A 19-year-old man who died in Barton-le-Clay on Wednesday was named today (October 26).
Clinton Groom of Osborn Road died suddenly in Chiltern Road just after 10pm.
His death is not being treated as suspicious, but officers remain in the area making enquiries into the full circumstances of his death to help the family understand why he died.
If anyone who has not yet been seen by Police has any information please contact DI Sandra Evans on the 101 number.
There were 229 complaints made against Beds Police in 2011/12, figures released yesterday revealed.
The Independendent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC)’s annual statistics showed there were 432 allegations within the 229 complaints, and 94 appeals to the IPPC from people who were not happy about how Beds Police handled their initial complaints.
Of these appeals, 42 per cent were upheld which is above the national average of 38 per cent upheld in 2011/12.
However, Det Supt Nathan Briant said complaints about Beds Police are the lowest they have been for three years, down by 35 per cent.
Det Supt Briant said: “Policing by its very nature is public facing and as such ensuring that our interactions meet with the standard expected is critical to maintaining public confidence and victim satisfaction.
“Officers have thousands of such interactions each day and most end well. Where there are instances of professional standards falling short, it’s imperative to find out why and put it right.”
He added that in the past 12 months changes have been made to focus even more on customer service and public satisfaction.
IPCC Commissioner Sarah Green said: “The proportion of appeals against Bedfordshire Police being upheld by the IPCC is higher than the national result and I would encourage the force to examine this further to see whether they can improve complainant satisfaction about the way complaints are being handled.”
Dame Anne Owers, who chairs the IPCC, said all chief constables should take personal interest in the findings of the report and assure they and their staff are meeting their obligations to record and resolve valid complaints from the public.
A young girl in Luton has suffered skin burns after using a henna product, prompting Trading Standards to launch a crackdown on illegal products.
Luton Borough Council says most henna is perfectly safe if used properly but that there is a small number of potentially dangerous products reaching the market.
These contain excessive quantities of a chemical known as PPD (p-Phenylenediamine), which can cause severe allergic reactions.
Councillor Mohammed Ashraf, responsible for Trading Standards, said: “For many communities in Luton, using henna is a tradition that goes back hundreds of years.
“It is unacceptable that cheap, unsafe henna products can be sold in the town putting people’s health at risk.
“I would urge anyone buying henna to make sure it is properly marked.”
PPD is forbidden for use in products applied directly to the skin.
If you’re after a bumper crop of veg with minimum effort, Somerset farmer Charles Dowding (right) has a trick or two up his sleeve.
And he’s going to share his secrets of the soil at a Luton event next month.
The former Cambridge geography graduate, who’s written four books on vegetable growing, has a simple philosophy: “I spread an inch or two of home-made or bought-in compost or well-rotted animal manure on undug beds every autumn.
“Worms love to feed on this and aerate the soil as they feed and breed.
“I garden on clay and grow amazing veg in the undisturbed soil.
“There are less slugs, less weeds and less watering needed in dry weather. And I’ve had good growth in the really wet weather this year.”
For the past six years Charles has run an experiment with four beds – two dug and two undug.
The latter have given slightly higher yields for much less spade work and he’s inviting keen gardeners to come and learn how it’s done.
Charles will be discussing his methods at Stockwood Discovery Centre on Tuesday, November 13, at 2pm.
Tickets for No Dig Vegetable Growing cost £4 each and booking is essential. Call 01582 548600 for tickets or email www.charlesdowding.co.uk
Mid Beds MP Nadine Dorries has been selected to lead a Westminster Hall debate in Parliament on abortion.
The Conservative MP will lead the debate on lowering the legal limit at which abortion procedures can be carried out.
The current limit is 24 weeks, but Ms Dorries advocates lowering the legal limit to 20 weeks.
She previously led an attempt to change the law in Parliament in 2008.
Ms Dorries said, “A small percentage of abortions are carried out after 20 weeks so this will have limited effect on a woman’s legitimate right to choose.
“However, it is not right that in maternity wards across the country doctors are fighting to save the lives of premature babies born at 20 weeks while in the next room abortions are being performed up to 24 weeks.
“The law at the moment is facilitating this tragic discrepancy and it is time MPs returned to the issue and made the much needed change.”
