11/01/2017 Look North (Yorkshire)

Welcome to Wednesday's Look North Tonight.

A teenager appears in court charged in connection

with the death of seven-year-old Katie Rough from York.

One of my good friends is really friends with her mum and she has

taken it really hard and so have her daughters because they were in the

same class. Also tonight: Claudia's Law wins

parliamentary approval so families of people who've gone missing can

deal with their financial affairs. Gusts of up to 93 miles an hour

cause disruption across Yorkshire. Could birds of prey be brought

in to deter seagulls from stealing Could birds of prey be brought

in to deter seagulls from stealing It has been a very windy day to day.

West of Sheffield there was 90 miles an hour and it was the windiest

place in the country. Join me for the latest.

Tonight, a teenager's appeared in court charged with the murder

Katie Rough was found critically injured on a playing field

A 15-year-old girl was today remanded into secure accommodation,

charged with her murder and with possession

Another very busy delay -- day here for the police here in York. A

number of people coming here with flowers to lay beyond the police

take just behind me. Another sombre day and a very difficult day for the

people of this area of the city, not least for the family of little Katie

Rough who were in court today. A lot of what was said we cannot report

for legal reasons, but a lot of it was very upsetting for anyone to

listen to, never mind for the little girl 's relatives. The family of

Katie Rough, at court this morning. The first sorrow filled duty of life

without the seven-year old. Katie seemingly had so much of her life

still ahead of her just a few days ago. On Monday it was cut short. She

died here on Alness Drive in the Woodthorpe area of York. The court

heard she had suffered significant lacerations to her neck and chest.

Police investigations continued at the scene, with a metal detector

used to search nearby undergrowth. Meanwhile the pile of floral

tributes grows. Four miles from the scene, the teenage girl accused of

killing Katie appeared in court for the first time. The accused, who was

15 years old, nodded to use show that she understood as the charges

were read out. Members of Katie 's family were also in court and some

were visibly upset as the proceedings finished.

The teenager is charged with murdering Katie Rough on Monday and

also with possession of a weapon, namely a knife. Outside Katie 's

school the feeling remains one of shock. Just a little girl, it's

really scary, I would say, you know? And then you don't want to lose

sight of any of your loved ones now. One of my good friends is really

good friends with armatures taken it really hard and also her daughters

because they are in the same class. Tributes were paid here in York and

also in the House of Commons. Sure the whole house will join in

heartfelt condolences for family and friends of the tragic death of

seven-year-old Katie Rough in York earlier this week. Also join the

right Honourable gentleman in expressing condolences to family and

friends of little Katie who died so tragically. Fundraising page to

support Katie 's family been set up by York resident

Maggie Jackson. She didn't know the family but says she wanted to help.

It isn't just me, this people all over the UK donating, it isn't just

something I am doing. It is in the hearts and heads of so many people

and that family, there is so much love for them at the moment and

people just want to help. Katie 's family were not speaking today, they

already know the pain of what they have lost, but not why. That funding

page mentioned has raised ?4000 in just one day. As regards to the

court case, it is too serious to be dealt with by the Magistrates' Court

so it will go to Leeds Crown Court on Friday and a teenage girl will be

held in custody until then. Winds of more than 90 miles per hour

have been causing problems Trees were brought down blocking,

roads and rail lines, and flights were cancelled

in and out of Leeds The winds have now eased

and services are slowly getting back to normal,

but for one couple in Bradford, last night's storms will take a very

long time to recover from, It is not the wake-up call it you

expect first thing in the morning. This 80 foot beech tree smashed its

way through this bungalow in Birkenshaw after its roots were

wrenched out by strong winds. I heard a loud bang like a bomb had

gone off. When I looked there was rubble all down the landing and I

knew it was bad but I didn't know what it was. We came outside and I

saw it was a tree and we were very lucky to get away with it, I think.

I wouldn't say was habitable now. The bathroom has been destroyed, a

lot of the internal walls and all of the roof in the centre has been

destroyed so it has had it. In Bradford this school was stuck to

students after slates flew from the Victorian roof. Meanwhile in South

Yorkshire high winds peeled away corrugated sheeting in Sheffield

city centre and gusts of 93 mph were recorded at high Bradfield. Not only

buildings have succumbed to the force of nature, across West

Yorkshire trees were battered. Closing or blocking roads. This

evening Bridgewater Place is slowly getting back to normal. Earlier the

roads were closed because of high winds, causing traffic gridlock

across parts of Leeds. If the roads aren't the only place where there

were problems. Landing at Leeds Bradford Airport was going to be a

challenge. It took all the pilots skills to bring this plane down

safely. Many passengers faced delays and cancellations. The strongest

wind we record here to here was in excess of 50 knots which is unsafe

operation so that was the reason why we had a number of delayed

departures and cancellations this morning. Nearly 40,000 homes across

the North lost their power supply today. It has now been restored. As

for the bungalow in Birkenshaw, it is unlikely the owner will be moving

in soon. Winds have finally started to die down, but can you believe it?

