The top story on today's episode is that a huge fire that's broken out in Ramsgate.
Crews were called shortly to Northwood Road shortly after 4am to tackle the flames at a near 100 year-old business.
Also in today's podcast, a convicted killer has been sentenced to life in prison, after an attack in Dartford which left his victim with more than 70 stab wounds.
A new report by the National Police Chiefs Council has described violence against women and girls as a 'national emergency' with over 3,000 offences every day.
It accounted for just under 20% of all recorded crime excluding fraud across England and Wales in the year to March. We've got reaction from Mina Smallman from Ramsgate whose daughters were murdered in north London.
Some families with special needs children in Kent are still waiting to find out which school they'll be going to in September.
A national shortage of psychologists means there's been a backlog in assessments for Education, Health and Care Plans.
Concerns have been raised for the future of Kent's berry farmers as the industry's been hit by increasing costs and low supermarket prices.
A national survey's found nearly half are not making a profit - and 40% could go out of business by the end of 2026.
it's another pre-season friendly for Gillingham tonight as their preparation for the League 2 season continues.
The Gills secured a comfortable 2-0 win over Watford at Priestfield on Saturday and travel to take on Dartford.
Well, Cruz arrived shortly after 4 this morning to Northwood Road in the town, footage that you can see today at Kent Online shows a building completely engulfed in flames and black smoke billowing into the sky. And do we know what the building was used for? Yes, it's a company called Kay Laundry, a commercial laundry and linen hire specialist which was founded almost 100 years ago. Now, the fire was so large, people as far away as deal reported seeing the smoke. 12 fire engines, a height vehicle and a bulk water carrier was sent to the scene and Kent Fire and Rescue advised people living nearby to keep their windows and doors closed. So what's the very latest? Well, at the time of recording today's podcast, Cruz was still at the scene. You can see pictures of the burned out building within the story on the website. A volunteer response team has also arrived. It's unclear yet how it started, but we'll continue to keep the story updated. Kay, thank you ever so much. And as Kay mentioned, you can, of course, head to the website to see the very latest details on that story. Kent Online News. More top news for you and a convicted killer has been sentenced to life in prison after an attack in Darford, which left his victim with more than 70 stab wounds. Nicholas Fryers was working at a distribution center at Littlebrook Manor Way in April 2023 when he carried out the assault on a co-worker after she tried to end their friendship. The 57-year-old who doesn't have a permanent address had already been convicted of murder in Wales in 1993. He must serve at least 17 years and four months before being eligible for parole. A family of a one-year-old boy who died at a Kent hospital say the wait for answers has prevented them from grieving. Archie Squire was taken to Margate's QEQM several times last year, suffering from constipation, breathlessness, sweating, and stunted growth, and investigations found missed opportunities to recognize an abnormal cardiac shadow on an x-ray before his death. Well, there are also delays in accepting GP referrals and inconsistent documentation, but a date for a full inquest still hasn't been set. The family of a teenage girl who suffered brain damage after collapsing at a park in Ashford say they won't give up hope. Ruby Boynton suffered a cardiac arrest at Bridgefield Park just four days after celebrating her 16th birthday. She sustained life-changing injuries and could remain in hospital for another year. A fundraiser has been set up to help her family. A Margate man who left his girlfriend with horrific injuries after pouring boiling water over her face has been jailed. Marius Mazarek tried to claim she tripped over a kettle cable while drunk, with a 41-year-old from Surrey Road in Cliftonville has been convicted of GBA and locked up for 18 months. A new report today by the National Police Chiefs Council has described violence against women and girls as "a national emergency" with over 3,000 offences every day. It accounted for just under 20% of all recorded crime excluding fraud across England and Wales in the year to March. Mina Smallman from Ramsgate's two daughters were killed by a man in North London in 2020. She's been reacting to today's findings. For the people left behind, the families and victims, it won't be a surprise. It's probably an underestimation because not all victims come forward. So why are you talking about the ones who were brave enough to come forward? The police have called it lots of different things over the however many years – well, we should have been talking about it much longer – but over the last few years they've called it an epidemic, they've called it a national emergency, a national threat. From your perspective, what materially needs to change? What are you hoping for to see things reversed? This report has come about primarily because of what happened to Sarah Everard. You know, if ever the police got caught, red-handed and you wouldn't want it to happen, but through that horror it has exposed the problems within the met, the misogyny and sexist and sexual behaviour. There's that element, but also there is the importance of educating. I call it my phrase is "catch them before they fall". So this report, just for me and people like me, we already knew this. You know, you're not telling us anything new. And I don't want to feel sorry for them because in the report it suggests that we're not equipped, we haven't got enough people, we've just risen and taken on a responsibility and put violence against women and girls in the same category as camps terrorism. Now I applaud that because at least they've got a blueprint of a way to behave. But there's nothing in the report to talk about how they're going to tackle it. And what we need is a programme that focuses on education. So this "catch them before they fall", we have an epidemic of violence against women and girls. And our young men and boys are being radicalised with toxic masculinity and we need to combat that. Meantime bosses in Medway have backed plans to tackle violence