Stopsley mum Valerie Mitchell freely admits her eyes mist over when she starts filling shoeboxes with presents for underprivileged children.
The 49-year-old Hawthorn Avenue housewife – a long-time supporter of the Operation Christmas Child campaign in the Herald&Post – said: “I’d just love to see their faces when they open the boxes.
“It would be nice to write a letter but I don’t suppose they’d understand.”
Valerie confessed she feels like a child herself, choosing the gifts that will go in the boxes.
“I get so excited,” she said. “I buy a couple each week when we’re down the town, then my husband Jeffrey does the packing and wrapping.
“We always do a box for a child of nine to 14 – I wouldn’t know what to buy anyone younger.
“We felt guilty only doing one last year, so this year we’ve done two.”
If you’d like to take part in our annual appeal for needy children in the Third World, you’ve still got three week until the deadline on Friday, November 16.
You can pick up a pamphlet at our office at Media House, 39 Upper George Street, or visit www.samaritans-purse.org.uk
SATURDAY
The Golden Rules of TV (ITV1, 6.05pm)
Comedian Robert Webb narrates this new tongue in cheek series which takes a good look at the dos, don’ts and absolute-must-nots of telly.
He rummages through 60 years’ worth of archive footage to find out how to make great television while avoiding the pitfalls that haunt many a production.
Famous faces chipping in include Piers Morgan, Al Murray, Sir Trevor McDonald, Noel Edmonds and Peter Sissons
SUNDAY
Harry & Paul (BBC Two, 10pm)
The world of comedy may have moved on since the late 1980s and early 1990s, when Harry Enfield ruled our TVs with his Loadsamoney and Stavros characters, but he’s refusing to be left behind. Along with long-term collaborator Paul Whitehouse, he’s back with the fourth series of Harry & Paul, the show which proves that sketches still have a place alongside the myriad panel shows in our comedy schedules.
With a blend of old favourites and new and innovative characters, Harry and Paul will - among other things - be lampooning the likes of Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train and the hit Danish crime drama series The Killing.
Victoria Wood features in this first episode, while the likes of Kevin Eldon, Simon Day and Justin Edwards also appear.
MONDAY
Top Gear (BBC Two, 9pm)
To celebrate half a century of Bond movies and the release of the latest adventure Skyfall, Richard Hammond jumped at the chance to put the beloved Aston Martin DB5 through its paces in this show.
‘Hamster’ will spend plenty of time plugging the new 007 outing, as well as waxing lyrical about some of the most thrilling cars ever featured on the big screen.
As the ever-eager presenter reminds us, more than a quarter of the planet’s population has seen Bond going about his business, and here he reflects on some of the cars that Ian Fleming’s secret agent has driven over the years..
TUESDAY
The Pride of Britain Awards 2012 (ITV1, 8pm)
The spotlight is well and truly turned on the awe-inspiring members of the British public who have gone over and above in the community, and displayed admirable acts of selflessness.
Carol Vorderman is once again on hosting duties and Olympic hero Mo Farrah will be stepping in to honour the inspirational teacher who encouraged him to change paths as a tearaway teen.
Prince Charles, Stephen Fry, Prime Minister David Cameron and David Beckham will all there, too.
WEDNESDAY
Come Dine with Me: Halloween Special (Channel 4, 8pm)
If you’re out trick or treating this Halloween, there are four houses you might want to avoid, unless you want to come face to face with Freddy Krueger himself.
Yes, Nightmare on Elm Street actor Robert Englund is among the famous faces taking part on this celebrity Come Dine With Me Halloween Special.
Psychic medium Sally Morgan, glamour model and self-confessed scaredy-cat Nicola McLean and cross-dressing cage-fighter Alex Reid will also be trying to win £1,000 for charity by proving themselves the best host.
THURSDAY
Young Apprentice (BBC One, 8pm)
A fresh crop of ambitious teenagers prepare to battle it out to become Alan Sugar’s new young apprentice.
They come from a wide variety of backgrounds, and include a fashion designer, a trainee accountant and a farmer’s daughter, but they all have one thing in common – they want to get their mitts on a £25,000 fund to kick-start their careers.
FRIDAY
The Mentalist (Five, 9pm)
Bruno Heller’s procedural drama is one of America’s most successful crime sagas, not least because of intelligent scripts and a charismatic performance from Simon Baker as former conman Patrick Jane.