The forecast for the next few days is sleet and snow.

Later on Look North: Leading by example.

Triathlete Jess Learmonth champions swimming sessions for beginners

Proposals in memory of the missing York chef Claudia Lawrence,

which are designed to give families greater control over

the affairs of missing people, have cleared their first hurdle

The bill was championed by Claudia's father Peter.

Dubbed Claudia's Law, it was given the go-ahead in parliament

Our Correspondent John Cundy explains.

For nearly eight years Peter Lawrence has suffered the pain

of not knowing what became of his vanished daughter Claudia,

a pain compounded by laws which have prevented him from dealing

with the crucial problem of her outstanding financial affairs.

Today in the Commons, Kevin Hollinrake, on behalf of other

North Yorkshire MPs won the first critical stage to get

The creation of a new status of guardian of the property

and affairs of a missing person will fill this void and provide

a sensible and helpful solution to the practical and financial

difficulties faced by families and others following a disappearance.

Claudia Lawrence vanished without trace from her home

in Heworth Road in York early on the morning of March 18th, 2009,

Two major police investigations have failed to solve the mystery.

Peter Lawrence quickly discovered he could do nothing

about Claudia's financial affairs, but now a change he's championed

in the law should give families legal status of guardian

of the property and affairs of the missing.

It would mean that everybody can deal with their missing

loved one's mortgage, their direct debits,

their investments, their insurances, just like we all do day-to-day

Kevin Hollinrake's Bill now goes to its next hearing in February,

without any parliamentary opposition it should now become law.

We've just about got to the stage that we've won.

You've got to remember that it's 22 months ago that the government

committed to this bill and it's taken a private member,

Kevin Hollinrake, one of our local MPs, for Thirsk and Malton to bring

it forward himself, and at least we know it has got

Peter Lawrence at least a legal triumph in the midst

of the continuing anguish of missing Claudia Lawrence.

Well, MP Kevin Hollinrake joins us now.

Thank you for joining me. This has been a long time in the making,

hasn't it. How does it finally feel to have the guardianship bill backed

in the Commons? It is so important. It feels good but we have quite a

few stages to go through yet before we can get it into law but we have

got government support and backbench support across the house. We have

got a lot of local support has well, of course, so we are getting there.

The government has promised to support it

so we need to get this through by May and there are quite a few stages

to go through so we need to push as hard as we can to make sure that it

does actually happen. The government did make a commitment to what has

been called Claudius Law two years ago. Why has it taken so long and do

think it will move forward now? Some things take a while in Parliament. I

have only been here for two years but sometimes you have to keep

knocking on the right doors the long enough for them to be opened. I have

been at the right place at the right time and my colleagues have also

helped and been very supportive. We need to find the Parliamentary time

for it and we decided to do it this way, through this private members

Bill process, which is more difficult to get legislation

through, but we still can get it through and it is very important

that we do. Claudia went missing eight years ago this March. What

will this change mean for her family and her assets? Really we have to

pay tribute to Mrs and Mrs Lawrence because they have championed this on

behalf of other people. It won't help them now because they have gone

through this terrible process of trying to deal with affairs of a

missing person will stop there are around 4000 people go missing every

year and they are tragic cases, terrible emotions at that time.

Where are they, what has happened? Could I have done more? All of those

things, and then they look at the actual logistics of dealing with the

mortgage, the rent, the insurance and all those direct debits on

behalf of those missing people and they find they cannot do anything

about it because of data protection of contract law. There was no

provision for this in law, whether it's in similar situations if you

have an elderly relative who has dementia or a loved one passes away,

you are able to step in in those circumstances but not in this one.