against women and girls, including more plain clothes officers on the streets. The community safety partnership is an agreement between the council, police and other organisations. And surveys being sent out to 75,000 households in Kent to find out how people want police to deal with crime and anti-social behaviour. The police and crime commissioner's office has identified 25 known hotspots, as they're described, and they want to see if targeted local patrolling can drive down offences. And residents will be asked how safe they feel and to rate their trust in Kent police. Kent Online Reports 10 carpet rights stores in Kent are set to close after the business fell into administration. It's understood more than 200 branches will shut nationally, with over 1,000 people losing their jobs. A rescue deal by rival, flooring retailer Tappy only covers 54 stores and two warehouses. Eight geese have been killed in Darford after apparently being deliberately run over. A wildlife rescuer was called to anchor boulevard on Sunday evening and found the birds dead on the side of the road. Police say their rural task force has been made aware and will carry out appropriate inquiries. Thousands of cigarettes and vapes have been seized in Canterbury following a large police operation. Officers searching for illegal tobacco visited eight shops in the city centre. They also found hundreds of counterfeit products, as well as nicotine chewing gum. Now, some families with special needs children in Kent are still waiting to find out which school they'll be going to in September. Yes, that's as the summer holidays are already underway. Well, a national shortage of psychologists means there's been a backlog in assessments for education, health and care plans. What you may have been heard referred to as EHCP. Well, Rixana Kosse is a solicitor and is urging parents to write to the Director of Children's Services. When you say to parents, it's sensible to put it in writing because then you have a paper trail or an email trail and if you don't get a respond, then that is your evidence to make complaints and say, look, I wrote on that date, didn't receive a respond, wrote again, didn't receive a response. I suspect that, first of all, you have to get through to them on the phone and if you don't, it just delays matter. Getting an email or a letter out, it doesn't have to be put in the post, it's emailed it by all means, but have a look at the council's complaints procedure and have, they will have timescales within which to respond, so you drop those down in terms of once you've put your complaint in, so I certainly, I would always say, once you know that the local authority has gone over its timescales, immediately write, don't wait for them to take action, because I suspect nothing would happen and an annual review must happen each year, particularly if there are changes to the child's presentation, they need more provision or they need a different type of school, so it is important that it does take place. And in your experience, are you seeing a rise in delays to these plans and the timescales? Yeah, there are delays and they are increasing and, you know, unfortunately, if you can't put the blame to holding on the local authority, because obviously, resources, there are issues which need to be dealt with by government really, not necessarily locally, however, I would always say to parents that lack of resources is not a way to defend a legal duty, which has been breached. So if the local authority says, well, this is why we're not able to do things, you have to go back and insist on them meeting the timescales, because this is legal and strategy for duty upon the council. And if you let it drag out and drag out, it's only your child who will be impacted upon nobody else, and you end up losing whatever provision the child needs and won't get that time back. It's not as if you can go back in time and start again, it starts from wherever date you've got your outcome of what you're looking for. So I would always say, familiarise yourself with the timescales and always keep the council to it and not allow it to drift because it can drift for ages. Council bosses say they'll work with families, schools and colleges throughout the holidays. It's thought out-of-date sat-navter to blame, after Laurie's was seen reversing the wrong way up a link road off the M2. Several drivers have been caught out after heading down South Green Link Road, thinking it will lead onto the A249. Then they've had to reverse back to the stop-reroundabout, witnesses say cars have been doing the same thing, national highways are considering adding more signage until drivers get used to the new road layout. A man's been jailed after his DNA was found on tools that were left at burglaries in Tumbridge Wells. Gary Bentley admitted stealing food, a knife and jewellery during three break-ins between last August and January this year, the 46-year-old who doesn't have a permanent address has been locked up for three years and three months. A student from Faversham has received a £20,000 payout after her dentist extracted the wrong tooth. Courtney Monksfield was 13 when the healthy tooth was removed while under general and aesthetic due to an admin error. She's now 20 and says she's been left with an unnecessary gap in her bottom jaw and it's likely she'll need an implant in the future. Concerns have been raised for the future of Kent's Berry farmers as the industry's been hit by increasing costs and low supermarket prices. National surveys found nearly half and not making a profit and 40% could go out of business by the end of 2026. Lucy has been chatting to Nick Masten, who's chairman of British Berry Growers. If we look at the cost of producing berries, we are very heavily exposed to the cost of direct labour. Over half of the production cost of a Punita Strawberries is manual labour and hourly paid labour has become substantially more expensive over the last four years inevitably. So, if we look at growers' cost, the cost of production is inflated by about 30% over three years, which is a major increase in costs. Yeah, I've been having a look at a poll that's been put out today and what are you hearing from Berry Growers and what are the struggles they're facing and some of them considering moving away from growing berries? Yes, if we look at our Grower survey, nearly 40% of growers are saying that if they don't become profitable, they will stop inevitably and that will be a major blow. So, we