17/04/2017 Midlands Today

Good evening. big time beckons.

Detectives are looking for arsonists who deliberately destroyed

a fleet of vans belonging to a North Staffordshire business.

Staff are now working overtime to keep the company running.

Whoever it was, they came prepared, smashing the windows of three

delivery vans belonging to a joinery firm, tipping petrol

inside and setting a fire which destroyed them all.

For the owner, who set this business up nearly 30 years ago

on an industrial estate in Newcastle-Under-Lyme,

Obviously a massive shock to everybody.

You don't expect to come down at 3am to find all your wagons on fire.

Some have given up their Easter holidays to ensure orders

go out to customers in replacement vans tomorrow.

The vans were parked here at the back of the factory.

You can see the mess the heat has made of the tarmac.

Flames licked up the side of the building -

Eight weeks ago, an attempt was made to break into these vans.

There is a concern now that someone has got a vendetta.

It's either a personal thing, which I can't believe,

Or it's targeted against the company itself.

You're talking about people's jobs, mortgages, everything

It's not just a random thing that you can pass over.

Police are looking at CCTV footage from neighbouring firms.

The company says the malice of this attack won't stop

The Birmingham City manager Gianfranco Zola has resigned

The 50-year-old Italian won just two of his 24 games in charge.

Today they lost 2-0 at home to Burton, leaving Blues 20th

in the Championship, just three points above

the relegation places with only three games remaining.

When predecessor Gary Rowett was sacked in December,

A minute's silence was held at a football match today in honour

of the Birmingham University student who was stabbed to death

20-year-old Hannah Bladon from Burton upon Trent

She'd been on an exchange programme at the Hebrew

The club held a minute's silence ahead of kick-off

in this afternoon's match against Huddersfield Town.

Alternative accommodation has been found for all 24 elderly residents

of a care home which was damaged by fire on Saturday.

17 people were re-homed yesterday after the fire

at Standon House in Tamworth, which was caused by

a discarded cigarette in an external smoking area.

Staffordshire County Council has confirmed places have now also been

found for the seven residents who were taken to hospital following

the fire and who are likely to be discharged in the coming days.

A jeweller has been commissioned to make replicas of the Leek-frith

gold, which was found buried in a field in

The family, who own the land where the Iron Age artefacts

were discovered, have asked a local silversmith to create exact copies.

Here's our Staffordshire reporter, Liz Copper.

Jacqueline Harold at her workshop in Leek, beginning work on replicas

She is recreating jewellery fashioned more than 2500 years ago.

The Leekfrith gold was unearthed in a field

in the Staffordshire Moorlands, and the landowners have

Before starting work, Jacqueline made sketches of the jewellery

while it was on display in the Potteries Museum.

It has been there buried for all that length of time,

and now I'm trying to recreate what was possibly done

not too far from where the studio is here in Leek.

The original bracelet and three torcs are some of the earliest

examples of Iron Age gold found in the UK.

From these sketches, you get a real sense

It is thought they were originally made somewhere in Europe.

Experts believe they would have been worn by wealthy, powerful women,

perhaps who had married into the community

Jacqueline will be using age-old techniques to make the replica.

It's a challenge to get it right, I suppose.

And to get the dimensions, because I have not

But I suppose the way that it's made isn't dissimilar to how

The gold is currently being examined by experts and valued.

The replicas made by Jacqueline will themselves be one-off pieces

Before we go, congratulations to Birmingham City Ladies,

who are through to the final of the Women's FA Cup.

They beat Chelsea 4-2 on penalties and take

I'll leave you now with the weather from John Hammond.

Some showers overnight but they will have cleared away by tomorrow. Back

to tonight and some showers, pretty hit and miss. Drifting away south.

They will move out of the way by dawn. We expect Frost in some rural

spots first thing in morning. A cold start but bright and crisp. A lot of

blue sky around tomorrow. Dry with the wind fairly light but again

feeling chilly at around 11 or 12 degrees.