past we'd have had straight lines of police officers. Almost regimented,

we're trying to move away from that and not be seen as a force purely to

deal with trouble. That is very well, but does it mean that the

police have gone soft on football hooligans? Those people we are

arresting are causing us real problems. They are not individuals

who have had a drink too many of these are individuals who who are

out to cause as real trouble. We identify them, target them and deal

with them in a completely different way. There's a certain element we

don't want going that way and meeting up with rival fans, that

would cause us real problems. It is best that we control the ones we are

concerned about, get them on the trains and back into the city. That

is the tram, the train is this way. But even with the change in police

tactics football violence hasn't completely gone away. Since our last

film in 2009, arrests have dropped by 35%. But Barrington says the

police will never eradicate it completely. Times have changed, the

tactics have changed, but there are a lot of people going through the

same motions as years ago. The biggest firm out there are the

police and you're never going to beat the police. There have been a

couple of arrests tonight. Inspector Lewis Jones and his team have

successfully moved the lads who could have caused trouble on ` all

with a smile on their face. At the end of the day we're football fans

and we want to treat them as we'd like to be treated ourselves.

Being physically or verbally abused at a football match or anywhere is a

terrifying ordeal for anyone but imagine if you could not see your

attacker. What would you do? This is what some blind or partially sighted

people have to deal with on a daily basis. I have found out how some

people are fighting back and stop the first rule of self defence is

not to be there in the first place... A self defence class in

Telford, Shropshire. Do not put yourself into a situation where you

are likely to make yourself a target. What makes this one

different is all the people here are blind or partially sighted. Why

would blind people want to learn self defence? Well, when you hear

some of the stories we have been told, you will understand. I was

walking down the road after dark, I do not see anything at night. A

vehicle approached me and driver engaged me in conversation, saying,

I am not scratching my vehicle driving around you. When I asked the

driver who he was, they did not respond, and the vehicle drove

straight at me and knocked me over onto the grass. I noticed some noise

on the other side of the road. It was across the carriageway. The

liquid was all over me. Fortunately, the cans did not hit me but nobody

stopped to assist me or phone the police or anything. When I walk

along, people purposely barge into me or they do not see me and I have

a lot of problems with people with pushchairs or prams, and I do not

see them. Sadly, for some, these types of attacks are alarmingly

common. My left eye is a false eye. I am partially sighted. I get a lot

of abuse, and I have been assaulted a number of times as well.

39`year`old Ali lives in Coventry and says that he suffers abuse at

least once a week. Ali, give me an idea of the sort of abuse that's

been hurled at you, it's physical and verbal, isn't it?

It is. Thankfully it's mainly verbal but in the past I've been spat at

and punched. There's a sense that stories like

these might just be the tip of the iceberg but it seems that not all of

them get reported to the police. People are afraid that either they

won't be believed or that nothing will happen or that it's happened in

the past and they think, you know, that this is normal behaviour.

Is it possible to say how big a problem this is, the scale of the

problem? Because it's a very under reported

crime it's difficult to say how big a problem. Recent government

statistics say that about one in 14 people with a visual impairment have

experienced a hate crime. Unfortunately many other people are

affected because they live in fear of experiencing hate crime. They are

living in fear. With over 166,000 blind and

partially sighted people living in the West Midlands that means that

there are potentially thousands of victims already out there.

People are telling us that they're experiencing it but they don't want

to come forward because they think they might make the situation worse,

it's a real issue for people. The police are taking it seriously and

so are Action For Blind People. Unfortunately Ali Verney knows all

too well just how terrifying these assaults can be. One of the worst

incidents of abuse, physical abuse happened here in this park. Tell me

what happened. I was walking from over there, Pool

Meadow to city college which is just behind those flats over there. I

didn't really know Coventry back then because I lived in Kenilworth.

