A coroner has highlighted missed opportunities in the care of a 23-year-old man from Broadstairs, who took his own life days after being deemed "low risk" by hospital nurses.
An inquest has been held following the death of Gabriel Farmer.
Also in today's podcast, there are calls for tonnes of illegal waste to be cleared from woodland near Ashford before the summer.
Access to the site in Hoad's Wood has now been closed off but mountains of rubbish are already causing a nasty smell and water pollution. Reporter Oliver Leonard has been speaking to the leader of the Rescue Hoad's Wood campaign.
Bosses in Medway say they won't back down until they receive proper pothole funding.
They sent a letter to the roads minister saying an extra £50 million was needed to fix more than 2,000 issues. We've got reaction from council leader Vince Maple to the reply they received.
Roads bosses have confirmed when the highly-anticipated Stockbury flyover will open.
The £92 million project is hoped to make journeys easier and safer for people travelling on the A249 between Maidstone, Sittingbourne and Sheppey.
Parents of children attending an SEND school in Medway say they've been left in the lurch, as bosses say they can no longer attend due to health and safety concerns.
Families were sent a letter saying the placement of students at VTC Independent School in Sittingbourne has ceased with immediate effect.
And in sport, Gillingham's chances of promotion this season are over.
They were beaten 2-1 at already promoted Mansfield Town at the weekend. We've got reaction from head coach Stephen Clemence and goal scorer Tim Dieng.
We're going to take a look at what you're going to do. Kent online news news you can trust. This is the Kent online podcast. Nicola Everett. Hello. Hope you're okay and had a good weekend. Thanks ever so much for downloading today's podcast on Monday, April the 22nd and our top story today is that a coroner has highlighted missed opportunities in the care of a 23 year old man from Broad University. The first day of the week of the week of the investigation was a very good nurse. An inquest has been held following the death of Gabriel Farmer. Lucy joins me now with more details on this story. So what exactly happened? Well, it's a tragic case involving a young man who took a fatal drug overdose at his home in May last year. Gabriel was found on the verge of unconsciousness by his mum and rushed a hospital by ambulance to find out whether or not he was forced to be in the hospital in May last year, including a serious incident just eight days before his death. On that occasion, he was restrained by paramedics and taken to the A&E department, the QEQM hospital in Margate. He had an assessment the next day and nurses decided he was low risk and could be sent home. And what did the coroner have to say about that decision? Well, the two nurses who saw Gabriel gave evidence at the hospital in March of 2020 and said that Gabriel had been involved in conversations with the 23 year old who had denied any further thoughts or plans of suicide. Coronav Catherine Wood highlighted some potential missed opportunities and shortcomings on behalf of the Kent and Medway NHS Social Care Partnership Trust. But she added there wasn't enough evidence to suggest it would have made a difference on the balance of the care and the support they received and said she didn't feel she could keep her son safe. She's told Kent online the main thing she wanted from the inquest was to help other families going through similar experiences. She's also hoping to work with the trust and mental health services to see how they can make improvements. A spokesperson for KMPT says they've carried out a review which identified some areas for improvement which are for improvement training and say they'll carefully consider any further findings from the coroner. Lucy thank you ever so much. Kent online news. Other top stories today and a Kent man has been jailed for his role in a major drug trafficking network. A Met Police investigation found a criminal gang imported nearly 9 million pounds worth of cocaine into the UK over a four month period in 2020. 35 year old Nicholas Lynn did not want to be able to get away from a car. It's been two years earlier than 18 years. It's thought of fire at a derelict building in Graves End may have been started deliberately. Four fire engines were called to Valley Drive in the early hours of this morning advice to keep doors and windows closed because of smoke has been lifted. But crews are continuing to dampen down hotspots in time a person's been treated by paramedics after suffering minor problems. It's been the last year before the pandemic. It started. Thames Waters warning new business plans could see customers bills go up by 44% the company which supplies areas around Darford has announced another 1.9 billion pounds of investment in its network. Plans still need to be approved by the regulator. Now next today there are calls for tons of illegal waste to be cleared from woodland near the end of the day. There are plenty of things to add to that stuff. But mountains of rubbish are already causing a nasty smell and water pollution. It's set to cost millions to clear the 27,000 tons. This man is the leader of the rescue Hodeswood campaign. He wanted to stay anonymous but has been speaking to our reporter, Oliver Leonard. This is a site of special scientific interest. It is illegal to even go into it. So if any kind of activity like a digger, this should have been stopped immediately. So the fact that that didn't happen is incredibly frustrating for all