7 Days of Headlines with Phil Mills
Email scam warning, charity fundraising & the country’s first bi-lingual Spanish state school
Brighton businessman Charles Eaton is set to be richer to the tune of some £50 billion – by doing nothing but opening his emails and post.
That’s the total amount of money he’s been offered this year from complete strangers in countries including Nigeria. He told Latest 7: “I do not seem to have actually received any cash as yet but it’s probably some problem with the post or the rising cost of first class stamps. I’m sure it will turn up soon.” Sussex Police are aware of such scams and advise: “Trash them.”
Meanwhile, it’s farewell to Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Brighton’s Royal Sussex County Hospital, who is leaving to head up a new national health organisation. His departure comes at a time of economies – Worthing Hospital and St Richard’s Hospital, Chichester are cutting back on agency nurses and ending nurses’ bonus pay to save £100,000 a year, following Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust’s move to axe nurses’ £500 cost of living supplements to save £500,000.
On the crime beat, three men have been charged after an armed gang attacked a 26-year-old man in his home in Moulsecoomb, Brighton. Children were in the house at the time and police said all were shocked and shaken. In a separate crime, a Bexhill man has been charged with the murder of 17-year-old Jacob Woudstra who suffered a knife wound to the chest outside a Hastings pub following a dispute.
Police in Eastbourne, meanwhile, donated £250 to the Eastbourne Rugby Football Club U14s to fund a rugby tour and help them purchase kit. The money came from property seized from crime suspects.
A Sussex charity has found that eight in 10 parents have been struck down by illnessess caught from their children. Colds and coughs are the most common and 13 per cent are eye infections. The research by Sightsavers aims to raise awareness of blinding diseases passed between mother and child and is part of a campaign to raise funds for the charity’s work to prevent and cure blindness in the developing world.
The campaign is backed by TV presenter Lorraine Kelly: “Imagine if the illness you caught from your child was not only excruciatingly painful but could potentially blind you? This is the tragic truth with trachoma.” Go to: www.sightsavers.org
Staying with charity, Ian Clark, a former Brighton College boy, is in solitary confinement in hospital, undergoing high dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplant in his courageous fight with cancer. He’s on an exercise bike and plans to pedal 100 kilometres in a bid to raise money for cancer research through his Seward Cancer Foundation. He’s raised £7,500 so far and has a target of £50,000. Ian is appealing for sponsors. Go to www.sewardcancerfoundation.org.
Ian said: “Once I am free from this treatment I hope to join in many of the events that we currently have on our planning board with the Foundation Committee. It is our intention to use these funds towards research so we can be proactive in the search for cure of cancer.”
St Paul’s CE Primary in Brighton deserve an “ole” for being the country’s first bi-lingual Spanish state school (photo by Hannah Brackenbury). It is so successful that children are reaching GCSE level in the language at the age of 11.
And finally, Father Phil Ritchie, from All Saints Church in Hove, made headlines by saying Easter Sunday was a perfect day for staying in bed, eating chocolate and having sex. But Latest 7 reader Tina Robertson, emailed, asking: “Why only Easter Sunday?”