I walked through Swanswell Park and someone turned to me and said, "You

don't need that stick. You put it on". I ignored it and because I

ignored it they pulled a knife and stabbed me through my belly button

area." Goodness, were you ok? I put my hand down. Looked at my hand it

was covered in blood. The next thing I remember is waking up at Walsgrave

Hospital. Ali had a miraculous escape, an off

duty police officer and a paramedic witnessed what happened that day and

came to his rescue. His attacker is now behind bars but it still affects

Ali's daily life. I was frightened at first to come

back into Coventry on my own. I'm not surprised.

But I eventually overcame it. How did you feel that first time

that you stepped outside your door here in Coventry and you had to,

sort of, walk around again after that happened?

I didn't feel safe at all. I felt like someone was going to hurt me.

Whether they've been victims of hate crime or just heard about it, you

can understand why people might think self`defence could help them..

So what do they actually teach at the class in Telford?

We like to have confidence with competence, it has to be real you

know. We're not going to teach them to punch, kick, elbow and headbutt.

We're teaching them escapes and awareness of their surroundings and

they get a lot from that. And of course with that comes great

confidence. Because the levels of sight loss in

the class vary, a team of instructors is on hand so that

everyone gets the one to one tuition they need and it's proved very

popular. For the people here today, the benefits of taking a class like

this are clear. What I think we get is for people to

walk tall, walk with confidence, and be happy.

Confidence I think, just learning how to defend myself as I go out a

lot on my own. While the course in Shropshire is

just taking off there are already others like it.

Why because you locate the thumb so you realise which arm is grabbing

you? Stephen Nicholls has spent five years developing the one Touch

Project, a self defence system specifically designed to meet the

needs of blind people. As the name suggests, touch is the

key element. It became pretty clear that there

was a big gap that needed to be addressed. Me and a team of people

studied it forensically for quite some time, it's been a programme for

five years now. We've taken from all sorts of systems of self`defence and

put together a very tailored system if you like. It's not a martial art,

it's a very specifically tailored system.

I want to introduce you to Ali, who has been attacked quite badly do you

think that your One Touch system could help him?

Absolutely I'll give it my best shot." It

it takes weeks to learn the system properly and safely. These are just

some of the basics. In other words don't try this at home. You seemed

to pick that up really quickly ` how was that for you?

It was all right it was comfortable, I felt like he was going to come at

me and maybe hurt me but I soon turned it around and I felt like I

was the one in control of the situation.

Nobody is trying to suggest self defence is the answer to the

problem. If hate crime figures are going to be reduced more needs to be

done to encourage people to report it. But from the smile on Ali's face

it can go a long way to helping build confidence.

I'm feeling really good because thanks to Stephen I'm actually now

being able to learn how to look after myself and handle myself if

someone comes to attack me in the street.

If you have been the victim of hate crime or have witnessed something

they you would like to report, go to our website. It is fully accessible.

There is advice and information on who can help.

This factory closed its doors in 1999. It made Coughlin 's for the

whole country. For people such as Winston Churchill. The battle to

restore the building has taken a decade but work outside is well

underway. What is the grandpa and? The building work should be finished

at the end of June and September is our target for opening because then

we have to bring back the material from Newman Brothers, the stock and

machinery, and it has to go back into the rooms so we can return them

to how it looked. So it seems this building is one of

the lucky ones but so many in the West Midlands hard and because of a

lack of funding are left to shear rate. Alistair McGowan has been

giving some of the building a health check. `` to deteriorate.

This is the cinema I used to come to as a small boy and watch films with

my sister. We would never know how the movie would end. Would the good

guys beat the bad guys and would we get to the end of the film without

needing the toilet? Join me as I journey through the West Midlands to

see which of this region's historic buildings are being restored, like

this cinema, and which are on the critical list. But before that, I

caught up with the person leading the rescue project in the Midlands

and asked how the region has fared. What is the critical list?

We call it the Heritage at risk register. We publish it every year

and it's not just buildings. It is great one and great will to `` grade

one and grade two listed buildings. It includes battlefield and gardens.

