24/01/2017 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Good evening. and Emily Thornberry of Labour.

Seventeen years ago, a group of patients with a rare form

of blood cancer were given just a few years or months to live.

But they took part in a clinical trial in Newcastle and now many have

lived to have their own children and grandchildren.

The long-term results of the trial have just been accepted

for publication and the patients have been speaking

Time with family is something Jean Boyd never takes for granted.

Diagnosed with chronic myloid leukaemia 21 years ago,

she was told she had just a few years to live.

She was offered a place on a clinical trial in the year 2000.

I was properly going to die anyway. I think I just thought there wasn't

really another option. 17 years later it never occurred to me that I

would still be alive. It never occurred to me I would see my family

grow up. I thought by 50 I would be dead. So I'm thrilled.

The long-term results of the study, which Newcastle doctors helped

lead, have just been accepted for publication.

This trial has really led to a complete change. This class of drug

called TKIs, there are probably now about 30 or 40 that are being used

to treat anything from lung cancer to breaststroke cancer do leukaemia.

When the trial got under way in the year 2000,

doctors were hopeful they'd be able to extend patients' lives,

but what they didn't forsee was that some could potentially be cured.

Like Margaret, the very first patient on the trial.

I had a brother, he had died and even if he had been alive and been a

match, I would have been too old to have a bone marrow transplant. So

this was the only hope. It's given me a life, I've seen seven

grandchildren being born. I can't believe I would have lasted for 17

years and that the disease would have gone.

Now the Freeman Hospital is involved in a follow-up study,

where so far more than 90% of the patients have shown no

evidence of relapsing, a year after reducing their dosage.

I've do half of the patients don't need to remain on the drug, so we

are stopping the drug for many of the patients and reducing their

side-effects. So it is win-win for the patients and the hospitals.

Look North has learned health managers who are closing

Hartlepool Hospital's licensed fertility unit rejected a bid

from a company that's already run fertility services there.

Earlier this month, the local Clinical Commissioning Group

announced the service would end, meaning patients will have to travel

Managers said they couldn't find a new organisation to run the unit.

Health managers wanted to close Hartlepool's

fertility unit last year - a judge stopped them.

Then, at an emotional meeting last summer, it was saved.

Now those same managers say licensed fertility treatment here must end.

This video is from the Care Quality Group.

They have 15 fertility clinics up and down Britain.

They were already supporting services in Hartlepool,

but the local Clinical Commissioning Group decided they didn't pass

And that means people like Jodie, waiting for licensed

fertility treatment for six years, can't have it in Hartlepool.

The top and bottom of it is, I have to have the ability to have

children. And as the years go on about the months on, all that is

happening with me is that my body clock is slowing down.

The service aren't exactly mincing their words.

It must be disappointing for everybody who is waiting to undergo

fertility treatment, but it is as though they have already made their

minds up. There has been no comment yet from the clinical commissioning

group for Hartlepool and Stockton but in the past, managers have said

that procurement rules are very strict and due process was followed

in this case. I understand that Hartlepool Council's scrutiny

committee will discuss this issue next month.

Three men from Carlisle have been banned from all football grounds

for their part in a brawl with stewards at a match

between Carlisle and Hartlepool last October.

Magistrates heard that trouble flared when Carlisle scored and fans

Luke Hodgson, who's 18, Stephen Neaves, who's 25,

and Carl Swan, who's 24, were banned from football

A North Yorkshire farmers mart, that's been in existence for over

100 years, says it doesn't know if it can survive a big hike

From April, Hawes Mart will see its rates bill leap

from ?7,500 a year to ?47,000, as part of a new government

Sheep have been sold at this action mart in Hawes for 103 years,

It has seen its busines rates shoot up.

We have been paying business rates of about ?7,000, ?7,500,

It means that the mart is not going to be viable.

Business rates have been reset across the country.

Some properties will see a fall, but rural enterprises are the worst

hit, in the first revaluation for seven years.

The figures are compiled by Whitehall's Valuation Office Agency,

a London body, then, threatening the existence

and jobs of an obscure northern auction mart.

We've done a survey of the marts in the North of England and most

of the marts have received an increase of around

But nobody has had a rise like ours of 600%.

100,000 sheep are sold here every year, including

I would sort of regard it as sheep insurance really for your auction.

You send things into an abattoir and you're certainly not as safe,

I wouldn't have thought, with the money.

But if the mart goes, it won't only be farmers that

September and October are the busy months anyway in Hawes,

but the market adds something to it because you get farmers

what from all over the country coming to buy, it's a big social

event and then you get the visitors that find it

So it's a big part of Hawes, is the market.

In its defence, the Valuation Office Agency said it sets rateable

values fairly and equally, and there is an appeal process,

Time enough for the mart to no longer be at the heart

A car dealer from Newcastle, who's 6 feet 7 inches tall,

has been banned from driving for 12 months, after pleading guilty

to dangerous driving, but he maintains it was all down

26-year-old Adam Elliot was accused of standing up while he was driving

a convertible Ford Ka on the Tyne Bridge a year ago,

but he insists he was sitting down at the time.

This incident took place in January last year.

When car dealer Adam Elliot was on his way back from buying

He had the roof down and he is accused of standing up

in the car while he was driving over the Tyne Bridge.

Although he insists that he was sitting down

and it was just his 6-foot 7 inch stature that made it look

like he was standing, he took the advice of his lawyer

and pleaded guilty to dangerous driving at Newcastle Crown Court.

I wasn't standing up in the car, that obviously didn't happen.

But I was too tall for the car and obviously that has caused

a distraction to other road users and it's wrong, isn't it?

The judge said you were obviously showing off,

Well, I was playing up to people that were waving along,

but I would have said I was just being courteous.

They were waving at me, I was waving back.

Mr Elliot has 12 previous convictions of driving

while disqualified and he now has to wait until next month

I'm worried, but I've been honest and I've

accepted what I have done is wrong, so...

The judge gave Mr Elliot credit, saying he very sensibly pleaded

guilty to the charge of dangerous driving.

But then he went on to say, "It's pretty obvious that

you were showing off, demonstrating your height

and distracting other drivers, in a small, open top vehicle".

Mr Elliot will be sentenced on the week commencing

This is Damian O'Neill for BBC Look North at Newcastle Crown Court.

That's it from me this evening, time now to look

Paul, I've just about had enough of this cold weather now.

It's January, it's going to get colder later in the week! Some

drizzly rain over Cumbria and up to the Scottish Borders. Most places

will stay frost free because of the mounds of cloud and southerly

breeze, temperatures around three or four Celsius and. Bright spells in

the morning and even through the afternoon it stays dry and if you

bright intervals here and there, breaking the cloud. 9 degrees, 48

Fahrenheit, but that southerly breeze will be quite brisk at times.

That will take the edge of the numbers and make it feel cooler than

those numbers suggest. The wind is certainly a feature of the weather

in the next few days. For Thursday, that wind coming off the continent,

dry and bitterly cold air, temperatures taking a bit of a dive

before slowly recovering as we head towards the weekend. Thursday,

generally dry but that cold air means that after a frosty night,

eastern areas will be a degree or two above freezing. Slightly less

cold in the West but still bitterly cold where you are exposed to that

wind. The weekend For all of us, it'll get colder and

then milder again come the weekend. This shot taken earlier by a weather

watcher in East Anglia. The fog becoming extensive over the next few

hours in many south-eastern parts of England.

Much, much milder, further north