A mum and her young daughter have been injured after a teacup became detached from a ride at Dreamland.
Kate Davies was visiting the Margate theme park with three year-old Poppy when it happened last Wednesday. We've had a statement from the theme park.
Also in today's podcast, police say they're 'well prepared' to respond to any potential protests in Kent.
It's as reports on socials suggest far-right groups plan to gather at three sites in the county - although we've decided not to share those details.
Hear from Neil Mennie who heads up the Kent Police Federation and has been explaining how officers train to deal with violent disorder.
Meantime, the man who oversees the police in Kent has told the KentOnline Podcast the force is determined to crack down on shoplifting.
It's after data revealed a 39% increase in offences.
It's been revealed our food security is being put at risk by a dramatic drop in the number of pollinators and insects in Kent.
Data's collected each year by recording the number of bug splats on car number plates. The charity behind it is called Buglife and we've been speaking to Paul Hetherington who's one of the directors.
And in sport, Gillingham have added another player to their squad ahead of the season starting on Saturday.
Former Charlton player Euan Williams has featured in most of their pre-season games.
This is the Kent Online Podcast, Nicola Everett. Hello, hope you're OK. On Wednesday, August 7th, thanks so much for downloading today's podcast. Our top story today is that a mum and her young daughter have been injured after a tea cup became detached from a ride at Dreamland. Lucy joins me in taking a look at the story for us. So tell me what happened, Lucy. On Kate Davies was visiting the Margate theme park with three-year-old Poppy when it happened last Wednesday. Her little girl was asked if she wanted the tea cup to be spun and said yes. But during the ride it detached from the base and was flung towards the railings. Kate says she bumped her head and felt dizzy. She also heard people who witnessed it screaming. And how badly hurt were they? Both mum and daughter suffered bruises and Kate's eight-year-old son Freddie, who was in a different tea cup, had a cut lip because of vibrations when the ride malfunctioned. They were all taken to hospital to be checked over before driving home. Kate says it's been a traumatic experience for the whole family. And have we had a response from Dreamland? Yes, they've given us a statement. Same standard. Safety procedures were put in place. Overseen by the park manager, the family was given immediate care by qualified first-aiders on-site. And Dreamland's been in touch with them since. A spokesperson went on to say the cups and sauces attraction has been repaired and certified safe for use. All rides are independently certified and the safety and well-being of all visitors is a top priority. Thank you ever so much. Kent Online News. Other top stories for you today and police say they're well prepared to respond to any potential protests in Kent. It says reports on socials suggest far-right groups plan together at three sites in the county we've decided not to share the specific details on a spokesman for the force as they're continuing to monitor all available information and will respond swiftly and robustly to any incidents of disorder that arise. Lucy, it's been chatting to Neil Many who heads up the Kent Police Federation. So Neil, how do police officers train to deal with violent disorder and riots? So within Kent Police, as with all forces, officers are able to volunteer to become what we call public order trained. And then they do train in fairly regularly and it's the same nationally. So everyone trains to the same tactics, the same book, the same methods so that they can all come together if necessary and help each other out. But essentially they're drawn from officers who may have other jobs during the day. They could be patrol officers, they could even be detectives, all sorts of different roles within the police. But their additional skillset is in dealing with public order and then they come together, do their training and if necessary they're deployed to deal with those types of events. And what's it like for an officer when they get that call or that email to say you're going to be needed to come and deal with an event? I think most of them fully accept it as part of their police in duties. The first time you're deployed, it can be a little bit nerve-racking but the training is very good and ultimately it's something that they see as part of their duties and responsibilities. The difficulty is of course is that it draws them away from their normal day roles, which means that that does bring a certain amount of pressure on colleagues who will have to help fill in for them whilst they're on those deployments. But fortunately these type of events are not that common. So we're ready to go, the officers are ready to go and they will deploy if needed and they will just happily go ahead and carry it out as part of their duties. And of course there's the chance that police could end up getting injured in these sorts of situations. What kind of impact does that have on them and their colleagues, their family? Police officers are injured far too often. They're injured far too often in the ordinary course of their duty. We see more assaults