of us because we've had to take time out to submit reports and it was like we were screaming into a void and it wasn't until yourselves publicised your article that actually the authorities sprang into action and shut this down. Now, you know, after the shutdown, the tipping has stopped but we're left with this legacy of four acres by in places over 25 feet deep of processed landfill, which includes plastics, toys, electronic components, builders, rubble, but also organic matter, chicken bones, sanitaryware even, and it really stinks. I mean, yeah, you can you describe the smell right now. I mean, as you say, it's not the worst the smell has been today, but I mean, people have been able to smell this from their houses. Well, that's right. Yeah. So every, you know, instance of the smell really depends on local atmospherics at the time, wind direction, wind speed, et cetera. But there are particular days that we've noticed where there's maybe a very light breeze. Doesn't matter whether wind or not, but if it's a very light breeze and cold damp conditions, it's almost like a mist, an invisible mist that rolls off in a radius around the site that then starts hitting local businesses and communities and I understand from some of the residents that it has been possible to actually detect the smell of rotten eggs, which is the distinctive aroma of hydrogen sulphide gas from within bedrooms at night. What hope do you have in the authorities that this is going to be sorted soon? I mean, as you say, the investigation has been going on for eight, nine months now and we're still in the same situation. So when do you think this needs to be cleaned up by? Well, this needs to be cleaned up before summer. So I would say, you know, within the next couple of months, now considering it took six months to put here, I imagine it may take a while to take away, but it has to happen and activity needs to start immediately. Kent online reports. Bosses in Medway say they won't back down until they receive proper pot hole funding. They sent a letter to the Rhodes minister recently saying an extra 50 million pounds was needed to fix more than 2000 issues. A reply from Guy Opperman said the 12 million already allocated should be enough. Well, we've been getting reaction from Medway and I was thinking about when he wrote back to us. He's clearly not on top of his brief if he somehow thinks that the figure that we put into the letter, we were very clear it was about road conditions. It's not just about pot holes. We were very clear on that. So the fact he's chosen to take a different approach and a different understanding, I'll be generous and say perhaps he's very busy thinking about other matters on his mind with the general election coming up. Look, this is the figure we need. It's not our figure. This was the figure originally created under the previous Conservative administration and of course inflation has impacted on that massively as it's impacted on many things over the last couple of years. I was hopeful we'd be able to organise a meeting to put our case in more detail, far more detail than you can go into in a letter instead of which he's come back with ludicrous evidence. If he's telling me we're getting £14 million, I look forward to that. I think he's wrong on that as well. So we've written back today very, very clearly correcting him. He made out that we'd published a letter before it had been sent to him. That's inaccurate. That's what D-Luck did to this council back in December. So I hope he looks at this letter reflects perhaps on his initial response. Maybe he'll want to come forward with a more measured process. I think it's made way motorists. It's made way residents who are going along our pavements as well because roads of course involve not just the highway but the pavements. They deserve a better deal than the one they've got from central governments and we'll keep making that case. Me time residents intended and say they feel forgotten after missing out on cash to fix pot holes. The county councils planning to spend more money on that and roads bosses have confirmed when the highly anticipated stop brief flyover will open. The £92 million project is hope to make journeys easier and safer. If you're traveling on the A249 between Maidstone, Sittin Ball and Sheppie, Daniel Rawlinson is the national highways project manager. Anybody who's driven through this game particularly in the last sort of nine to twelve months will have seen a lot of change. We've got a lot of change from the road light to the road light to the fleet. So the retaining walls are done and we're just doing the curbing now and then we've got to actually build the road layers before it's available for traffic to use. We're aiming to open the flyover itself to traffic sort of early July to mid July. Obviously we'll always try and better that where we can but obviously caveat by saying we've still got a lot of work to do, some we've still got a lot of complicated work to do on that end. But yeah, we're confident that sort of by mid summer we should be in position to allow people to use that flyover. Daniel was speaking there to reporter Megan Carr and you can see pictures of the work by heading to Kent Online. Kent Online reports. It's been suggested Greenbelt Land in Dartford be opened up for gypsy and traveller pitches to meet an increase in demand. Campaigners for the community say the unmet need is due to local authorities across the county having failed to provide sites in the past. It comes ahead of a key decision on the local plan which will set out provision for the sites until 