04/07/2011 Midlands Today

Good evening, welcome to Monday's Midlands Today from the BBC.

Tonight: A Coventry couple go to court in Tokyo to hear a Japanese

man admit he raped and strangled their daughter.

Signs the private sector is plugging their jobs gap. 400

private jobs are created. It is still ongoing. A more projects are

going online and being constructed. Frightening Health figures show

people living in one region of our -- one area of our region will die

nine years earlier than the rest of A lot of our audience in Stratford

is American and we share a language Tonight: he admits rape and

strangulation, but tells a court he never meant to kill her.

That's the plea of a Tatsuya Ichihashi, the Japanese man

standing trial for murdering Warwickshire teacher Lindsay Ann

Hawker. She'd been working in Tokyo at the time of her murder. Her body

was found on his balcony. Lindsay Ann's family have flown to

Japan for the trial. This report from our Tokyo correspondent Roland

Buerk. Her family have travelled to Japan

for the trial of the man accused of murdering her. Her father, Bill,

pulled a photograph of his daughter from his pocket before walking into

court. Hundreds of people had lined up for a place in the public

gallery. This is will the most high-profile cases in Japan. Inside

the court, the defendant admitted raping a the 22 year-old. I did not

intended to kill her but I am responsible for her death, he said.

I'm very sorry for what I did. He knelt on the ground and bowed in

front of the family. The defence argues he'd strangled her

inadvertently, while trying to stop her crying out, and should face a

lesser charge. Lindsey was in Japan to work as an English teacher. She

was from a Coventry. The last time she was seen alive was on CCTV

pictures, meeting of the manor. Her body was found on the balcony of

his flat, buried in sand and soil, in a bath tub. When the police

arrived, he was there but ran away barefoot. The family came to Japan,

frequently, appealing for information, but the case went cold

for two-and-a-half years. A Second World War bunker in southern Japan

was where the man was hiding out. He ventured out to work on a

building side to play for -- pay for plastic surgery. In late 2009,

staff in a clinic handed a photograph of his new appearance to

police, after becoming suspicious. He was brought to Tokyo to face

trial after being recognised by a member of the public at a port. The

hawkers left court in a car at the end of the first day of the trial.

They say all they want is justice for their daughter. A verdict is

expected on 21st July. And there'll be regular updates on

the court case on the BBC Coventry and Warwickshire website.

Thanks for your company. You're with Midlands Today from the BBC.

Coming up: how company bosses are demanding action against boy racers

on an industrial estate. A survey by the BBC has revealed

that more than 700 public-sector jobs have been lost in Coventry

since the Government's Spending Review in October. But private

sector firms we questioned say they're creating jobs and looking

to the future with more optimism, with more than 400 posts so far

created. A snapshot of the Coventry area

shows a livelier construction industry, and engineering firms

recruiting to meet an increase in orders from car makers. Giles

Latcham reports. As gateways go, it's not the most

prepossessing. This corner of Coventry has a neglected air. A

boarded up backwater regeneration never reached. Until now that is.

On this side there are going to build a superstore and a gym

complex, ultimately employing 600 people. It is costing �50 million.

Work should begin before Christmas. So far, so positive, but one bit of

good news doesn't spell a recovery. We will be employing further staff

for this. We traced the Bishop Gate development back to the firm of

Coventry architects designing it. They say in their line of business

they're first into recession and first out of it. There is much more

activity in the heart -- in the market. There are more project

coming on line and being constructed which is great news for

us. We are a position to bring more staff into the office again. Staff

like Ken, one of 11 laid off in the downturn, one of several now

rehired. Things have improved at this engineering firm in Exhall too.

Orders from Jaguar Landrover are on the up. Finding people with the

right skills is their only headache. We have a sales order-book taking

us up to 2020. We will see our turnover double, if not trouble

itself. The difficulty we have is finding engineers. We've tried to

recruit two engineers over the last four months. We eventually done it

but over the next six years, we are going to need up to 10 of those

engineers. Coventry suffered in the cull of the quangos, the city lost

more than 200 jobs in the government's comprehensive spending

review in the Spring. But Severn Trent has hired more than two

hundred workers since March at its spanking new headquarters in the

city. 18 months ago, we started recruiting in Coventry. We ran a in

office for a while and those people have relocated to this building. We

are delighted with the quality of the stuff we've got. The latest

figures show a drop in Coventry's jobless total, albeit a small one.

No one is saying this city is out of the woods but in its journey to

them, it may just be that it has turned a corner.