Big step forward for Peter Lawrence and the rest of her family. Thank

you for joining me this evening. The MP for Batley and Spen,

Tracy Brabin, has called on Teresa May to step in to keep

open the A department She told the Prime Minister

that the ongoing winter beds crisis proved that the department is vital

to the local community. Over Christmas I had constituents

who were waiting 20 hours for a bed in a facility that might not even

exist next year. Would the Prime Minister now,

please, face reality and act now to stop this vital A

service from disappearing. Decisions about services

in the local area are rightly taken by the local national health service

because we believe that it's local clinicians and also local patients

and leaders who know what's best for their area, so it's about trying

to tailor the services to provide the best possible needs

for local people. Plans have gone on display

for a new ?10 million cancer centre at the Friarage Hospital in

Northallerton. A state-of-the-art facility

would include a chemotherapy treatment lounge, able to treat up

to 35 patients a day. The building would be named

after Sir Robert Ogden, the North Yorkshire philanthropist,

who's jointly funding the project I think it is fantastic. When you

think of what you are going through, the psychological effects of all the

things of being in dull rooms are waiting for results are waiting for

scans and things like that, to try get a facility that has as much

going at this as, to make you just feel a lot better about... It will

not change what has happened, but it can make you feel a lot more

positive. There's a bit of a row

going on in the Peak District. People in the village of Foolow

aren't pleased with plans to put The Peak Park bought

the land to stop it being Now the Park wants a mobile

caravan park there. This bit of prime Peak District land

was going to be a caravan site until the park authority realised it

had granted planning permission It bought the land for ?650,000

so it could protect it from being Now, four years later, the Peak Park

wants to turn it in to... It's the Peak District's job

to protect this fantastic and very That's what the planning

regulations are all about, but here the authority

is judging its own application, something the villagers down

the valley are not happy about. It is very concerning,

it's a bit like the MPs voting Legally they are allowed to do it,

it is part of their remit to be able to do it,

but when something is as controversial as this,

it really does beg into question the independence of their

planning authority. Peter Webster has been

a farmer here all his life. He wanted to build a barn

that he was told it wasn't He says it's not fair

he can't have his barn, but the Peak District can

have their caravan site. I'm afraid you won't put it on telly

what I think about it. My barn is roughly 300-400 metres

away from their caravan site Well, I think they should throw

the caravan site out. The wording of the original planning

application was wrong. It meant that private developers

could put permanent static caravans on the site and that's why

the Peak Park spent ?650,000 This new development would only be

for mobile caravans. The Peak Park Authority says it has

a duty to recover as much of that purchase price as possible

and reverting it back to a green To reclaim the money spent

on stopping caravans, We will keep you posted on how that

argument develops as well. Could birds of prey help scare some

of Scarborough's seagulls away and stop them swooping in to steal

food from visitors hands? It's one of the ideas being looked

at to tackle the town's growing Today the council's been debating

whether to bring in a firm to remove some of the nests and use a hawk

to move the gulls elsewhere. Seagulls and Scarborough just go

together, but in recent years the relationship has been

turning slightly sour. The number of birds in this town has

grown to a few thousand, and especially in the summer,

it's claimed they are I've seen them actually take food

out of people's hands and things like that and for children it can be

quite scary, can't it? People are feeding them as well,

they are feeding them titbits. And they shouldn't do,

they should not encourage them I think one or two people

are complaining too I have seen them swoop down and take

food out of a child's hand, but I don't think it's

all of the gulls. Today the council has

been discussing what Councillors could decide to hire

a firm to work on reducing the number of birds over

the next few years. We would use egg and nest removal

and that is not removing all eggs and all nests,

it is removing a percentage. We worked with Natural England

on that to say this is how many we are going to take

and we would report The natural assumption

from the bird's point of view that the bird of prey

is taking them. We're not going out to kill

anything, that's for sure. What the idea is is to move them

on and get them maybe into the cliffs of further

away from town. Visitors to Scarborough are already

urged not to feed the seagulls but some traders say the signs

are not working I work down here on the seafront

and all of the restaurateurs and the traders, the south bay

traders, do try to discuss and speak to members of the public

if they are seen feeding the gulls but generally, and sort

of understandably, the reaction is go away its not your business,

but actually it is our business because we see this

happening all the time. It may be winter but as you can see

there are still seagulls around. Normally in January you'd expect

them to be all out to sea but they are so used to being fed

here they're staying on land. If action is going to be taken it

will need to happen soon. The seagull mating season

is about to begin. I certainly hope they won't BBC