Now the ace detective is back for more cups of tea and crimebusting, while trying to track down the man who killed his family.
There’s no shortage of drama in the season five opener as tensions rise between the CBI and the FBI.
Trade union members from Bedfordshire joined thousands of others from across the country on Saturday to call on the government to reverse its spending cuts programme.
Marching under the banner of ‘A Future That Works’, thousands of people took to the streets of London to voice their anger at current and planned austerity measures.
Richard Gates, Luton Trade Union Council secretary, said the marchers were representing people “who don’t have a voice”.
He said: “We are here to give a clear message to this government that they need to have a re-think. The path they have chosen to get this country moving forward just isn’t working.
“The alternative is to get more people employed by investing in infrastructure, creating jobs so people are paying tax and National Insurance contributions.
“The government seems to think the way to do this is to cut back jobs and put people on the dole so that we’re not getting any taxes from them and are paying them benefits instead.”
Gary Fabian, in charge of Luton’s new food bank, said: “Being here is a way of expressing our concerns about the unfairness that’s galloping into our society.”
Bizarre boundaries in Bushmead are now clearly marked with new road signs to show where Luton and Central Bedfordshire start and end.
The four signs in Cromer Way cost Luton Borough Council £80 each, and mark the boundaries about 700m apart.
The boundary split through the estate has long been a bone of contention for residents, particularly as those in Central Beds pay more council tax than their Luton neighbours.
Cromer Way resident Fred Harper said: “This [situation] is ludicrous enough, but now the good old council have decided to waste taxpayers’ money in advertising the fact to everyone who drives through the estate. People will think they are going mad; to be in Luton one minute, then in Central Beds, then back in Luton.
“You really couldn’t make this situation up. As if the situation is not silly enough the council feels the need to advertise it.”
A Luton Borough Council spokesman said as different sections of Cromer Way fall in the Luton and Central Beds areas, the signs are there to inform the public of which council to contact should they have a query regarding the road, such as to report potholes.
Resident James Ashby said: “These signs just underline what I’ve said before; having part of so-called Central Bedfordshire in the middle of Bushmead is totally ludicrous. Different taxes, different bin collections, road sweeping, grass cutting...and to compound matters now, we have taxpayers’ money wasted on signs to point this stupid situation out.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Bushmead is in Luton, not ‘Central Bedfordshire’. It’s high time this ridiculous situation was resolved and Bushmead’s ‘Beds half’ was part of the LBC footprint.”
A Cromer Way resident who did not wish to be named said: “Have they put these signs up for the benefit of the two different council teams of grasscutters or refuse collectors? I can see no other reason for them, it just all seems a bit silly.”
> What do you think? Have your say, our contact details are on page 2
I’m sure my colleagues won’t mind me saying this, but our office is known more for our love of cakes, biscuits and sitting on our bottoms than for any athletic tendencies.
That’s not to say we aren’t health conscious and we don’t try to do our bit in the gym, but as I’m sure readers can sympathise it’s not easy when you’re at your desk most of the day, (and when all the reporters seem to have a sideline in baking delicious cupcakes).
So when I heard about Luton fitness instructor Kirsty Watson and her special fitness classes, I asked if she could come to the office and get us active in our lunch hour.
Sundon Park based Kirsty, 27, runs hula-hooping, pilates and nutrition classes and all the exercises she promotes focus on the core muscles.
Kirsty said: “The core muscles are the ones around your middle, the deep stabilisation muscles. We use them for posture all day, walking, sitting and standing, but because many people slouch at work or sit at computers they are not conditioned to use them. With hula-hooping and pilates we try to train those muscles to make them stronger.”
So armed with some giant hula-hoops we got our hips shaking and our waists wiggling and set about practising the best spin.
Surprisingly, it’s easier than it looks, and with a few of Kirsty’s top tips and encouragement we all managed to spin a few hoops at least, and even do a semi-successful step across the room with it.
Kirsty said: “Most people can hula-hoop. It can take a while to get the hang of it, but most people can. The bigger the hoop the easier it is, so if you’re tried before with the smaller children’s hoops and haven’t managed it, don’t be put off, try it with the adult hoops.”
Both the hula-hooping and the pilates was really good fun, and it left us feeling inspired to pass on the cake and practice our perfect postures instead when we went back to work.
