A Dymchurch woman who stabbed her husband when he fell asleep as she told him about her life problems, has avoided being sent to prison.
He needed emergency treatment but pleaded with a judge not to jail his wife - blaming the outburst on menopausal symptoms.
Also in today’s episode, a Kent MP says she hopes measures will be put in place urgently to ensure women receive better care when giving birth.
Canterbury’s Rosie Duffield has co-chaired a parliamentary inquiry into maternity services, which heard evidence from 1,300 mums about the trauma they have suffered.
Businesses in part of Medway are worried about new red-routes coming into force.
From next week, cameras will be used to catch drivers parking on certain busy roads in the Towns.
A petition has been set up to save one of the last remaining banks on Sheppey.
TSB announced last week they're shutting their branch on Sheerness High Street, making it the fourth bank to close on the island in last couple of years.
Work has finally started on a £60 million redevelopment of part of Maidstone.
Over the next few weeks 38 homes will be demolished on Cambridge Crescent in Shepway to make way for nearly 120 new properties.
And, a group of teachers have completed a challenge to run from Maidstone to Paris ahead of the Olympics.
Six members of staff at Bower Grove took part in a relay to raise money for a summer festival for special needs pupils.
10. Kent Online News News You Can Trust This is the Kent Online Podcast. Lucy Hickmott Hello and thanks for downloading today's podcast on Tuesday the 14th of May. Hope you're doing okay. First up, a dim church woman who stabbed her husband when he fell asleep as she told him about her life problems has avoided being sent to prison. Lauren joins me now with more details on the case. So, Lauren, tell us a bit about what happened. Well, a court was told Deborah Stalard attacked her partner at their mobile home at New Beach Holiday Park. They'd been discussing her personal life when he seemed to drift off. Prosecutors say she threw a number of items at him and then stabbed him in the chest. Barry needed emergency treatment, but luckily his lungs weren't damaged. And I understand he was in court to help plead her case. Yes, that's right. He begged the judge not to put his wife behind bars, blaming the violent outburst on her menopausal symptoms. They'd been together for 21 years and Barry says the attack was a one off. After the stabbing in April last year, Deborah was set bail conditions that prohibited her from living with her partner. In a statement read out by his defence barrister, he said the restrictions have been more damaging to their relationship than the incident itself. He wants them to live together as a happily married couple again and begged the judge not to send his wife to prison. So, what sentence has she been given? Well, she was spared jail as the judge accepted that she was genuinely remorseful. Evidence of the hormonal effect caused by the menopause was also backed up in a GP statement. The 54-year-old's been given a nine-month suspended sentence along with a 12-month community order. She'll have to do 100 hours of unpaid work and attend 20 rehab sessions. Thanks, Lauren. Can's online reports. A road in Maidstones being closed off following a crash after a police chase, a suspected stolen Mercedes being pursued by officers collided with another car on St Peter Street near Buckland Hill at about midnight. The driver of the second vehicle is in hospital with serious injuries. Three 17-year-old boys have been arrested. A drug addict who left a woman with scars following a knife attack in Maidstone has been jailed. Pearl Chapman cut the victim's head in a row over drugs at a flat on Station Road last October. The 40-year-old from Snowdrop close in Chelmsford has been locked up for nearly two years. A Kent MP says she hopes measures will be put in place urgently to ensure women receive better care when giving birth. Rosie Duffield has co-chaired a parliamentary inquiry into maternity services. It heard from 1,300 months who shared harrowing stories of trauma and being left in pain. Lauren's been speaking to the Canterbury rep following the report. Obviously, those of us that were part of the Kirkup enquiry niece can't have been through quite a lot of this type of evidence before, which is really horrible and shocking. There are some stories from that time that I'll never, ever forget. I'm in touch with some of those women and the families still who took part. To find out that it was on a national scale was actually really shocking. We heard the same kinds of trauma and the same kinds of treatment being told to us over and over again. We had 1,300 plus women talking to us and partners and dads. There are some things that I'll never ever forget. Out of this then, what would you like to see the outcome? What are you calling for it to have an eye? We absolutely need to see this change almost immediately. East Kent are a good example because I went to the A&E at William Harvey the other day and I realised that some of the changes they've been putting into place are already happening. Thank goodness. What we need to see is a strategy throughout the country, not just a post-code lottery approach, which is what is very clear from our evidence. We need to see a national strategy, one set of guidelines. We think a maternity commissioner or czar who oversees the entire thing in a role slightly separate from the chief midwife, just to check that all of these standards are being met nationally. Obviously, things