04/02/2013 Inside Out Yorkshire and Lincolnshire

Hello and welcome to Inside Out. This evening, we are in Chevrolet.

Marks & Spencer in the firing line. �1 million fine for ASBOs stock --

for asbestos. It is reasonable to assume that it would have been

licensed to as best as removal company. The thieves cashing in on

high food prices and targeting our farmers. It is a combination of

deer food, economic recession and a relatively soft target. We can set

-- Storrar whole body so you are going to have four whole body is.

We meet the people who believe they can be frozen into the future.

few things the alternative is oblivion, what have you got to

lose? It was established over a century

ago in meets now Marks & Spencer is one of our most trusted brands. In

2011, the company was fined �1 million over health and safety

breaches when handling asbestos in one of its stores. The judge said

M&S had turned a blind eye to complaints and could have put

shoppers at risk. Were these problems confined to just one

store? We investigate. Richard worked as a joiner and shop

fitter in the 1960s. A lot of his work was with ASDA stores in Marks

& Spencers in the North including Barnsley, Worksop and Hull. When he

was cutting up the ports and shipping them to size, he describes

how much asbestos dust was released into the atmosphere. In 2010, he

died of mesothelioma, a cancer caused by breathing asbestos. His

former employer paid compensation. M&S says his exposure could have

come from many sources. It is impossible to say the link to

working in M&S is the cause because these people work for long time

over a variety of different projects in many buildings. It is

unfortunate that many of the people who worked in the building trade at

that time were exposed to asbestos. There are also staff members to its

claim to developed asbestos related diseases from working at M&S. Peter

Jackson was a warehouseman at M&S for almost 30 years. Seven years

ago, he was diagnosed with Jesus and -- mesothelioma. The doctors

kept saying you must have worked with asbestos. He said, I haven't.

Them p to record a 12 week period in 1977 when the Ashton store has

been refurbished. He was breathing dust from some working tiles.

could see the dust in the air, men doing the work, him boiler suits

and masks what I wore my ordinary clothes and didn't have any

protection. The dust contained asbestos. Peter died of

mesothelioma him to win -- 2008 and was paid compensation by M&S.

you look back to the 60s, 70s and 80s, it is possible staff were

exposed to asbestos in our stores. Society didn't understand the risks

back them. It is tragic our staff were affected in this way. Any

illness relating to asbestos is terrible and we did pay

compensation which is a right. Our society has learnt and we have

learnt and our policies have become industry leading. But retailers

have stores that contain asbestos. Some have been fined for breaching

the regulations. They include House of Fraser, the top, Topshop and

John Lewis. Evidence we have of how Ellis, and some of its come from

actors handle asbestos in the stores is worrying. It suggests

that the risks to customers, staff and contractors may not have been

fully acknowledged. One case in particular is concerning. In 1988,

M&S refurbishes its store in Marble Arch in London. William Wallace, a

health and safety officer, is horrified by what he sees. There

were minefields, asbestos mine fields for want of a better

expression. You could not have guaranteed the safety of anybody.

He says he flags up the problems with little effect so he begins

copy him pages from reports left by the day and night shifts for the

construction manager. This report from April 1998 says that a shift

has done it again. Cladding has been stripped with a sledgehammer.

Asbestos is everywhere. It's the third occasion in a week where

they've had to clear up after a dangerous occurrence. Somebody has

to control the day shift if they don't want the store closed and the

HSE crawling all over them. Horrendous, shocking, scandalous. I

recommend it that in areas where there was asbestos, it be handed

over to the licensed asbestos removal company. He rides Everest

chairman Sir Richard Greenbury and meet senior managers. Come the Met

says it takes the matter seriously and is taking the appropriate

action. What action did it take? the face of it, the allegations are

of worrying but our team thoroughly investigated it on the day, they

resent -- investigated it three months afterwards, and we could

find no case whatsoever to say that any member of staff or member of

public was put at risk. M&S says William Wallace was mistake about

what materials may have contained asbestos. We understand there was

not asbestos everywhere. We invited Mr Wallace in. We met him in a

third party location. His claims were discussed, he went away, we

think, happy. At the same time, he was not taking this to the agency.

There was a case to answer. Wallace begins working as a safety

manager added Moss and Spencer store and is horrified again.

was very little control on various contractors who were being asked to

work on or with him as a ceiling voids. There were other reports of

incidents that had occurred as very frightening. By Marina tip-off, the

Health and Safety Executive swoops on the Reading store. M&S is

prosecuted. This building worker gave evidence. He fears been

blacklisted by the industry so we've disguised his identity. He

described the goal stacking sand wedge packs. You could see the dust

for him Dail on to this girl. We asked her to move somewhere else.

