10/03/2017 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Now on BBC One, it's time for the news where you are.

And here in Look North tonight - A 17-year jail sentence

A West Cumbrian mother, who told her youngest son

to kill his brother, is starting a long

Alison Murphy, who's 52 and from Whitehaven,

encouraged her son, Gary, to kill his 26-year-old brother,

Today, a judge at Carlisle Crown Court jailed Alison

He ordered Gary Murphy to be detained indefinitely

in a secure hospital while he receives treatment.

Mark MacAlindon has been following this extraordinary case.

This is the story of a dysfunctional family,

namely Alison Murphy and her two sons, Tony, who's 26,

Gary had a real resentment of his brother, exacerbated

by the Asperger's syndrome he has, where conflict festered in his mind.

One night last April, Tony had rowed with his mother Alison,

and it's then that she'd exchanged these texts with her younger son,

Gary, that were key to the case, effectively instructing him

One said, I think he should be killed, although I'm not sure

Gary replied, I'm fine with whatever, as long as he dies.

Now Gary arrived at his mother's house in Whitehaven,

Tony lost a litre and a half of blood from a gaping

wound but he did survive after hospital treatment.

Tony left court today, unwilling to talk to us.

He did give an impact statement inside the court.

He said he felt sorry for his mother, that her life was ruined,

and he hoped she would win an appeal so she could come home.

He was prepared to look after her house and her dog

The judge in this case, Peter Davies, said the plot

was crude and unsophisticated, but it was premeditated.

He therefore jailed Alison Murphy for 17 years and sent Gary Murphy

I've been speaking to the police officer who led the investigation.

It is so unusual that a mum and son plan together to kill the other son.

I think it's affected Anthony immensely.

Anybody who is family-oriented will understand what closeness

of family means, and to find out how you've been betrayed by your brother

A desperately sad case, but one thankfully that we

A man's been arrested by police investigating a rape

in the Northumberland town of Morpeth last month.

The incident happened in the early hours of Saturday, February the 4th.

An 18-year-old woman was walking near Morpeth Golf Club

when a man in a car stopped and offered her a lift.

She got in, and after driving a short distance, he raped her.

Police say they've arrested a 55-year-old man, who's

been released on bail pending further inquiries.

It may sound unthinkable, but a council boss has warned a lack

of maintenance could force the closure of local parks -

unless there are changes in the way they're run.

Newcastle Council is consulting on a plan to transfer parks

to a charitable trust, after a sharp fall in funding.

It says the new body will be better able to raise money.

But critics question whether the approach will work.

Here's our political correspondent, Luke Walton.

Many date back to Victorian times and they've been at the heart

But parks like Leazes in Newcastle are feeling the financial pinch.

Austerity has pushed funding down by more than 90% and the man

My personal opinion is that over the next few years maintenance

will slip so much that we'll have to close some parks,

That's what we're not going to do, but that will be the inevitable

Newcastle Council is consulting on plans to transfer parks

and allotments to a charitable trust it says would be better

Sunderland Council is also looking at a similar approach

for some of its parks, over a longer time scale.

They'd be following the example of a parks charity in Milton Keynes,

which looks after around 5000 acres of greenery.

There are so many advantages of having a trust that is dedicated

We're not up against other demands for other services.

By having good, well maintained parks, where all the income

is ring-fenced to use back in those parks, means we can

Back in Newcastle the woman who represents park volunteers says

the impact of cutbacks is already evident.

She worries the new organisation won't fill the gap.

We don't know how much it's going to cost to maintain

parks and green spaces, and on the other hand,

the councillors aren't telling us how much the social enterprise

The council says it's still examining how much income

a parks charity would need, but it insists parks would remain

in the ownership of the local authority and free to use.

That's unlikely to silence further questions about the future of these

And there's more on that story this Sunday morning

Police are investigating after a 14-year-old boy was spotted

Northumbria Police found the car parked in a lay-by

in South Shields, and seized it for not having insurance.

The force's roads unit tweeted that the boy "denied all knowledge,

but forgot his books were in the boot".

A new survey suggests people in parts of the North are drinking

The survey of 2000 people says while nearly a third of people

nationwide have cut back in the last year.

That figure rises to more than 40% in the North East.

Many said the main reason was to save money.

Others that it was about improving their health.

I don't know whether it's just as you get older,

I'm a teacher, so I'm definitely drinking more.

However you're relaxing this weekend, I'll wish you a good one.

Let's find out what the weather will have in store for

We hang on to the cloud through the night tonight and that

means Saturday is going to start off on a very mild note.

There will be a few patches of mist across the Cumbrian fells

and as we go through the morning we're going to see things turn

We have this band of rain sinking down from the north.

Generally, Saturday, lots of cloud, quite a grey and misty feeling day.

Temperatures getting up to a high of around 11 Celsius.

Fast forward to Sunday, we start off with some rain.

Again, it's a fairly cloudy, misty start.

Some dry weather through the morning for a time.

But then another band of rain pushes in from the West as we head

Once again it will be fairly light and patchy.

Temperatures up to a high of 11 Celsius.

Sarah Keith-Lucas has the national forecast.

Where the sunshine broke through to the North of Cornwall temperatures

rose to 17 degrees under the blue skies. For many of us the cloud

didn't break up through the day, keeping temperatures pegged at

around about 13 degrees. That was the high today in the London region.

Mild over night with the blanket of cloud