now against officers than we ever have done. And of course the fact if they're going into situations where missiles are being thrown and such like despite the fact they do have obviously the relevant protective equipment, there is of course an increased risk of injury to them. And I think it's really important to understand that although they will, without fear and favour, they will police, they will go into those situations ultimately. We want all of our colleagues to start and finish their shift safely and without injury and we have to balance that against the fact that we have to maintain law and order, we have to maintain public order. We're a critical part of that but no, I don't like it when officers get injured and ultimately I would rather no one got injured at all but yes as with most elements of policing there is an increased risk of injury but we'd rather they came home safe. Well it's about the psychological impact as well because it must be so hard to go out and be in these really violent situations and you know police are human too. They must feel a little bit of fear or you know not being quite comfortable with dealing with aggression. Do they get kind of support with that and how difficult is it to deal with it mentally? I think you know and I can only say that my own experience, they're all different types of policing but in some respects it's just as nerve wracking and potentially dangerous going and deal with a fight outside of a pub where you're just acting as a lone patrol officer and fighting someone that's drunk as it is if you're standing in a Syria will the correct gear on and carrying your shield. I don't think there's a huge amount of difference. Yes of course we have support in place for officers. We do thorough debriefs there's all sorts of health service support they can get in counts and they can get if they need it quite rightly so but policing is inherently dangerous at all levels be it the officer that's out on beat answering calls or be it the officer that's formed part of a public order serial in situations such as we've seen throughout the UK this week. Is there a chance that some officers could get sort of pulled back from you know holiday time or have to do overtime or anything to deal with situations like this? All options are available at the decision of the Chief Constable. We haven't seen that here yet to that extent and it would be highly unusual to do that. It's likely as I've already explained that perhaps officers will find their shifts will be extended so they'll be working longer hours. They may have to provide cover for other officers and it they there is the potential for them to have leave restrictions placed on them and so on. We're not there yet and I hope we don't get there because of course the other important thing you need is some time away from work and some work life balance otherwise very quickly you can become very fatigued and one of the things with deployments of this nature is that they can be for a very long period of time. They can involve being on standby wearing an extremely heavy and hot amount of kit and equipment so we do have to balance that against officer welfare so we're not there yet. I think at the moment the Chief has said that we're ready to go if needed and and I think he's absolutely right. I don't think we're at the stage yet where we need to really stop putting officers under those kind of extremes that will be a last resort. Being time a former Young Offenders Institution in Medway is going to reopen as an adult prison early to help hold those convicted of rioting. HMP Cook and Word will reportedly be available from next week as hundreds of people have been arrested over violent disorder across the country. Kent online reports a man's been charged with assisting an offender by police investigating a suspected murder in Strewd. The 61 year old victim was found with stab wounds that a property on gun lane last month. A 44 year old from the town has appeared in court and is also accused of theft and fraud. A woman's been charged with murder. A Dover man's lost his job after driving the wrong way down a slip road and causing serious crash. Jamie Barnett was driving his friends Mercedes which collided with another car on the A20 at Hawkins last August leaving a man in hospital. The 30 year old from Ordenway admitted causing serious injury by careless or inconsiderate driving. He's also been ordered to pay £200 and do 100 hours of unpaid work. An investigation is underway following an alleged hit and run in Ashford. A driver says his vehicle ended up on two wheels after being struck on Canterbury Road by Black Aldi. It happened at the junction with Albert Road. One man's in hospital and another's been arrested after a fight at a parade of shops in Ashford. It happened near the Spa store on the Reptum Park Estate. A man in his 20s was detained on suspicion of several offences and has since been bailed. Now the man who oversees the police in Kent has told the Kent online podcast the forces determined to crack down on shoplifting. It's after the most recent data revealed a 39% increase in offences. More than 4,000 were recorded in the year to march. Police and Crime Commissioner Matthew Scott says there are three drivers behind it. The majority of it is drugs and more than half of a inquisitive crime is linked to drugs in some