There's increasing concern though, at the impact of the job losses in

Coventry on women, who make up 65% of public sector workers.Mary-Ann

Stephenson is chair at Coventry Women's Voices, an independent

group of women's organisations, and she's working with the University

of Warwick to assess the impact. Women are earning substantially

less than men and I think that is going to be a big problem going

forward because in a the public sector, the pay gap tends to be

smaller so as women maybe have to lose public sector jobs and find

jobs in the private sector, it is likely those jobs will be lower

paid, particularly if they are working part-time. Part time work

in the private sector is less well paid and in the public sector.

You can read more from Mary-Ann on the BBC Coventry website, which

also has all the facts and figures from the BBC survey.

Other news. A 40-year-old man's appeared in court charged with

murder after a woman's body was found at a house in West

Bromwich.Gurinder Singh appeared before magistrates in Warley and

was remanded in custody for a week. The body of a 24-year-old woman,

who's not yet been identified, was discovered at a property in Walter

Street on Saturday night. More than 20 years after a student

from Gloucestershire was raped and murdered while teaching in France,

the French authorities have closed the case.The parents of 21-year-old

Joanna Parrish said they will challenge the decision. Miss

Parrish, from Newnham-on-Severn, was found raped and strangled in a

river in Auxerre in May 1990. A collection of iconic buildings at

Dudley Zoo are to be revamped after securing Heritage Lottery funding.

The zoo will initially receive more than �120,000 as they look to

repair and renovate the four Tecton structures, which were built in

1937. The zoo also plans to re-open its chairlift.

Businesses at a industrial park plagued by boy racers have decided

to tackle the problem themselves. Hams Hall in North Warwickshire has

been a gathering place for car cruisers for several years now.

People living and working in the area say it's blighting their lives.

Kevin Reide reports. This mobile phone video posted on

youtube shows a recent meet at hams Hall business park in Coleshill.

The driver of a white Citreon Saxo, taunting the police. Here's the

carries out the wreckless act of reversing at high speed along a

dual carriageway. Then he reverses at high speed along the same

section of road. The chase involved numerous police cars. And now a

counter video posted by the police, showing the Saxo being crushed.

intend to continue with rigorous enforcement. We will be seizing

vehicles and using a wider variety of policing powers. People will

risk having their car seized. may seem like tough action but it

hasn't been enough. Numerous police operations and even a court

injunction stopping the gatherings have had limited impact, so now

businesses in the area are taking the problem on themselves. The

companies include some big household names, fed up with their

drivers being put at risk. The plan is to have a manned security gate

in what could be a first for what is a public road. Access will be

granted if you have a legitimate need but it will be through a

manned security operation. Obviously, the main idea is to stop

people leaving the estate that have come on to take part in activities

which they are not allowed to. is a situation which has rarely

changed. The gates will take time to install but businesses hope it

will finally put an end to the gatherings.

Shropshire's only daycare centre for physically disabled adults is

due to close later this month. Instead of attending the centre in

Shrewsbury, people are being given budgets to buy a personalised

package of care and support. But is that any use when the centre

they'd like to spend it on won't be there anymore? Andy Newman has been

investigating. Getting on his exercise bike

requires help from his mother and father, for Chris. He is 50, they

are 79 and 80. Round-the-clock care at home, broken only by his twice

weekly visits to the Grange day care centre in Shrewsbury. But soon,

it is closing. We will possibly lose all of Christopher's friends.

He is going to have to adapt to a new situation. What impact would it

have on your? We will not get the rest bright, the short-term respite

breaks we've had in the past. -- respite. What the council is

offering people like Chris is a personal budget to buy their own

individual package of care. What we wanted to do is to provide people

with an opportunity to have much greater choice, greater control

over the way that their support is organised and delivered. By giving

people the individual budget associated with the cost of their

support, and supporting them in finding ways in their local

communities, for roads needs to be met. -- those needs. But what do

other people think about this system? Would it be a substitute?

No, definitely not. We will not get the same support as we did in the

Grange. We have this daft but look after us here. It would cost a lot

of money to replicate this. This centre is due to finally cut --

shut its doors at the end of the month. The question is, can be new,

personalised, individual packages of care relief fill the gap left by

its closure? Earlier I spoke to David Congdon, from the charity

Mencap, and I began by asking him for his reaction to Shropshire

Council's decision to close The Grange.