If you’d like to find out more, visit http://kirstywatson.com/ .
As the party season approaches, Kirsty also has classes aimed at helping ladies lose weight and tone up ready for a special event.
She said: “Once you’ve got into a positive but realistic mind frame it’s all about eating as cleanly as possible and exercise. My best advice would be to sit down and ask yourself realistically what you want to achieve before your big event, how long you have to do it and what changes you will need to make in order to get there.”
Beekeeping was not something I had ever thought about before, but after hearing about the Friends of the Earth Bee Cause I decided to have a go.
Unbeknown to many Lutonians, there is a buzzing bee scene in the town, with a hive in Stockwood Park where more than 50,000 bees live in the height of summer, and many more hives in people’s gardens.
The Bedfordshire Beekeepers Association has around 300 members, of which 50 live in Luton, and the Stockwood Park centre is where many of them train.
I met the chairman of Beds Beekeepers Colin Hall and beekeeper Mike Niemann at Stockwood Park where they provided me with all the essential beekeeping kit for a visit to the hive.
Dressing up in the beekeepers’ outfit was great fun and I felt well protected from any angry bees, but I was slightly concerned when Colin and Mike told me bees like to wriggle into small dark spaces, like up trouser legs!
Fortunately the bees at Stockwood Park are the gentler Italian and Carniolan bees, but as it was a cold day they were likely to be a little annoyed they were being disturbed. In winter bees don’t hibernate as such, but they tend to stay in the hive buzzing away and moving about to keep warm.
Seeing a real bee hive was fascinating, and Colin and Mike were full of interesting facts – the bees are so clever.
I learnt the male bees are called drones, and the female bees are workers. When the winter comes and there is no further need for the drones, the workers kick them out of the hive; often using cruel tactics like nibbling their wings so they can’t fly, pushing them out of the hive and leaving them to die outside.
When a honey bee finds flowers with a lot of nectar and pollen, she goes back to the nest and does the waggle tail dance to tell the other bees about it so they can find the flowers too. The angle and direction of the dance tells the other bees which direction to fly in, and the length of the ‘waggle’ indicates how far away they are. If the dancer repeats the dance lots of times, it means there is a lot of good pollen.
Despite Mother Nature’s best efforts, the bee population is in decline, which is something that will affect all of us.
We all know honey and beeswax candles come from bees, but did you know without bees we wouldn’t have sunflower, butter beans, jam, mead and even chocolate?
This year has been the worst beekeeping year in living memory, partly because of the terrible weather but also due to the ongoing fight against the deadly varroa mite.
The varroa mite is a massively destructive parasite from the Far East which thanks to humans is now in this country. There is also growing evidence that bees may be adversely affected by neonicotinoids used as pesticides since the early 1990s which interfere with their nervous system.
Bees are essential for life, pollinating 75 per cent of our most vital crops and favourite foods. Without bees it would cost UK famers £1.8 billion a year to pollinate our crops which is more than it costs farmers to produce all the milk consumed in the UK every year.
To find out about the Bee Cause and how you can help, visit www.foe.co.uk
A collector for the Poppy Appeal says he will be unable to sell poppies in The Mall in Luton this year due to his free parking being taken away.
Colonel John Hamilton has sold poppies in the shopping centre for ten years, and raised £8,000 from the collection last year for the Royal British Legion.
He is unable to pay for daily parking, and without Colonel Hamilton’s work, there may be no poppies on sale in The Mall when the appeal starts tomorrow (October 27).
Colonel Hamilton said: “I have never been denied parking before. I used to park at the University of Bedfordshire but they changed their car parks so for the last couple of years I’ve parked at The Mall. This year the new manager, Mark Broadhead, told me he couldn’t offer me free parking space as they don’t allow any other charities to park there freely. If he thinks The British Legion Poppy Appeal is the same as all the other charities in the country he is sadly mistaken. It’s the greatest and most important appeal there is.”
The Colonel said he needs to park close to The Mall so he can carry all his collecting tins from his car easily, and store the money safely.
He said he has been trying to find alternative places to sell the poppies, but The Mall has the greatest footfall and he fears other locations won’t prove as fruitful for his collection.