way. That rises higher for shoplifting and retail offences. Second is organised crime. We've got a dedicated programme in policing now called Pegasus which is gathering the intelligence in order to crack down on organised retail crime. And then thirdly there is opportunism where people will just take the opportunity to do it. So the majority of it is, I think, organised criminal, preventable. We can do more on this and I'm determined to. This all comes as pharmacies in Kent report, shoplifters taking cosmetics and baby milk powder in bulk. You can read a special report by our local democracy reporter Simon Finley by heading to the website today. Kent's online reports. Our reports found an increase in violence and intimidation at a Kent prison. Inspectors have visited HMP Rochester and say the site is facing new challenges. Drones are being used to deliver contraband for the first time and gangs are starting to form. But it's still considered to be a safe environment. The Ministry of Justice say they're taking action to get a grip on the situation. As suspected, shoplifters been arrested after attacking a member of staff at a co-op in sheerness, a 54-year-old is accused of failing to pay for meat as well as stealing 450 pounds with a food, laundry and cosmetic items from other stores in the town. He's been charged with assault and eight counts of theft in his chewing court on Friday. Five fighters have spent a second night at the scene of a paper mill blaze in Scotland. It broke out on Mill Strait on Monday afternoon and crews have been keeping watch after putting out the flames. Advice to keep windows and doors closed in the area has now been lifted. Plans for a state-of-the-art health facility for thousands of patients in sitting born have been scrapped. The NHS has said it will no longer support the idea of the Bell Road Medical Centre in the town. It was due to be taken over by Chestnut Surgery in East Street, but we're told other opportunities for expansion are now being looked at. Next today in the Kent Online podcast has been told our food security is being put at risk by a dramatic drop in the number of pollinators and insects in Kent. Data is collected each year by recording the number of bug splats on our car number plates. We need pollinators for growing fruit and veg, and I've been speaking to Paul Hetherington, who's from Bug Life, who are behind that study. The current status is extremely worrying in terms of bug numbers. We're having reports from all over the United Kingdom, actually, of people to say there's no butterflies, there's no bees, there's no wasps. We're even having pest control companies getting in touch saying there's no wasps. We're not being called out to destroy wasp nests. Things are reaching a very critical stage, and of course we've been running the Bugsmatter project for some time now, and last year we saw a 78% fall in the abundance of flying insects compared to 2004. So in a 20-year time period, this year, as I said, we are getting shocking reports coming in from people, and I'd dread to see what the results of the survey this year are going to show. That is a huge decrease. For anyone who doesn't realise why it's so significant, why is because some people may not like bugs? They may not like those little creepy coolies, but why is it so worrying? Well, just about everything that we take for granted in our lives is dependent actually upon bugs and the work that they do. Pollinators, for instance, are responsible for warning every three mouthsfuls of food that we eat. It's not just your apples and your pears and your raspberries, it's things like your carrots and your parsnips, because without the pollinators, there'd be no seed to grow them next year. So we're being a catastrophic position just losing pollinators alone, and then all the others, they have their role, their food in the food chain. Again, people are starting to come. There's far less swallows and swifts about this year. Why is that world there's less bugs for them to catch? And even things like the humble mitch, okay, it doesn't grow over here, but the cocoa plant is only pollinated by midges. So without midges, there'd be no chocolate, as well as, of course, there being a huge food source for lots of birds. Is this putting our food security at risk? Are we getting to those sorts of levels, do you think, Paul? We could well be moving towards that sort of area where basically our only alternative is to pay people, and that's probably going to be at the minimum wage, but that's still a fair whack, would have to be spent on getting people to go out and hand pollinate plants. And that is estimated that at current production levels in the UK alone, that would be putting £2 billion on the price of the foods that require hand pollination, just playing minimum wage to people to go out there and do that as a job. And of course, that's going to be passed on to consumers. Yes, and we've all been worried about the huge inflation that we've been suffering in the last year and a bit. I think this, in terms of food inflation, would be a far worse situation than we've had from the conflicts that have been going on and the energy crisis. Is this a situation we're able to reverse at all? There is things that we can do to try and reverse things. First of all, make sure we get connectivity back there, and that's why Bug Life have