25/04/2014 BBC Points West

Good evening. A Bristol wom`n who has been waiting for a kidndy for 11

years is calling for more pdople to become donors. Her appeal comes at a

time of crisis for the transplant service with a desperate shortage of

donors among black, Asian and minority ethnic people. Our Health

Correspondent, Matthew Hill, reports.

These two young women have got to know each other very well. That s

because they have both been on dialysis together for sever`l years.

Aneesha has just been given a kidney, but Maureen is still

waiting. So, three times a week she comes to Southmead Hospital for her

blood to be cleaned. And, after 11 years, waiting time is runnhng out.

I am running out of places to have dialysis. I am suffering

complications due to the fact I have been on dialysis for so long. I

don't know how long this will keep me alive for. Aneesha's father

donated one of his kidneys to her a year ago. It has changed my life

completely. It is amazing. H still cannot believe it has happened. You

cannot really think about how joyful and happy we are, seeing her living

a good life. The latest figtres show that 30% of patients waiting for an

organ tranplant in Bristol `re black or from an ethnic minority. But only

2% of kidney donations to strangers come from this group.

That's why the Lord Mayor is trying to sign up as many people from this

community as he can to donate their organs. There are some myths, some

individuals believe there are religious barriers. The way God sent

us into this world is the w`y we should leave. That is not true.

Islam or any other Abraham `t faith `` Abra Abrahamic faith says to save

a life. 40 people signed up for this donation scheme and now mord than

200 names are on this bit of paper. The average wait for a kidndy

transplant is three years. So, for people like Maureen, who have

already been on the list for more than a decade, the odds are very

much against them. A Gloucestershire care home manager

who stole hundreds of pounds from people with learning diffictlties

was sent to prison today. R`chel Stokes took residents money and used

it to pay for her bingo addhction. Our Gloucestershire reporter, Steve

Knibbs, was in court. Rachel Stokes ran a care hole where

the residents had serious ldarning disabilities ` many couldn't even

communicate. As someone thex should have been able to trust, Stokes had

access to their cashcards and PIN numbers and would take monex out for

them. But it turns out she was taking some of it for herself, to

fund her gambling habit. Today, the sister of one of her victims told me

how the crimes had affected them all. I don't think there ard any

words to describe what she has done. Just absolutely disgusted and

appalled. How has it left everyone feeling? The staff who have been

left holding the baby, they are disgusted as well. It has gone on

under the nose. Last year, `n audit spotted a discrepancy betwedn the

residents' bank accounts and the log the home kept of money taken out for

them. Rachel Stokes was arrdsted and came clean, telling police she would

draw out ?100 to ?200 every two to four weeks and use the monex to fund

her addiction to bingo. She admitted stealing ?1,000 but the prosecution

said it that was just a minhmum amount. The court also heard she'd

gambled ?11,000 she'd been given for a PPI claim. The judge said her

crimes were a serious breach of trust particularly because of the

vulnerability of the three victims. The phrase" serious breach of trust"

echoed through these proceedings, not only from the judge and

prosecution but also from the defence team. They said her crimes

were committed when she was at a low ebb. She said she was still coming

to does what she had done, effectively stealing from pdople she

was meant to look after. Before she admitted her guilt in court last

month, Stokes took to Facebook and said, "I have done some terrible

things which are unforgivable and I am truly sorry to all the pdople I

have hurt. I love all my falily Take care." The BBC underst`nds

concerns about Rachel stealhng from residents were raised in march last

year, several weeks before she was arrested. `` in March last xear But

the owners of the home have not replied to our attempts to contact

them today. Tonight, Rachel Stokes starts an eight`month prison

sentence ` she'll serve four months before being released on licence.

A Somerset man spread lies on the internet about a pub, which was

forced to close down as a rdsult. Joshua Bonehill`Pain, from Xeovil,

made up an internet hoax about the Globe Pub in Leicester. He said it

had banned British armed forces The story quickly spread online and

staff were threatened. Todax, he was given was given 180 hours unpaid

work and two years probation. Hundreds of people are expected to

turn out for a walk in memory of Hollie Gazzard this weekend. The

20`year`old was stabbed to death while working at a Gloucestdr hair

salon in February. On Sundax, her family will walk from Longldvens to

Cheltenham. Football now and Yeovil's rdlegation

to League One was confirmed tonight as they lost away at Brighton. The

Glovers needed to win their last two games of the season to have any

chance of staying in the Championship but tonight a 2`0

defeat put paid to any hopes of staying up.

Newsnight's over on BBC Two now ` talking disestablishmentari`nism.

But, before that, here' s the weather with Ian.

Good evening. An area of low pressure is still dominating the

pattern for the weekend. Ardas of showers, periods of rain but also

some drier and writer, if blustery weather. Still the threat of some

heavy showers on Sunday. Thdre will be a band of rain moving north`east

was chewing the first offer tonight. That will be heavy in places.

Temperatures on the mild side. That band of rain will be out of the way

by first thing tomorrow. A brighter morning for many of you. As we head

into the afternoon, the thrdat of further showers and outbreaks of

rain starts to return once `gain from the south`west. As I s`id, it

will be a blustery day. Particularly in the South. So things continue

into the evening of Saturdax. Temperatures should reach 14 or 15

Celsius. Sunday has a simil`r pattern, so some showers around that

with an outlook. We will have the outlook for the rest of the country.

Goodbye. Good evening. A bit of a

disappointing day. A lot of cloud around and we saw showery outbreaks

of rain. Courtesy of this continental plume which arrived

during the early hours and continues to drift further north. Into the

weekend, this area of low pressure will influence our weather. It is

already arriving bringing gusts of wind is to the Isles of Scilly and

the south-west. Further north, and easterly feed are dragging more

cloud, misty conditions and poor visibility with light rain.

Overnight lows of eight to 10 degrees. A band of persistent rain

through Northern Ireland moving out of Wales and into the North of

England and the south-east means a great, miserable start to Saturday.

But a clearance with sunny spells coming through. All the time that

area of low pressure to the south-west will keep feeding