But the manager went ballistic at us. He told us not to tell her

where to go. The gaps in the ceiling are sealed with hardboard.

These fell Dereham, merrily missing a child. You would have to say that

trials would have had asbestos fibres am dust. As would the mother

and everybody else. M&S tried to blame contractors for their

problems. We will make sure that never happens again. We checked

Dorothy -- thoroughly the policies and we are clear the policy to date

is a leading standard in industry and probably in the world.

firms were switched on the weather was potentially asbestos which

could have been taken into the rest of the store. This was regrettable.

The implementation was not good. We are sorry about that and we have

taken steps to make sure it never happens again. M&S was fined �1

million and ordered to pay �600,000 in costs. The judge said there had

been a systemic failure by M&S management. Their response to

asbestos a year -- complaints was to turn a blind eye because the

asbestos work was already costings the company too much. To keep

profits as high as reasonably possible, insufficient time and

space were allocated to asbestos removal. M&S has never put profit

before safety. There was no blind eye. Investigations were full and

thorough. We had a good policy which the judge said was sensible

and practical. The implementation was not good. We regret that. We

are disappointed by those judge's comments. The judge said that

everybody had no right to be anxious about whether they breathed

about the -- asbestos fibres and what effect that might have about

their well-being in the future. But M&S disagrees. I think him expert

testimony in Reading, there was no risk to customers or staff for.

contractors will also find and the company was a not guilty of

asbestos breaches in Plymouth and Bournemouth. Every year, more than

4,000 people die of mesothelioma and asbestos-related lung cancer.

It can take decades to develop. The pace of the disease means many

people never know when or where they were exposed to asbestos. Full

Marks & Spencer and the whole of the retail industry what happened

10, 20 or 30 years ago may still have an impact today. Any

suggestion that contractors, shop workers will customers were put at

risk deserves to be re-examined. We meet the people preparing for life

Now, sheep rustling may be seen as an old-fashioned crime but cases

have doubled since 2010. It's thought the rise is due to land be

more expensive so the stolen ship are being sold illegally as food.

Now it is a battle in the countryside to stay one step ahead

of the thieves. The north of England boasts miles

upon miles of stunning countryside. As well as beautiful views, it

provides a living for those who raise animals and work the land.

But this vast countryside also provides a great hiding place for

people who aren't so keen on an honest day's work. The thieves who

are targeting farmers and their stock. We take our ship away for

winter grazing. We went back a month later to take more of way and

we fouled 32 of them stolen. Martin Mitchell is a hill farmer in County

Durham. All his sheep were insured but the loss of them is more than

just financial. Not all sheep are the same. The sheep on your land,

they will stay in the area that you own. So, you can't just go out and

buy a sheep and put them on your land because they will wander off

and go. Martin's animals disappeared without trace. He's now

rebuilding his flock and stepping up security, especially during the

winter months. Thefts might be easier during long, winter nights

In the last two years, cases of rustling have more than doubled and

it's a costly business. And that his �800 of my money that has been

taken from me. Kevin Wilson knows what's it's like

to be on the wrong end of the rural crime wave. He farms out of the

small village of Blubberhouses in North Yorkshire, but rents fields

all over the county to graze his sheep. We go round on Sunday

morning, checking stock. I realised that a vehicle had been through a

gateway. In this field, there were 200 feeding lambs. I gathered the

lambs up in the field and counted them and realised approximately ten

had gone missing. Kevin, though, is luckier than

Martin and amazingly, within a few days, the police had tracked down

his sheep. It was just in that area between those trees and the river

where the sheep were recovered. It's less than two miles as the

crow flies from where they'd gone. Down there, they're well out of

public view. For me to recognise one of my sheep, at a distance, you

can see the red mark that is on the side of the animal. Also, the

Shipard tag, everyone has to be, so they have individual numbers -- the

animal has a tag. So I can go into a flock of sheep and identify my

lambs by that. So job done. But what happened to

the thieves who stole them? They did a flit, they'd gone the

following morning. Word had got out that we had

identified the site of interest to All the same, Mark has an idea

about who stole Kevin's sheep and today, he's making enquiries in the

Tadcaster area, near York. I am from Knaresborough, just doing some

inquiries into suspect vehicles. you give us the details, we do it...

Pay Cichon, which is what we want. So it is time to hit the road again.

But why have sheep become such a popular target for thieves?

price of meat is going up, so when you have hard times and the food

costs going there but you have effectively all of this food in the

countryside, fairly nightie protected, then you would expect

the rustling situation to increase -- likely protected.