chips there at the end! I hope not. For anyone looking for a healthy

start to the new year, Bramley Baths could be

the place to be. Young up and coming triathlete

Jess Learmonth has launched a set of new beginner training sessions

leading up to the World Series event Yorkshire's one to watch,

Leeds local Jess Learmonth is usually found travelling

the world on the sporting circuit Her mission, to get Yorkshire

to give triathlon a go. If it's only a good thing, isn't it,

to get people involved and we have got the World Series coming to Leeds

so if people start doing a bit of swimming, a bit of running

and getting out on the bike then We have got such a nice roads

and great places to ride I love it, so hopefully

other people do as well. What is it about

Leeds and triathlon? Jess on the international stage,

the Brownlees are locals as well and now this scheme is getting more

people involved in a sport You usually find once people get

started they keep coming We have found extraordinary people

come along thinking they could do a triathlon and they were just

coming along to learn to swim and by the end of it they have

entered into a little mini triathlon and achieved something

and the smiles on those people's Jess came tenth and last year's

World Triathlon and this year she's hoping to beat that but these

sessions aren't just for seasoned More than 1,000 people have signed

up, 300 weren't active It's good now, I've only done two

sessions but even after the second session it was noticeable

the improvement that So if you're looking

to kick-start a healthy New Year, why not try three sports

for the price of one? You could even be Yorkshire's

new sporting star. Earlier this week we reported on the

possible demise of the Futurist Theatre.

Plans have been revealed to coax more big stars to Scarborough

with an increase in concerts at the town's open air theatre.

Councillors are being asked to approve plans to nearly double

the number of concert dates for 2017.

The concert promoters say it'll give the local

It is not Las Vegas or New York, it is not even London, but Scarborough.

Playing host to big names last summer in the open-air theatre. Six

and a half thousand seats mean it is the biggest in Europe and it hosted

ten concerts in 2016. They went so well the promoters now want to

schedule nearly double that, 18 in 2017. We saw the opportunity that

actually artists do want to come here. In terms of the geography of

the country it's a great location, that isn't tapped into, and with

such a great venue. Looking at it with the council, we are saying that

we have done really well with ten or 11 shows and almost all of them have

been sold out, there is an appetite there. Ten years ago the theatre was

the sorry state, it had been closed for decades and lay abandoned and

unused. It was reopened by the Queen in 2010 with high hopes, but they

have taken a while to be realised. The theatre reopened in the teeth of

the recession and the going in the early years was really tough, but

the extra dates nearly double the business here. It's a real sign of

hope. And money. It is estimated the concerts will give a ?5 million

boost to the local economy. It is absolutely fantastic news. 2016

shows attracted in excess of 50,000 people to the venue which equated to

around ?2.5 million to the local economy so having additional shows

is absolutely fantastic news. It could be a return to the glory days

of the 1930s when the theatre played a central part in Scarborough 's

prosperity. The crowds then like to lavish musicals. These days it is

the likes of the Beach boys, Cliff Richard and Olly Murs that will

bring in the crowd. If councillors backed the proposal for more dates,

expect more announcements from stars that they are also adding

Scarborough to that was. -- to their tours.

Wright, Paul Hudson, get it right. As always! Sheffield was the

windiest place in the entire country. Look at this sea foam that

developed in Whitby. This is an incredible picture.

If you have any pictures send the mint for me. These were the wind

speeds today. They will gradually moderate and tomorrow we're looking

at wintry showers and a cold day with sunshine. Let us look that this

feature could stay to the south of us and we will hopefully be left

with a wintry showers and some sunshine. But look at these isobars

with the storm force winds coinciding with high tide times on

Friday morning which could be cause for concern in coastal areas. The

Environment Agency echidna eye on that. On the satellite picture we

have showers coming in from the West, mainly of rain at the moment.

They will turn increasingly to sleet and snow so don't be surprised if by

the end of the night there was a covering of snow by some and nine

areas. Further east just a few showers and icy patches on untreated

surfaces. The this is the next high water times. A dry and bright start

in eastern areas with some sunshine. Showers of hail and rain and sleet

and snow from the word go across the Pennines and if you get further east

so as you can see it might be a covering of snow in places.

Unpleasant conditions for a time on the Pennines. A lot of sunshine and

a cold feeling day. It will be less windy. Looking a bit further ahead

it is the coast at around 6am on Friday that there is concern and

there could be coastal flooding. Sunny inland and wintry showers and

the weekend looks cold with scattered showers and rain and hail

and sleet and snow so it stays cold and that is the forecast.

Stay safe if you're on the roads tonight with the wind. That is

I think my political beliefs are really quite straightforward.

I believe that our country needs to work for everyone.

Not just for the rich, not just for the privileged,

not just for those who know the right people or who've got

the loudest voices, but a country that really works for everyone,