A spokesperson for The Mall Luton said: “It has never been a policy of The Mall to supply charitable organisations with free parking. Last year, the gentleman in question did receive free parking but it is unclear how this arrangement was agreed and with whom.
“At The Mall Luton, we do our utmost to help and support all charitable organisations, whether they are local or national, with their fundraising efforts. This year alone we will be working with 20 different charities hoping to raise in excess of £25,000. We are committed to continuing with this help and assistance. This is in addition to the help and support we offer, and will continue to offer, various community groups and charities within the wider community.”
A spokesperson for the University of Bedfordshire said they would be happy to come to some arrangement to provide Colonel Hamilton with parking for the duration of the Poppy Appeal.
The spokesperson said: “Who in their right mind does not support the Poppy Appeal? It’s so important for our Armed Forces. We would be quite happy to offer Colonel Hamilton a parking space if he would like it.”
Golden girl Jessica Ennis gave five Luton lads a taste of what it takes to be an athlete with a personal training session at Stockwood Athletics Track yesterday (October 25).
The Olympian swapped her sneakers for a stopwatch and put competition winner Tim West and his friends through their paces with her own training programme.
The boys gave the circuits session their best shot, but admitted they found it much harder than they had expected.
Jess said: “I did feel a bit sorry for them as I know what it’s like so I had a bit more sympathy than normal, but they did really well.
“Some of them did struggle a bit but they did it all and I think they enjoyed it. It’s similar to what I would do for training so it’s good to give them a taste of it.”
The lads were rewarded for their hard work with a lunch at Luton Hoo with Tim’s family and Jess.
Tim, 28, who entered the Aviva Back The Team competition on Facebook said: “I’m absolutely exhausted. I don’t know how Jess does it. I think we did a very light session compared to what Jess does. When I finally get my breath back I’ll appreciate having done it. It’s hurting now so I don’t know how it’s going to feel tomorrow.”
A sympathetic Jess said: “I always struggle [with training] when it’s cold and you have to do the circuits and things like that, I do moan through it all. You have to be able to motivate yourself in different ways. When you’ve got a big championship to work towards like the Olympics that is a motivator in itself, but you also need to have a good coach.
“I always thought I wouldn’t want to be a coach but it was really good to be on the other side of it, to have the stopwatch and watch them.”
Since her Olympic success heptathlete Jess has become one of Britain’s biggest stars, and she said it’s important to her to try and inspire young people to take up sport.
She said: “I don’t see it as a pressure but I think that it’s been great for people to have some good role models. It’s nice that sport has been such a massive thing this year, and people can look up to sports people and do something similar or get involved in sports themselves.
“I love watching athletics and I still feel like I’m just coming through the rankings so it is weird that I’ve now been around for a while and am in major championships. I don’t see myself as a celebrity. I’m a sports person who has worked hard to achieve my goals, and the best thing was winning that gold medal. All the things afterwards are nice little extras.”
Members of Unison police branches from across Beds, Herts and Cambridgeshire came together on Wednesday night to unit in a call to ‘Keep Policing Public’.
The event, part of the ongoing campaign against the privatisation of police services, featured speakers including Unison vice president Maureen Le Marinel, regional secretary Glyn Hawker, and Herts police branch treasurer Mark Watson.
Members are campaigning against the proposed outsourcing of back office functions across the three counties to private firm G4S.
Mr Watson said: “In public service we feel morally obliged to do what is right and necessary to help those affected by crime; in private enterprise the only imperative is to service contractual obligations and thereby maximise profit.”
A medical expert and a leading police officer have warned against having babies sleep with their parents after ten-week-old Ceri Eva Lewis, was found dead sandwiched between her mum and dad.
Ceri had been taken to bed at her home in Ravenhill Way, Luton, by her mum Shereen on June 5. In the morning the mother woke to find the babe lying on her back underneath the duvet. She was limp and unresponsive and, despite the best efforts of the parents and paramedics, nothing could be done to save her.
Dunstable Coroners Court heard on Tuesday last week that dad, Karl, went to bed at about 11pm and the mother followed an hour later taking Ceri with her and placing her between the couple.
Detective Inspector Paul Cook, of Beds Police public protection unit, told the inquest that earlier in the day the baby had been sleeping on the couch at the family’s home and had seemed fine.
He said: “They were a perfectly normal family but the sleeping arrangements were the biggest issue in this.”