How does it compare in terms of its heritage?

We've probably got slightly more buildings on the list than some

other places. Our average is higher than the national average but if you

were to characterise the type of heritage that is at risk in the West

Midlands, industrial heritage is one of the things that we have a

particular issue with because of the decline of the industrial Black

Country and the potteries and so forth. These things are

irreplaceable. They are part of our heritage and they are a very small

percentage of the buildings, arguments and landscapes that we

have and they tell our national story so if we lose them, we've lost

that part of the story forever. But it needn't be the case. As Nigel

Slater might say, you take something from the past, and many, and care

and wait for it to rise. Hopefully you have made something tasty that

will keep generations happy. Keeping our heritage alive can be an uphill

struggle. A former art school has been on the register since 1982 and

I wonder whether those championing its course had ever given up hope?

This is an ordinary Birmingham suburb with an extraordinary number

of listed buildings. On this road alone there are 16, the string of

pearls. This is the school of art, but for the past 25 years it has

been home to the Muslim Association and the years have not been hard?

Kind to it. `` have not been kind to it. When we took it over, it was in

a disastrous state. Water was closing in, the basement was

flooded. It created problems. We got the building watertight and started

repairing the inside. Once the heating had been operational, the

building started drying out and we found there was an outbreak of dry

rot and dry rot travels like wildfire. We have to recognise this

is probably one of the most deprived areas in Birmingham, if not the

Midlands. We want to try and provide facilities in the local area for the

local community. There is a lot going for us, really, but we need

help. It seems help is at hand. The mostly

Muslim Association is now working with English Heritage to raise the

funds that can help them continue their good work on the building. I

hope they succeed. I last port of call was

Staffordshire and a building that has declined to such an extent that

I worry it could be beyond salvation. In the 19th century this

teapot factory in long port was the heartbeat of the community and today

that Hart has long since stopped beating. The West Midlands was once

known as the workshop of the world. Stoke`on`Trent was the beating heart

of its ceramics industry but today the blaze has gone and this part of

Staffordshire paints a very different picture. Once proud

industrial buildings like this are now at the top of the critical list.

Let's have a look inside. I met with a man whose links to this

place span several decades. He shared his memories of its past and

hopes for its future. You used to work here in your youth.

What was it like? Very, very busy. Lots and lots of

people worked here, about 3000. What is your role here?

I'm caretaker. I have been caretaker here for 14

years. I don't get paid. There are about eight of us. One is a

bricklayer, one as a joiner. We volunteer and work here, patching

things up. We have never had a penny off anyone. You are doing it on a

voluntary basis. Why? Because I like the place.

My wife worked here, her mother worked here. How would you describe

it now? It is collapsing.

I've patched it up here and there but I can't put boards up against

the windows because I'm not allowed. It would have been a start but we

can't do anything. What would you like happen? I would

like it ought to be restored. When you say restored, it couldn't

become a teapot factory again, or could it?

Is good. It could be stored and rented out as units. Would it make a

good museum? It would.

It would make a very good tourist attraction.

This is one of the oldest pot banks in Staffordshire. You would lose a

lock of history. A lock of history. A lot.

Phil and his band of brothers desperately wants to save this site

but are they holding back the tide? Restoration isn't just about putting

things back the way they were. For buildings like this to have a proper

future, we need to find new ways of using them but first we need to hope

somebody cares enough to save them. Otherwise we run the risk of losing

our link with our nation and region's past. By getting involved

you can help make sure structures like these can tell their tales for

centuries to come. The story of the demise of the

buildings in the potteries. Let's hope they get a new lease of life,

like this one. The Newman Brothers in Birmingham. Drop me an e`mail if

you have a story you want us to cover. Thanks for watching and I

will see you next time. Next week Mary and the scene team

investigate what happens when tattooed skin wrong. I had a Chinese

sign that said hot lesbian.