are already starting to see some small and small medium sized businesses stop and the challenge is, even for the large, well-invested businesses, they won't carry on doing it for long if they aren't able to make a return on their investment. So, it is important that retailers sit down with their growers and discuss the thorny issue of the cost of production. We understand that retailers actually are trying to keep selling prices to customers down, but equally, prices have gone up and growers haven't seen a fair share of that so far and it's important that they do. I don't know a lot of fruit is now imported from overseas. Do you think people and customers still want those British berries? You've often seen supermarkets, you can see where things have come from, whether they're grown in Britain or grown abroad, do you think that's important to customers? There are three things, the first is, yes, British berries are iconic and they're amongst the best in the world, our growers are absolutely superb growers of berries and we have the perfect maritime climate for it. The second thing actually is that the old sort of response from supermarkets tend to be, if you can't make it here, we'll have to buy it from somewhere else, but actually, there is nowhere else to go. If we look at the size of the British berry market, it's huge year-round. It's about 1.8 billion pounds at retail, peak, you know, our supermarkets will be selling nearly 4,000 tons of strawberries a week. The production on continent of New York, firstly, is also starting to decline and has the same challenges in terms of cost, so there is no else to go for strawberries in these volumes or other berries for that matter as well, so it's important for everyone's sake, not just the growers, but supermarkets and customers. This is a dress because, you know, we really wouldn't want to see berries disappear from supermarket shelves, they're beautiful to eat and they're really good for you. What would be your message to the new government of how they can improve things for berry farmers? In the hands of the government, there are things that can be done. So, you know, the government has said that it wants to improve the rural economy, it wants to promote UK production and food security, so, you know, those are an important starting point. Specific to berries, the seasonal workers visa scheme is crucial to our industry, 98% of the workers actually come here on visas to harvest the fruit. That can be made better, it can be made to work more efficiently to the benefit of both the workers themselves, but also to the growers, so that's important. Exports, we have a big opportunity to export to mainland Europe, our ambition actually is to continue to satisfy UK demand, pretty well 100% self-sufficient on strawberries and rouseberries at the moment, but to grow about half as much again to export to mainland Europe, we have that opportunity, as climate change starts to bite across the eastern side of Europe and down into southern Europe, you know, we have a beautiful maritime climate, we have some of the best growers in the world and the best technology, so big opportunity there, but legislation at the moment has meant post-Brexit that it's really clunky to export fresh food, you have to get every consignment inspected, it's four days, notice to get an inspector and berries are perishable and supermarkets order them on about two days notice, so exports have actually dropped to about a seventh of their pre-Brexit level at the moment, we'd like to see that going right the way back up and then marching on over 10 years to a substantial big opportunity for our berry grows, but also for UKPLC and the rural economy. And finally, Panto-star Ben Roddy has been given an honorary degree from the University of Kent today, he's known for playing the game at the Marlow Theatre in Canterbury and has been made a Doctor of Arts for his services to stage and screen, former England rugby star Rachel Burford from Medway has also been made a Doctor of the University. Kent Online Sports For Ball and it's another pre-season friendly for Gillingham tonight, it's their preparations for the league two season continue, the Jules secured a comfortable tuna when over Watford at Priestfield on Saturday speaking after that win, manager Mark Bonner says he'll keep pushing for improvements. Mark Bonner We've got a busy two weeks now, go Dartford, Chalfer and then we're going to go Southampton 21s behind closed doors the following week before going to Woken, so we've got four games to build everyone up, 60, 75, 90 minutes really across that or the main guys really and some sessions around that and then we have one more blank week before Carlisle, so we're at halfway point in pre-season, so a nice situation we've done a lot of work. It's been really intense, the guys have been great, I have to say, they've been really good and we have to keep getting better because yeah the real stuff looks a lot different to this. Kent yourselves pre-season all of a sudden then will be a completely dominant team, who knows, if you don't stand up and don't work hard you won't be and we've just got to keep building and really we don't be obsessed by the opponents in pre-season, we have to keep building our style and our quality and as we build the minutes I want to see us continually look a better team each time we play, I think that's the task of the next few months really, so we're up the minutes a little bit, we'll see which way is best to use the players, whether they do shorter minutes, choose down bigger Saturday, we'll just see where everyone is physically, but hopefully it can be a game where we start to show a little bit more of us with the ball, that would be our intention but that only happens if you work hard enough to get the ball back and create the angles to play, so a bit good test for us, we're looking forward to the two games that we've got next week and see where we are this time next week. Kick off tonight is at 745 and staying with Gillingham, they've signed Marcus Wiley from Enfield Town, the 25-year-old scored more than 30 goals last season in all competitions, well that's all from us for today, thanks ever so much for listening, don't forget you can follow us on FacebookX, Instagram, TikTok and Threads, plus you can get details on the top stories, direct your email each morning via the briefing, to sign up for that just head to kentonline.co.uk news you can trust this is the Kent Online Podcast (dramatic music)
