06/02/2013 BBC Oxford News

Good evening. A young woman has broken down in tears recalling how

a man groomed her and forced her to have sex with groups of men. She's

the third alleged victim to give evidence at the trial of nine men

accused of abusing girls in Oxford. Our reporter Joe Campbell has been

following the hearing at the Old Bailey. A little earlier he told me

more about what the woman had said. The jury was hearing from a person

only describe as Guthrie. She had met Mohammed Karrar when she was 12

and walking by the River Thames. He invited her to join him for a drink

and then she began a relationship with him, meeting on several

occasions. She said he treated her like an adult and made her feel

special. Tell us what the girl said about

how the relationship changed. She was 12 when she first met him.

By the time she reached 13, they had been having a sexual

relationship despite the fact that her mother had made it plain to

Mohammed Karrar what her young age was. She said about spade -- about

stage there was a dramatic change in the way he began to wards are.

She was called to one of the flats where they used to be before the

first sexual activity. Two other men arrived and one began to touch

her leg and she complained. She says the Mohammed Karrar to go into

the kitchen and said they were her friends and that she had to be a

good girl and gave her some crack cocaine which she had to smoke. She

said she was involved in sexual activities with two other men which

but Mohammed Karrar was said to have belonged. Over the next few

days, another a similar event said. -- similar event happened. She said

similar things took place over the next couple of years where she

engaged in sexual activities with various men at Mohammed Karrar's

request. All of the men deny the charges against them and the gold

will continue to give evidence at the Old Bailey tomorrow.

A man's been arrested and held under the Mental Health Act

following the murder of a 53-year old man in Aylesbury. Mark Austin

died last Friday, a day after he was attacked in the Harcourt Green

area of the town. A 49-year-old, who was initially held on suspicion

of causing grievous bodily harm, has now been sectioned. Police have

appealed for witnesses. It's a city well known for its

bikes, but a campaign group says not enough money is being spent to

help cyclists. The Bike Safe group has discovered that over the past

three years, Oxfordshire County Council spent just 0.2% of its

transport budget directly on cycling facilities. It says the

authority is not interested in improving or expanding cycling

infrastructure. Allen Sinclair reports.

With more than 20,000 people regularly cycling in and around

Oxford, there's clearly demand for safe biking routes. But new

information obtained by cycling campaigners makes it clear that the

amount channelled specifically into cycle paths and associated

infrastructure is a tiny fraction of the overall budget. Over three

years, Oxfordshire County Council spent �230 million on highways and

transport. In that time, less than half a million went towards cycling

infrastructure - or 0.2%. doesn't sound like very much. If

you go further out of the city, there are fewer cycle lanes. The it

is quite a risky thing to do, cycling. It does not sound very

much at all. The figures were obtained by Bike Safe - a group

formed to campaign for a cycle- friendly pathway on the busy B4044

between Eynsham and Botley. 2,000 people have signed a petition in

support - but organisers say the county Highways Department ignored

its offers to mount a joint bid for extra government funding. There is

very little investment in schemes to encourage cycling around the

county. If you happen to live in Banbury, Bicester, abandoned and

other areas, you frankly do not get any of that money. Oxfordshire's

Highways Department has said that the figures present a distorted

picture, because cyclists also travel on the roads, and money

spent on general maintenance benefits them as well as other road

users. It also rebutted claims that not enough is done to attract extra

funding to improve cycleways. In a Meanwhile the Bike Safe campaigners

hope a planned meeting with the Prime Minister will move their

campaign up a gear. Builders of dry stone walls say

they're being inundated with work following recent poor weather. Rain,

snow and ice have all taken their toll on the traditional hedging in

the Cotswolds and across Oxfordshire. With thousands of

miles of walls to be maintained, its upkeep is an expensive business.

Brennan Nicholls has been to find out more.

Keeping up with repairs to the dry stone walls at Blenheim Palace is a

big ask. With nine miles of perimeter walls alone, it usually

costs the stately home up to �50,000 a year just to keep the

walls standing. So much so, Natural England has given Blenheim a grant

to help it keep up. 2012, though, has proven to be a tough year for

its walls. We have had one of the worst years in our history last

year. A lot of water has been getting in, inside the walls. If

you add in the recent snow and frost, a lot of expanding and

contraction and degrading of the inside of the wall. This method of

making walls dates back to 2000BC and the 4000 miles of walls in the

Cotswolds alone are as long as the Great Wall of China. It just falls

into shape after a while. It is like a jigsaw but with my picture

to work from. Yes, basically. Winter normally takes its toll on

dry-stone walls and this one has created a clamour for craftsmen.

lot busier. I would say compared to this time last year, the amount of

phone calls I have been getting to repair walls has tripled. A good

dry-stone wall is expensive to build but can last for centuries.

With the weather creating more demand, it looks set to be a busy

few months ahead. In football, Swindon Town are up to

third in League One - just two points behind the leaders - after a

1-0 win at Colchester last night. Substitute James Collins scored the

goal eight minutes after half-time - to extend the team's unbeaten run

to ten games. Paolo Di Canio refused to take questions about his

future after the match, but today the prospective new owners of

Swindon have denied a newspaper report that they planned to replace

Di Canio with a new manager. Oxford's brain surgeons are the

focus of a new series beginning on BBC Two tonight. Brain Doctors is a

documentary filmed over nine months at the John Radcliffe Hospital and

shows the reality of life for both those working and being treated

there. There's a hundred-strong team of

consultants here at the JR, who perform almost 4,500 operations

every year. And it's the focus of tonight's programme. Jay Jahamohan

is one of four paediatric neurosurgeons working here. Earlier

I asked him what it was like to be watched by cameras. I cannot

remember them not being here, they have been here so long, irritating

us constantly, coming to ask us what we are doing all the time. It

got quite quiet when they left because you did not get harassed

all the time. But they fitted into the team really well. Brain surgery

is seen as the ultimate clever person's job but watching this

series, we came across very down- to-earth people. Is that something

you were aware of? The way I put it to the guys that I am training is

that we are not extraordinary people. We are ordinary people

doing an extraordinary job and we are lucky to be able to do it. We

do not take for granted what trust people have to put in us. We still

put our underpants on one leg at a time so we are just like everyone

else. Theatres here are on standby 24/7 and the pressure of the busy

ward is another focus of the series. We have no emergency bed. We are

juggling somebody in an somebody out. We have two patience that

could go to the ward but there are no ward beds. It is going to be a

bit tight because we have more patience coming in. We are like

dogs - very calm on top but paddling like mad underneath.

all hope that we'll never have to need the services of Jay Jahamohan

and his team here so for many of us this documentary may be the only

insight we ever get into this highly specialised and unique ward.

The first episode of Brain Doctors is on BBC Two tonight at 9pm.