2037. Aldi Bosses have confirmed when their controversial new store will open in Ashford have been complaints about the location of the supermarket on the A28 in the Kennington part of town constructions due to begin at the end of the year and it should start serving customers by mid 2025. Dover's Fast Track Zero Emissions Bus Service is set to launch with diesel vehicles because electric models won't be ready in time. The 34 million pound project will see buses connect Whitfield with the town centre and Dover Priory station. Bosses say delays to the electric fleet mean diesel buses will be used to operate the service effectively when it launches in July. Elsewhere a rural bus service, axed by stagecoach, has been brought back thanks to a new volunteer driven scheme. The company dropped the number three bus which covered villages around the city. The city said the city had been brought back to the front. The city said it was rarely used and no longer viable. Well now a hopper service has been launched. It's a 12 seat a bus that will be driven by volunteers and has been funded by Favisham town council. Kent Online News. We're going to move on to education next because parents of children attending an SCND school in Medway say they've been left in the lurch. As bosses say they can no longer attend due to the impact of the city that they see in independent school in sitting born has ceased with immediate effect on April the 10th. Kylie Hollington Coom's son Riley is one of those who was told not to come back after the Easter break. She's been speaking to reporter Joe Crossley. Regarding my son that attends the SCN school in sitting on the ground of health and safety and safeguarding issues and concerns. With no more information given to us regarding that. The whole process going forward it's just lack of communication really. We've had a lot more information given to us regarding that. The whole process going forward it's been a lot of communication really with Medway Council. I still don't now know a week later the exact reasons why if I'm honest and it's a horrible situation to be in. Being told that your child all of a sudden cannot attend his school that he was happy in. Just talk to me through the stress that you've just mentioned in your situation that's been going on for the last week. How has it all made the family feel? Absolutely awful. I know I felt awful. I've cried quite a lot. I've felt very anxious and stressed all over the place. I feel unfocused on anything else that I'm trying to do. Obviously it's my child. I'm going to worry about him. I'm going to worry about his future. I'm going to worry about I don't want him just sitting in his bedroom with nothing to do. Worry about his faults and feelings and that is something that he does sometimes struggle with and understanding his own faults and feelings. So I don't think that this has happened and it's been a long time since he's asking me. That's also heartbreaking as well, to be honest, because I can't give him answers that he's asking and for, yeah, his own self is staying. The whole process is just unhealthy for all of us to be honest. And just talk to me through how much of a mess it's been in terms of the communication side of it. I don't want to put words on it, but from what you've told me, you've kind of been told one thing by one organization and one thing by another. Just talk me a little bit about that. Oh, yeah, mind-boggling. I would express that as absolutely mind-boggling. One minute, there's one thing said. The next minute, I've unsaid or hasn't been said or something else has been put in place to cover up what the last person said. No one's really saying a lot in terms of communication. I feel like, as a parent, we've just been left in the lurch and just left to figure it out for ourselves in a way. There's no honesty, I feel. The interim head teacher says the concerns were related to safeguarding processes. They're in ongoing talks with the Council to resolve the problem. Staying with education, and bosses have confirmed a new secondary school in Ashford will be ready to welcome students next summer. Building work at Chilmington Green Secondary School started in February, almost two years after it was first approved. Once finished, it will have room for more than 1,100 pupils and feature nine science labs and sports facilities. Again, Christmas tree farmer says his business could go bankrupt after he was told to pay almost £80,000 in business rates. Rob Schroeder, who owns the site of the University of Sioux Falls University, says the city of California has a lovely bottom road in Kingswood opens the shop there just five weeks a year. Officials have claimed it should be classed as retail and the case has been taken to tribunal. A rare Victorian signal box near Canterbury that was earmarked for demolition has been saved by a village campaign. Residents fought to save the site in Chatham and now contractors have moved in to begin a full restoration. Councillors are in discussions with network rail over the possibility of making the site possible. As a result, the city of Surrey has won a top award just months after hitting the market. Two friends from Rutum Heath started invoke distillery in 2019 and now the small batch gin has won a gold medal at the London spirits competition. It was judged on quality value and packaging. Ken's online sport. Football and Gillingham's chances of promotion this season are over. They were beaten to one had already taken place in the first half. In the first half of the final round of the year, the first half of the year. The third