I think we are always concerned when we hear of a day centre

closures. We needed to understand whether the individuals are getting

real options for alternatives, because otherwise they add up with

nothing to do. The crucial need, if any changes are taking place, is to

ensure those people currently using the centre have a real choice of

where else to go. Councils to have to save money, don't they, and

drastically? I don't think... We would not want to see modernisation

being primarily used as a means of saving money. What we want to see

his people given the opportunity to do meaningful things during the day

and whilst we support in principle the idea of people being given to

many to spend on what they think is right for them, we don't want that

to be used as an excuse to close day centres. How important our day

centres for people with disabilities? It is day centres and

their activities, not essentially about the centre itself. It is

about having the option to do the things you want to do during the

day, whether it means going to an education class, are going to other

education activities, or leisure activities. The crucial thing is

people having somewhere to go to do the things they want to do, and

increasingly they can be in the community. We would support that.

How do you see the future for people such as Eddie who we've just

seen in our film? What is crucial is we are to... Where councils go

through the root of personalisation, they need to give sufficient sums

for people to do the activities they want. What we view with

concern his way to get a proposal to modernise day services under get

a big sum of money being taken out of the provision so it is less than

about biding -- providing better provision and more about saving

money. That cannot be the prime motivating factor. Your positive

though overall? We are positive about the principle but have argued

for many years that no day centre should close unless all the

individuals have what we term robust alternatives to what they

are currently doing, so it meets their needs, rather than someone

else telling them what they should do. The British Heart Foundation's

signed up two Warwickshire towns for a new campaign to cut the rate

of heart disease. Life expectancy in Nuneaton and Bedworth is

currently up to nine years shorter than the national average for men

and seven years shorter for women. Nearly one in three adults are

officially obese. And only one in 10 of the under 25s are eating

their recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Now

it's hoped this new campaign can arrest major cardiac problems. Joan

Cummins reports. Gulan Mamojee was just 55 when a

routine medical appointment revealed he needed a heart bypass.

Within 24 hours, he'd undergone lifesaving surgery and is now a

regular at the Pingles leisure centre. I feel a lot fitter since

I've been coming here. I've noticed a lot of improvements in my

everyday life. Getting into these classes, introducing him to

exercise slowly, will hopefully get them to a level of fitness where

they can come off their medication and live a normal day-to-day life.

Simultaneously a sports against drugs tournament was taking place,

targetting 10 and 11 years to encourage them that healthy living

and sport are a fun combination. Life expectancy in Nuneaton is

already 13 years shorter than in other areas of Warwickshire.

Statistically, that means that 10 % of the people in this population

are dying before they are 75 of heart disease. To put it another

way, that is 40 children in this group who will not live to see

their late 70s. But now the local council have joined forces with the

British Heart Foundation to fight back against ill health and heart

disease. By working with the British Heart Foundation, we can

teach people what is good to read, what is not good to read, and

hopefully encourage them to do more exercise. Heart disease remains the

British -- biggest killer in this country. That is why it is

absolutely vital we have an initiative like this, to improve

awareness and it is a board and help people to take steps that will

improve their health. Life expectancy wasn't really an issue

for todays young competitors. Stockingford pupils were even

passing on health tips. Go out for a jog sometimes. Do a lot of sports,

do games. Don't just sit down on a sofa, being lazy. Drink lots of

water, like a litre a day, and loads of fruit. The project will

last five years by which time the borough are hoping they'll then be

one of the healthiest. Thanks for your company and please

stay with us. Still ahead: we take a tour of the castle in ruins three

years ago, but now re-born thanks to the hard work of residents.

And after the heat of today, what comes next? Keep watching, a full

There's a double header of big local derbies in the world of

speedway this week. And the first fixture tonight sees

Wolverhampton hosting the Birmingham Brummies at Monmore

Green and that's where Dan Pallett is right now.

And very pleasant it is as well. Bad weather earlier in the season

means these two teams are now together. They will race again on

Thursday. It is a double-header, important for both clubs. Graham is

that manager of the Brummies. Good teams are getting ready behind us.

Sup the season so far. -- some up the season. I am more than

satisfied. We lost last Thursday. If we had one bad match, we would

have been in 4th place. Considering we are new to the League, been in

7th position, I am more than happy. We are in a position without all

the riders firing on all cylinders. Once we get sorted, we will be

making some changes in the team, then we will see us jump up the

league table. And are looking to replace one of our team. I laid the

law down with him tonight. It is a big meeting tonight and he is

assuring me he will score double points. Otherwise he will be on the

road back to Poland. Let's speak to Peter, the Wolves manager. 9th at

the moment but fixtures in hand, there is no reason why you couldn't

be back in the play-offs. Yeah, we are making a start to the campaign.

We have written to more away matches than we have here. It makes

a huge difference. We've beaten the Brummies earlier in the seasoned.

Am not sure that matters now. It is an important match for both teams.