Paediatric pathologist Dr Robert Malcomson said Ceri was small for her age and had suffered a small amount of haemorrhaging near the heart.
He said: “We were not able to identify an actual cause of death. One of the issues in this age group – three weeks to nine months – is if we don’t find a cause then it’s the practice of paediatric pathologists to say that it is Sudden Infant Death syndrome.
“Unfortunately we have some history here because we have to question the sleeping arrangements.
“Sleeping with parents is considered an unsafe sleeping environment. There is the possibility of a baby overheating, overlaying – which is unusual - and suffocation incurred by breathing in carbon dioxide.
“The baby was under the covers.”
He said that the cause of death was undetermined but likely to be sudden unexpected death in infancy with the unsafe sleeping environment of co-sleeping with its parents as a significant factor.
Dr Malcomson added: “Sleeping with parents is the single most frequent factor as a possible contribution to SIDs.
“Sofas are also not a good sleeping arrangement for a child who can get wedged between cushions and suffocate.”
Cororner David Morris recorded an open verdict. No members of Ceri’s family attended the inquest.
Residents plagued by anti-social behaviour in Montrose Avenue and Carlton Crescent will be relieved to hear a dispersal order was approved by Luton Borough Council on Monday.
The order for the Montrose Path area will mean between 9pm and 6am groups of two or more people can be moved on and banned for 24 hours by a police officer who believes they are harassing, intimidating or distressing members of the public. As reported by the Luton News, nearby residents had experienced years of disturbance from youths gathering in the alley.
If you are affected by anti-social behaviour, call Bedfordshire Police on 101.
Do you recognise these men?
They are wanted in connection with an attempted robbery at a Luton mobile phone shop on Monday (October 22).
The incident happened at around 5.55pm at Comm Tech mobile phone store in Marsh Road, Luton, when four offenders entered the shop with their hoods up and tried to smash open cabinets before assaulting three members of staff.
The staff fought back and managed to detain one of the attempted robbers as the other three fled the store.
Two men were arrested but detectives are keen to identify the two other suspects who are both described as Asian men in their late teens or early 20s, of average build wearing dark clothing.
The three shop workers suffered only minor injuries and were praised for their bravery by detectives.
Call Det Con Hussain in confidence on 01582 473055 or 101 or text information to 07786 200011.
Alternatively contact independent charity Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111, or online at crimestoppers-uk.org.
The McDonald’s restaurant in Luton is closed for refurbishment, following reports of a cockroach problem.
The George Street fast food restaurant will reopen in about five weeks while refurbishment and redesign takes place.
A McDonald’s spokesperson said there was an investigation last week into reported pests.
They said: “The treatment for this issue has since taken place and the problem has been resolved. We would like to reassure our customers that cleanliness and hygiene are a priority and we have consulted with the EHO throughout. We adhere to the highest standards with strict audit and control programmes to ensure food safety.”
The refurbished restaurant will include new seating, tables and “radical” changes to the tills and ordering area.
Members of Bedfordshire Police Authority have praised the force for its work on alternative proposals to privatising some ‘back office’ functions.
Beds Police, along with forces in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire, are considering outsourcing organisational support services, which cost it £18 million a year, to G4S.
But the force was told by the authority to also work up its own in-house option for making savings.
At a meeting on October 19, authority members were given an update on the in-house option, known as ‘Option 10’, and said “tremendous” progress had been made.
The new police and crime commissioner, who will be voted in next month, will have to choose between the G4S option or Option 10.
Small businesses can find out how they can compete to become NHS suppliers at an event on November 29.
The University of Bedfordshire’s Knowledge Network will be joined by Howard Rolfe, the NHS Director of Procurement in the East of England, for a discussion on the services and products the NHS buys in.
The National Health Service spends billions of pounds each year on products and services.
Mr Rolfe will tell the Knowledge Network event at Putteridge Bury campus that the majority of suppliers to the NHS are small and medium sized enterprises. Goods procured by the NHS range from everyday goods like stationery and bed linen to high-end clinical equipment.
The event on November 29 starts at 5.30pm and there is a networking opportunity.
For ticket prices and other details phone 0800 328 5334 or email knowledge@beds.ac.uk.
Visit www.theknowledgenetwork.co.uk