developed the Bee Lines Initiative, which is about putting connectivity back into the countryside. So that's really, really important, and we can all pay our own role in that, even if you only live in a flat. If you can put up a little window box and plant it full of something, it's a flat, I actually would recommend herbs, grow herbs, let them flower. It's a source for pollinators to get their food from, but you can also lean out the window and pick a few fresh herbs and put them in your cooking, which gives you a win-win situation. So on small scale, we can all do a little bit towards it. On the larger scale, yeah, there's all sorts of things need to be done. I mean, one of the biggest factors I think this year is our weather patterns, and our weather patterns are going, frankly, quite weird. They're just not behaving like normal. We've had wet periods. We've had virtually every part of the country has been underwater for significant time, and that's been drowning a lot of our pollinators and all leading to molds and things growing, which again is effectively a death sentence on them, and how we tackle the climate change issue is a far bigger question, unfortunately. Now, the latest Bugs Matter survey runs until the end of September. You can still get involved. Head to their website to find out how to do that. Kent Online News. Regulator of what's planning to appoint an independent monitor for Thameswater, which is struggling with more than £15 billion of debt. The company will also need to develop a suitable business plan to remedy a license breach after its credit rating was downgraded twice last month. The firm covers areas around Darford and Seven Oaks parking charges are going to be introduced next month at two country parks in Medway. It'll be £2.50 to park for the day at Riverside and Capstan. Council bosses say they need to raise more revenue to balance their budget. A youth football club in Medway has been given £1,000 by Kent Police after their food van was trashed by Vandals. Woodpecker FC had their site at Temple Mill Primary School in Stroot, broken into last month. The chairman says he's blown away after being given money from the property fund. A group of friends have completed a relay swim across the channel to raise money for Kent Children's charity. It took 12 hours for the four of them to get from Dover to France. They've raised £40,000 for beams in hex trouble. And a 91-year-old grand from Darford has completed England's fastest zip line at Bluewater. Gwendolyn Accrell was looking for a daredevil challenge after parasailing in Turkey 10 years ago. Her family tried to talk her out of it, but she was determined. You can see the footage at Kent Online. Kent Online Sports. Kent's Dean Rasha Smith has narrowly missed out on a middle in the 200 meters at the Paris Olympics. She finished fourth in last night's final just ahead of teammate Darryl Neater. The 28-year-old from Orpington says she's proud of her performance. Onto football and Chillingham have added another player to their squad ahead of the season starting on Saturday. Former Charlton play at U.M. Williams says featured in most of their pre-season games, the 21-year-old, have been released by the League One Club earlier in the summer, and he's been speaking to the club's website. I was going to ask how old you said it would last, so you've kind of done it already, just give us your thoughts. Yeah, so I'll see you back to set up in here. I think two and a half, maybe three weeks now. But it's been really enjoyable so far. I've really enjoyed like setting the number of the lads, getting out on training pitch. I've seen we've had quite a few games in that period as well, so it's been really good. Like I said, I've enjoyed it. You were local lads as well. Gavry, you're from Bextley, Bextley Heath, where he did that kind of play factor and wants to play for joining them in the first place. Yeah, obviously it helps not to move, and yeah, it's close enough to me, so there's no big problem with travelling and stuff, so yeah, it's quite easy. And I think you know, Pete Gill, Anthony Hayes, I don't know about him, so is that kind of reassuring familiarity in the management stuff? Yeah, definitely, I think. I've known Hayes since I was 14, so I had him at my previous club through the academy and then into the first team and then Pete, I met last season, and then similar with Darren, I've known Darren for a few years, so having them for years has been really good for me, like helping me set them, and then I exactly like what I can bring, and vice versa then, I know how they are, how they're allowed to work, so for me choosing to come here has been really easy. Gillingham start their league two season against Carlisle at Priestfield on Saturday, and in cricket, Kent are taking on Worcestershire Rapids in the one day cut today. The Spitfires will be hoping to get back to winning ways after a defeat to Middlesex on Sunday, plays due to get underway at 11 in Worcestershire. But that's all from us for today. Thanks ever so much for listening. Don't forget, you can follow us on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok and threads. You can also get details on the top stories, direct to your email each morning via the briefing to sign up to that. Just head to kentonline.co.uk News you can trust. This is the Kent Online Podcast. [MUSIC PLAYING]