We are looking to win both of the move. It looks to be a perfect

evening, or otherwise. And you can follow all the action

from Monmore Green tonight on BBC The Royal Shakespeare company's

preparing to open its doors to audiences in New York this week.

But instead of adapting its shows to fit an American theatre, this

time the company's brought its own. It means theatre goers will be

getting an authentic piece of Stratford-upon-Avon, while sitting

in the middle of the Big Apple. The RSC has moved to New York and

they have not packed lightly. It is not just actors and costumes,

they've brought with them they near exact replica of the Royal

Shakespeare Theatre itself. In this former military facility, they are

hoping to give Americans and their authentic taste of Shakespeare,

performing five plays over six weeks. The scarlet and grey theatre

was built in pieces in their workshops in England and shipped to

New York in 46 containers. In two weeks, Alan Bartlett and his team

have made this feel like home for the actors. We've tried to

reproduce it so that our actors can come seamlessly from Asa

performance in Stratford to hear, with a minimal technical rehearsal

and carry on as normal. The catwalks and we see above our heads

and the stage surface and the area under the stage, and the scenery,

they have all stood on before. They performed on this before. What is

gorgeous is that we have our same stage. After two-and-a-half years,

five different productions, we need that base, that continuity, that

home. That is what they're shot -- the stage gives us. This production

is the largest that the Royal Shakespeare Company has undertaken

outside of Stratford upon-Avon and the fact that it is happening in

New York is no coincidence. Over 40 % of the fund raising revenue comes

from the United States. A lot of our individual givers, particularly,

are based in America. A lot of our audience in Stratford is American.

We share the language and the passion for Shakespeare. If we make

more friends while we are here, that will be brilliant. A the plays

of part of a performing arts festival in New York which has

extended its run just to accommodate the company.

director of the festival has worked for years to make his residency

happen. They had not been coming as often recently and certainly not in

the way that established what made them different from other theatre

companies in England or in the English-speaking world. Already,

there has been huge interest in the project from the American press but

weather for a company can make a lasting impression on the public

will be the true test of their success.

And the first performance in New York will be As You Like It on

Saturday evening. See you at the airport! A

Shropshire castle is preparing to open its door to visitors for the

first time in over 700 years. Hopton Castle was in danger of

falling down, but thanks to local residents the building has been

restored. Ben Sidwell, who first visited the

castle three years ago, has been back to see what it looks like now.

On a day like today, seeing the results of expert stonemasons, it's

a stunning monument. This is the castle, this is what it means to

the village. When I came to the castle first into 2008, it is fair

to say this building was in serious danger of collapse. Where I am

standing now, I would have been completely covered in rubble. But

after �1.3 million of investment, and two years of hard work, the

castle once again his standing tall and strong. Situated just a couple

of miles from the Welsh border, Hopton Castle in Shropshire has had

a colourful history. It was the scene of a month-long siege during

the Civil War, one of the reasons residents felt the need to preserve

the building for future generations. It has improved the knowledge but

best of all improves the experience for young people and older people

have come to this part of the country to see this important

borderland between Wales and England. It is whether Lord and

Lady would have had their private area. For Tom Baker this has been a

20 year labour of love. He began the campaign to first buy and then

restore the castle. It is in fact a medieval en suite. It is a much

stronger monument now. It was severely at risk and several parts

of it would have fallen by now. Very important part.

preservation work means the castle has been given a new lease of life

and its future secured for years to come. The building itself is due to

open to the public in a couple of weeks' time.

They worked very hard on all of that!

Let's get the weather now. Here's We have a problem, low pressure in

control. That settled weather over the weekend was due to high

pressure. This new low will bring in different from the West. The

winds will be picking up. This week is a bundle of showers, a

combination of that, sunshine and some rain. It will not be quite as

warm as it was today. We saw that cold front approaching from the

West so that is going to increase the cloud tonight. Initially, it is

going to be and then clouding over from the West to the east.

Temperatures are still quite mild. We are looking at loads of 14 to 16

Celsius in most places but I think in rural parts, it could not track

-- drop as low as 10 sizes. For a dry night. During tomorrow, some

rain will arrive during mid-morning. It spread eastwards. Most of it is

light but as it moves, it will become a little bit heavier. Behind

the band of rain, that is where we have colder air so you will find

temperatures will not be as high as today's 25 sources. Several degrees

down on today's values, particularly in the west of the

region. The rest of the week, there will be showers, some of which

could be heavy. Temperatures ranging from 16 to 19 Celsius. The

By their new revelations in the News of the world hacking

controversy. Here, the Japanese man charged with

a Warwickshire teacher tells a Tokyo court he did rape and