23/01/2017 Look North (North East and Cumbria)

Hello and welcome to the lunchtime Look North.

Police hunt three men after a pensioner

was brutally assaulted in his own home in

And jail for the callous bogus callers, whose

knock on the door lead to an elderly woman's death.

Durham Police are hunting three men, who attacked a pensioner

It happened on Saturday night in the village of Coronation,

Alison Freeman joins us for there now.

Police are describing this as a terrifying and horrendous attack on

an elderly man in his own home. Officers were called here just after

8:30pm on Saturday evening. The 77-year-old victim had simply gone

out to his call shed when three men wearing face coverings tackled him.

The shovel from him and hit him over the head with it. They then dragged

him into the house, pinned him down and searched his property. They fled

with his life savings. The victim had to be treated in hospital, but

fortunately his injuries were not serious. Today officers have

described the impact of that attack on him.

He is alone in his own home, the one place

you're supposed to feel safe and comfortable in and this type of

He's too old to put up much of a fight and there were

So, it's an absolutely terrifying ordeal and

something which no one should have to go through.

I've spoken to him every day since this has taken place,

several times, and he is just devastated at the moment.

He is just really struggling to come to terms with it.

He has a great family behind him, though.

Police are saying that people should not keep large sums of money in

their own home for their own safety. Their priority is putting as much

effort as possible to catch these three men.

Three men who were part of a fraud gang targetting vulnerable elderly

people across the region have been given jail sentences.

In one case, a pensioner was robbed of his life savings.

Our news correspondent Mark Denten is outside Newcastle Crown Court.

The judge passing sentence this lunchtime describes this as a

despicable case of criminal conduct. This was a gang travelled around the

north east deliberately targeting vulnerable people, especially

pensioners, posing as builders, but actually carrying out virtually no

work. In one case as you mentioned a former miner lost nearly all his

life savings, ?30,000. Today three of the gang, Lee Davidson, Philip

and Scott were jailed for five years, three years nine months and

2.5 years respectively. Speaking outside court, the detective said

those sentences handed down a clear message. They send out a clear

message that we will relentlessly pursue offenders. This is a humorous

crime that has taken almost two years to bring these offenders to

justice. Highness crime. As we had justice. Highness crime. As we had

in court today, this was widespread fraud. There were some individual

cases we have heard about, but this was the gang operating right across

the region. That is correct. We believe they have operated across

the region and possibly even in Scotland, so I would appeal from

anyone who sees these photographs of these individuals involved, worried

and let us know if they think they might been victims of this crime as

well. One victim of the gang, Jonah Barnett who was 87 was knocked over

in the gang entered her home in Sunderland. She died three months

later in hospital. Another man who was 44 was charged with

manslaughter. He has since died. And one more member of the gang

described as one of the leaders of the whole enterprise, he is still on

the run and police are hunting for him.

One in five children in the North East, and more

than one in ten in Cumbria, is brought up in a home

Tonight on BBC One Inside Out looks at how, in extreme cases

over the winter months, some families are being forced to

Kirsten O'Brien visits Durham, where there's a scheme

through the county's network of 27 food bank to provide longer term

It came about because we found people who were coming to the food

bank weren't just in crisis for food, they also needed money

And in some cases, couldn't even cook the food that we gave

them, because they had no gas or electric.

We are able to put them forward for a voucher, so they've

then got fuel to be able to heat and cook the food that we give them.

And you can hear from Energy UK, the organisation representing energy

suppliers, whether it's prepared to roll out the scheme nationally

on tonight's Inside Out on BBC One tonight at 7:30pm.

A leisure centre closed by council cuts in the deprived west end

of Newcastle could reopen this summer and be run

The Friends of Elswick Pool have presented a business plan

to the City Council and hope to become a successful trust,

like the one that has run Jesmond Pool in the city

It's only been closed for 15 months, but green algae already clouds

However, a community group plans to clean up the pool and re-open it

by the end of the summer, if the City Council

There is so much about the pool that was really great before.

So, we had the steam room, sauna, swimming

lessons, women only, but there is so much more

When we did community consultation, people overwhelmingly

said that they wanted things like a soft play

So, we are really listening to the community and we want to be

The man who has helped community groups in both Jesmond and Fenham

to run their own pools is now advising the Elswick group.

And he sees a bright future for the site.

It's a very, very good building, Elswick Pool.

And if I think of the ones I have looked at around the country,

It's a modern pool, has fantastic facilities,

but it needs a little bit of work to get it back before we

can open doors and let people in for a swim.

Newcastle City Council says it's worked with the Friends for a year

now and is committed to the pool's reopening, but only when a long-term

And hot on the heels of its five BAFTA nominations,

the Newcastle-based film, I, Daniel Blake has picked up

At the Critics' Circle Film Awards last night,

It was a very cold and frosty start this

morning, but that didn't stop our weather watchers from getting out

This picture taken from Margo in Cumbria earlier on, showing

the sunshine just trying to poke through the clouds with the frosty

Now, through this afternoon, it is actually going to

There will be some sunny spells to be had as well.

You can see from the satellite picture, most

of the cloud is actually across parts of Cumbria, whereas the

north-east is seeing those spells of sunshine.

And that's the way it's going to continue through the rest

It is going to be feeling cold, though, the

temperature only reaching a high of around six Celsius at best.

As we go through this evening and overnight, we are

expecting another widespread, sharp frost.

We could well see some practice of freezing fog forming

once again across parts of north Yorkshire.

For all parts it's going to be called, though.

Temperatures dipping just above freezing.

Then produced the morning, he called,

Watch out for those patches of fog once first thing.

Generally, though, there should be some sunny spells

across more eastern parts, but for Cumbria we will start to see

a weather front pushing in, which will introduce more in the way

of cloud and there will be a fewer outbreaks of rain, mostly on

Temperatures tomorrow will get up to a high of around eight

Celsius, that's 46 in Fahrenheit, and it will be much breezy tomorrow

As we head through the rest of the week, we keep that breeze.

There should be some decent sunny spells on both Wednesday and

Thursday, but it is going to be turning colder as we head towards

That's all from the lunchtime team for now.

We'll be back at 6:30pm this evening.