29/05/2017 East Midlands Today

And now the news for the East Midlands, I'm Geeta Pendse.

East Midlands Today can reveal that several hundred prisoners

are being taken to hospital every year in this region.

Many inmates needed ambulances after being attacked

or overdosing on drugs.

And crews even had to help some women prisoners give birth.

Our social affairs correspondent, Jeremy Ball, reports.

Our prisons are calling ambulances, around three times a day and more

often than not they end up taking an inmate to hospital.

We've been given details after an freedom of information request

to the East Midlands Ambulance Service.

Here's where those crews went - to 14 jails and young offenders

institutions in the area covered by EMAS and to the Morton Hall

immigration centre.

In all, there were well over 3000 incidents over the last three years.

We wanted to know how many of those calls were for deliberate attacks.

There's been persistent concern about violence,

particularly here in Nottingham.

The figures show this prison needed more ambulances

than any other East Midlands jail.

And across the region, more than 300 calls were recorded as assaults,

traumatic injuries or lacerations and burns.

This is a terrible and horrendous catalogue of violence.

It's happening all too often, we see assaults every single day

in the region's prisons.

That should create concern for all of us because, as these figures

show, these problems spill out from the prison and put pressure

on other public services.

Some ambulance crews dealt with things like heart attacks,

which might happen anywhere.

But a lot of calls in that three-year period were prompted

by drugs or self-harm.

The figures show 335 incidents that were recorded

as overdose or poisoning.

Another 256 were listed as psychiatric or suicide attempt.

And there were 18 calls for pregnancy or childbirth cases

at Foston Hall women's prison.

The cost of an average ambulance call is more than ?200.

The Ministry of Justice says staff in prisons are trained to deal

with emergencies and the decision to ring the Ambulance Service is

made by health-care professionals.

The family of the late Lord Janner say the independent inquiry into sex

abuse should drop its investigations into claims he sexually

abused children.

It follows the announcement that six alleged victims have

dropped their civil case against the peer's estate.

Lord Janner died after the prosecution case

against him had started.

The situation has changed so significantly that now

we would like the enquiry to stop a strand into an individual

who the facts have changed about, there is no criminal case,

no civil case, and we want the inquiry to do what the inquiry

is meant to do and the terms say, which is to look into institutions.

But lawyers for child abuse victims say the allegations

against the former Leicester MP remain and will still be

investigated by the independent inquiry.

A man's been charged with murder after the body of a woman was found

at a house in Derby.

Police were called to Pear Tree Crescent just before 10:00pm

Saturday and found the woman's body inside.

A 35-year-old man, Atual Mustafa, was arrested.

He appeared before magistrates this morning and will be back at

Nottingham Crown Court on Wednesday.

The family of a man who's died after a battle with cancer

say they now have to decide what to do with the thousands

of pounds raised for his treatment.

Former Nottinghamshire policeman Phil Hogg was diagnosed

with pancreatic cancer less than two years ago.

His family managed to raise ?43,000 to help send him

to a clinic in Germany.

But sadly he died last Thursday.

Police in Derby are investigating after a body was found

in the River Derwent this morning.

In a statement, they say they were called by a member

of the public, just before 9:00am, who had spotted the body

near St Mary's Bridge.

It's not yet clear if there are any suspicious circumstances

and enquiries are ongoing.

Police say they're concerned for the safety of a woman

who's gone missing.

19-year-old Shannon Parkin was last seen in the Mansfield

area last Thursday.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police.

Next, part of Leicester has been transformed over the weekend

with giant faces and murals painted on some major buildings.

Graffiti artists from around the world were allowed

to leave their mark as part of an international festival.

Simon Ward has been taking a look.

Some of the new legal graffiti in Leicester is massive,

towering above the streets of the Cultural Quarter.

The festival, called Bring the Paint, saw more than 150

artists getting involved.

Pablo came from Germany to be part of the event.

I was really happy and glad to get a chance to do this.

This is an incredible line-up, really the high society

of the graffiti scene.

Of course I want to take part of it, it's a real pleasure and an honour.

Music, skateboarding, BMX and enjoying food and drink

were also part of the festival mix.

One of the things about the festival, we really wanted to do

something that really celebrated a lot of the creative

work that is happening in Leicester at the moment,

so we thought it was a good opportunity to use

the Cultural Quarter as a canvas, invite a lot of artists to come

and leave a mark here.

Most of these art works will stay and the paint should last for years.

It should be really good, it brightens the area up,

you've got lots of grey buildings and concrete, so in the Cultural

Quarter it's nice to have a bit of visual culture on the walls as well.

Organisers are so pleased they're considering another graffiti

festival in the city next year.

A Nottinghamshire skate park which closed because it was unsafe

has reopened after months of renovation by volunteers.

A team of ten painted and repaired the Radcliffe-on-Trent skate park

in their spare time.

The new facility is now suitable for bikes, skaters,

boarders and scooter-users.

Most of the ramps were broken in some way, shape or form.

They either had big holes in them or they were

just worn and not really rideable.

The ones that were just about rideable were a bit dangerous.

It's been hard work but it pays off when

you see lots of people using it.

Now, you may already be a fan, but Nottingham's Food Assembly

scheme is going from strength to strength.

It enables the city's shoppers to easily source artisan

and locally made food.

In fact, it's doing so well it's had to move to bigger premises.

Elise Chamberlain reports.

Hard at work for the next batch of orders for jams and jellies

straight from the plot to the pot, Alice is one of the latest

food producers to join the Nottingham Food Assembly,

a click-and-collect service for food which, on average,

has travelled just 17 miles.

People are more aware of where the food comes

from and what's been put into it.

When I open a jar of jam, I know exactly what has gone into it

and I can point to exactly which fruit bush it's come from.

The assembly's now been running for ten months.

Organisers Bex, Shona and Kimberley have already seen the amount

of producers treble - and it's continuing to rise.

Nearly 42,000 has gone back into the local economy

since we started the Food Assembly, which we think is really great,

that's over 91% of all the sales go back into the local economy.

83% goes to the producer.

It's also moved to Primary Studios - a bigger venue for

a growing community.

It's not got that kind of faceless supermarket feel.

You're actually meeting them and seeing what happens to make that

food that goes on your plate.

With almost 350 products in its catalogue already,

they're now looking into delivery options in the future.

Elise Chamberlain, BBC East Midlands Today, Nottingham.

That's your news, it's goodbye from me and time

for the weather with Rebecca Wood.

Good evening.

It's been a typical bank holiday Monday, we've seen plenty

of rain out and about.

Our Weather Watchers have been catching those scenes,

plenty of cloud around and some mist, some fog.

It has been rather wet.

We will continue to see that theme at times through the new working

week but there will also be some sunny spells.

As for tonight, we see the area of showers clearing away

to the north and east.

Behind that, we could get a bit of fog developing in some spots,

but it will be clearer further south and west and slightly fresher

than it has been of late, so perhaps a little bit more

comfortable for sleeping overnight tonight.

Temperatures between 13-14 Celsius.

We start tomorrow with a ridge of high pressure starting to build

and that there is this weather system that will work its way

in from the west, along that some showers and behind it we'll start

to get the improvement, but it will start to feel a little fresher.

There will be some sunny spells through the start of the day