Stolen sheep are ending up on our dinner plates, but there's a

warning for anyone who thinks black market meat is a bargain. Some

people may be thinking it they get offered cheap meat, it is very

tempting at the moment, but it has been butchered in the core of a

field or in the back of a truck, that is the hygiene situation. It

is not a good a deal as you might think.

Back in North Yorkshire and the hunt is still on for the rustlers.

Mark Ayre is off to Clitheroe market to follow up reports of

sheep thieves trying to do business there. I wondered if you could just

to check your computer records to see if this individual has carried

out any transactions. We have won just over the top here.

Mark compares notes with a colleague from Lancashire police,

who hit the headlines with their first conviction for sheep rustling

in 100 years. We traced them to County Durham and

then we got them on a DNA and traced them back to a small village

called Chipping. And those sheep belonged to farmer

Robin Dean, who farms just outside Chipping, near Preston.

When did you first notice you were missing 55 sheep? I'd gone at seven

o'clock in the morning to feed them and there were only two left in the

field. So I immediately knew there was something amiss. So you phoned

the police. Did you ever think you'd see your sheep again? No, I

have to admit I didn't, really. Even though they were in lamb, I

thought they'd be slaughtered and used for meat. If that had happened,

there'd be no trace of them. And that's where DC Elaine Smalley

comes in. Officers attended a farm in Durham, where Mr Dean was able

to identify his sheep. That led to the arrest of two people for the

theft of them, but one of the people was maintaining that he'd

bred them. So what we did was we DNAed the sheep and some of the

parents of the sheep, which proved that they'd been bred at this farm.

Were you surprised when the police suggested DNA testing? Yes, I was,

actually. It was quite funny that we had to go to those lengths.

I initially mentioned it to the victim in this case, I think he

thought I was bonkers but I explained it was something we had

to do to get that to court, so that someone would be brought to justice

as a result of the theft. Over in North Yorkshire, PC Mark

Ayre has made an unexpected breakthrough.

While making his enquiries, he's come across a local resident who

has some useful information. The man wishes to remain anonymous.

certainly substantiates the sightings of the vehicle in the

area. And which was what we were trying to set out to do in the

first place. Mark does make an arrest and a man

is charged but a few months down the line, the case is dropped at

court. And neither of the two thieves who

stole Robin Dean's sheep received custodial sentences either. For

stealing �15,000 worth of sheep, there'll be some farmers who think

those sentences are nowhere near stiff enough. That's right. Having

spoken to some of the farming community, they've said, "Will that

deter would-be sheep thieves?". I think not. It is always at the back

of your mind, we did leave some stock in the field, or you take

them away, you always think that they be, will they be there when

you come to load them back up? You just have to keep your fingers

crossed and hope you are not targeted again.

Now, for a group of people in South Yorkshire, planning for the future

has taken on a whole new meaning. Here in Sheffield is where UK

Cryonics has its headquarters. Members want to be frozen when they

die, in the hope that they can be brought back to life again in the

future. Lucy Hester has been to meet them.

On a quiet suburban street in Sheffield, in a garage, a small

group of people are working together to try and cheat death.

if you bring the arms ban. They're in the resurrection

business. It sounds like sci-fi stuff, but they are deadly serious.

This dummy is fondly known as Bob, but the procedure these people are

practising now will eventually be carried out for real - on one of

them. They're cryonicists. They want to

be frozen when they die in the hope that, at some point in the future,

the medical technology will exist to bring them back to life again.

And this ordinary house in Sheffield is the countrywide

headquarters for UK Cryonics - a group of likeminded people who

promise to help get each other's dead bodies in tip-top condition

for the deep freeze. The point of UK Cryonics is to be

there when the person dies. As soon as death has been pronounced, we

can cool them down, carry out the initial procedures, so they can be

shipped to America without any further degradation of the body

during the transport period. America and - recently - Russia are

the only places where you can be specially stored and frozen

indefinitely, so this is a timed trial of the pre-freezing

preparations. Lopes, wrong one. idea is that if someone's going to

live again, they need to preserve the brain as well as they can. So

they cool the body, inject a cocktail of preserving chemicals

and start mechanical CPR to keep oxygenated blood pumping around.

None of these people are medically trained, and there has been no one

to practice on for real, because none of their members have died in

suitable circumstances. It is one thing to work on a dummy,

it is another thing to work on a person that you know. I know, it is

quite scary. You just have to say that the best thing you can do for

this person is to get them preserved in the best possible way,

and then just putted out of your mind and get on with doing the job.