half of the year, the third half of the year, the third half of the year, the third half of the year, the third half of the year. The third half of the year, the third half of the year, the third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year, the third half of the year, the third half of the year. The third half of the year, the third half of the year. The third half of the year, the third half of the year. The third half of the year, the third half of the year. The third half of the year, the third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The third half of the year. The fourth half of the year. The third half of the year. The to let them back into the game. - One what, an even name, kind of in a good position, they've scored a coreless goal. And that one, you said, put your hands up and say, "Look, what's the matter we could do about that?" - You can't do a lot about the second goal, but you can do something about the first one, and obviously I know exactly what goes wrong with that one. And it's basically just stand for a runner. So, look, it's a mistake, people make mistakes, but you have to learn from me, you can't make them again. But we learn, we'll dust ourselves down, we'll come back in this week, and we'll still try and finish the season as strong as we can. - Yes, absolutely. - So you can do? - Absolutely. I mean, top seven at the moment probably looks out a week now, doesn't it? But it doesn't mean to say that you don't need to finish in the body. And it's gone past the one game left. - Yeah, gone past the one game left. And obviously, you know, it's a home game, so let's try and send our supporters happy in the summer. And my aim will be given the same to look forward to next season. I think the team you saw in the first half is somewhere near where I want to be. And obviously, adding to the performance last week, there's some good signs now of getting some of our players back and some of the players that I need in the team. And so that's a positive. But we've still got plenty of improvement to do over the summer as well. - That first 35 minutes probably some of the best people we've played since you were head coach, would you go along with that? - Yeah, we played well, we had penetration of some good football on the pitch, and we matched them up, we went to a diamond today, and we thought not just to match them up and stop them, we felt we could hurt them on the outsides of that diamond. And we split our stride because a little bit Conor Mahoney played a bit more advanced. He wasn't bad as a rock winger. Obviously, this defensive responsibility is to work with as well. But I force you, we ran out of steam. And I think if we hadn't ran out of steam, that I think could have been a different day. - As promised, here is midfielder and goalscorer Tim Deac. - It's very frustrating because we started the game well, I think we first half were brilliant, I think, when they looked. Then we came back in second half. The first goal I think disrupted everything in our game, and the second goal was a worldy. Fair play to the game we scored. But yeah, that's frustrating because we showed some very good beat against a team that's getting promoted. So that shows that we can compete against the best team in that division as well. But yeah, we fell in the shot today, and yeah, it's unfortunate. - I think the fans showed their appreciation at the end. So for the first half performance, and the way he tried to dig deep in a second to attain the result, sadly, just wasn't the thing. - Yeah, we gave everything I think. We went in second half, and when we went down, we tried. But yeah, we fell in short, like I said, and yeah, it's such a shame. - It's gutting, isn't it? And it looks like the top sevens out of our reach now, but it doesn't mean to say you don't want to finish the season strongly. There's one more game left, a home's done, caster, and I guess you'll want to win that to sense in positive thoughts with the fans. - Yeah, obviously, we're not giving up. There's one game left at home in front of our fans. We want it to be a great day to end the season on the positive note, I think. And yeah, so we're going to prepare it well this week, and give everything on Saturday against them, caster, and yeah, we're going to go for the three points. - Yeah. - If you took me through your goal, it was an impossible angle for you to score, but if I'm the one. - Yeah, so during you played a good pass behind the defense, I tried to cross it first time to Josh Andrews, but the guy tackled and blocked it, but he came back into my feet. And yeah, it was basically on the byline, on the goal line, and in my head, when I got the ball, I didn't even look because I knew I was shooting, and I tried to hide it and send the keeper to open the front post, and then I just slide it in there, yeah. - As you heard, Gillingham's final game of the season is against Doncaster Rovers on Saturday. Staying with football and Ebb's fleet of avoided relegation from the National League, Danny Sull has described Saturday's goalless draw at Borham Wood as the best day of his career. He took over the side in February, and made Stone United have secured their place in the National League South playoffs. They beat Hampton and Richmond 5-1 on Saturday. It means they finished the season fourth and will play Avelie on Wednesday night. The winners will face a worthy next Sunday. Well, 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 your email each morning via the briefing. To sign up, just head to KentOnline.co.uk. News you can trust. This is the Kent Online Podcast.