That put it out of your mind. you think about that? Yes, it is

scary. What's going on in there is really

a gamble. Not just a gamble that the technology will ever exist to

resurrect them, but a gamble that they'll be able to make what they

call a good preservation. Ever optimistic, though, parked on

the driveway is the cryonicist's so called "ambulance to the future".

We have got a ramp at the back for wheeling the patient in on the

trolley, and the suspension lowers the so we can get them in quite

easily. The ambulance would be despatched

from Sheffield to the deathbed of one of their members, manned by a

team of volunteers ready to start the preservation process

immediately that person is pronounced legally dead. And if

necessary, we can work on them in the ambulance as we are driving to

the undertakers. It sought to strikes me as a bit of a gamble.

is a gamble. But if you think, the alternative is a Bolivian, then

what have you got to lose? -- oblivion.

I've come to the Hunterian Museum in London. It's a kind of temple to

mortality and the frailty of the flesh. It's the 18th-century

collection of one surgeon, full of preserved specimens of human and

animal body parts. This is precisely what Garret Smyth wants

to transcend by being cryo- preserved. I don't see it as being

dead. More like suspended de- animation. An interlude. So you're

going to be frozen and shipped off to America? Yes, but just my head.

That can make make people think "Ugh". How can you live without a

body? You couldn't - they'd have to grow you a new set of limbs and

organs. For anybody who is news to cryonics, they would listen to that

and say it is fantastical, it is not real. Every step has a

scientific basis to it. But it is all on the edge of research, so I

can't show it you working now. If you had said to someone before the

first heart transplant, "We'll cut your heart out and replace it with

one from a dead person", you'd have just been laughed at. I have, as

yet, to hear a good argument put forward for being dead.

Leaving the museum, I'm struck by how much of the cryonicist's plans

are built on hopes and dreams - and I wonder if a dead body could ever

be brought to life. At the Institute of Nanotechnology in

Glasgow, scientists say freezing a brain would be unlike freezing any

other human organ. The brain's complexity means any cell damage

could be catastrophic. The brain is a complex three-dimensional map of

nerve cells that are connected to each other. And you don't have to

change much of that to alter someone's personality, memories,

behaviour. You just have to see what happens with people who have

dementia or who have had strokes. To say you can take all the fluid

out and just replace it with cryo- protectant and expect most of it to

This is Arizona. It's the final destination for most of the UK's

cryonicists. In the heat of the desert, they'll be deep frozen at

Alcor's life-extension facility. Inside is a gallery - photos of the

113 people stored here already, silently waiting to start the

second of many life cycles. When the bodies arrive - or in Garret's

case, his head - they're brought here to the lab, to be cooled to

very low temperatures. We're going to do the separation, take the head,

place it into here, tighten it down, and then use the medical grade

antifreeze and flush out the head, rather than the entire body. It's

also cheaper to have the head - or neuro - option, $80,000. A full

body preservation will set you back around $200,000. Most people pay

through life insurance. We got a full tour of Alcor. This

is where the so-called patients are stored - in a kind of giant thermos

flask full of liquid nitrogen. The temperature is minus 196

Celsius. They are divided into four quadrants. For different sections.

In each section, we can store a whole body. If a person chooses a

new row, we can actually get 10 containers within the size and

space -- a neuro. We also do pets. But we require that the members are

also signed up, we won't take a pet and thus their owners are being

preserve. For Alcor, it's a waiting game for

science to perform a miracle and make it all possible.

I really have very little idea of when we will bring back our

patients. Of a surprise to be takes more than a century, it may take

less. But when we do come back, the people there will well-preserved

will come back first. It may not even require highly advanced

technology, we just need to fix what killed them, fix the ageing

process. For other people, it may be a lot longer but we really have

to look into how we can repair damaged parts of the brains, it can

be very challenging. And there will be many patients, probably, under

none ideal conditions, who we won't be able to bring back. Alcor is no

stranger to controversy. In 2009, an ex-employee made gruesome

allegations concerning the treatment of bodies in Alcor's care

- although he retracted these following court action. Despite

that, 1,000 people worldwide are signed up, and counting.

Back in Sheffield, they're all set for the future. Stored in the

garage, Mike shows me the transport box which will be used for their

members' final journey to the US. There is space all around which we

can fill up with dry ice. This is science fiction. It's not

possible to bring a long-dead body back to life. But the cryonicists

believe it will be possible in the future - and this represents their

best chance yet of living forever. Well, that is it from us for

tonight. You can follow us on Twitter and Facebook, the details