like tree and e-midwives is going to live a while. What kind of things would you like to see that could happen much more differently? What things do you think, right, if we have a first step that we can do immediately? What would that be? I think we have to improve the culture for the midwives already working because they leave very quickly after being trained at the moment and that is a real crisis. We've spoken to senior obstetric staff who say they cannot keep their staff because the pressure is so great. So that needs to be tackled straight away. I know myself, my mom and little midwife, and I have two children myself, and I know that they work really long shifts. Is that something maybe that could be looked at because when my birth was quite traumatic, horrendous, so I know myself the experience that women have, I was very lucky. My midwives, they were meant to go off shift, but they didn't because they were like, "We can't leave you." But that, they're doing that time and time again. It's perfect trying to look at a way of making sure that they're not overstretched and tired and seen too long hours. Absolutely. We're here that time and time again. During the Kirkup Inquiry, I had midwives who were too afraid to speak out. Some of whom got burner phones to speak to me to be whistle blowers essentially, and they are exhausted, as you said. I mean, I've been on wards where my relatives are there, and after 13, 14 hours, some of those nurses haven't got the next shift relief because they just aren't enough staff, and they're carrying on no medical professional. I know would leave their patients, and we just sort of expect them to have that passion and to want to deliver the best care, and luckily they do, but we shouldn't be putting that pressure on them. They deserve. It is a qualified, highly qualified, highly caring professionals. They deserve a better working atmosphere. They deserve support. They deserve enough colleagues, enough pay, and enough respect so that they are not just trudging into work feeling traumatized themselves, but feeling valued and respected. The government's admitted there have been failings in maternity care, but insist improvements are being made. Kent Online News. A man's appeared in court after around 500 cannabis plants were seized in Hern Bay. The 34-year-old was arrested after police found the plants and growing equipment at a site in Sea Street last Thursday. He's been charged with cultivating cannabis and dishonestly using electricity. Figures out today show a slight drop in unemployment in Kent. 40,275 people were claiming out of work benefits in the county in March. That's down by 45 compared to the previous month. Now, there's less than a week to go until so-called red routes come into force in parts of Medway. Cameras have been installed to catch drivers parking on some of the busiest roads in the towns. Those who do break the rules will initially get a warning letter followed by a fine if they do it again. Our reporter Robert Boddie has been chatting to Wendy Stepney, who works at a business on Rainham High Street. It was a bit of a shock for us to come in. I can't remember which day, whether it be Monday or Tuesday. There they are, the red lines. We knew they were coming, but we weren't actually told when. We're fully aware that the camera is not active until the 20th of May. But the drivers coming won't know that, so it's going to cause this problem. A lot of them is deliveries that is an issue for us. Some of the lawyers are artics and they don't have anywhere to go. Lee would have spoken to whoever's responsible for this. We asked for a space for parking around the side in Quinell Street, which we were told would be allocated. It hasn't been. There's definitely not going to be enough room there for us. Also, the lawyer drivers get fined for parking. Some of the companies won't pay those fines. The lawyer drivers consequently won't stop. Had a delivery this morning and the guy says he encounters the average of six parking tickets a week and his company pay them. So, at the end of the day, the general public are funding that one way or another. How much of a problem is this actually solving or is this not really an issue? The red route, there isn't a problem. The problem is where they've been digging up the roads there and everywhere and causing congestion. There isn't congestion on here when the motorway shuts or the traffic comes down this way. But you can't avoid that and the red route's not going to have nothing to do with that. Councillor Triss Osborne has been speaking to Nicola and responded to some of the concerns. These roads already had double yellow lines on them. They were already restricted parking and we were already enforcing, but double red lines gives us more power and the use of camera technologies to do so. So, what extra powers do you now have then if you see cars stopping on those red routes? This is a congestion prevention measure. So, if people were to park out on the restricted hours, they would receive, first of all, they would receive a letter from us to say you have contravened the parking order. There's no fine with that, incidentally. It's just a warning letter. But if you were to do it again, you would receive a fine. After six months, you would get a fine straightaway. Some people, particularly in random, where the red route is on the high street, there's an awful lot of shops there. They're particularly worried about deliveries and things like that. Can you tell us how they might be affected by this new system? Yeah, absolutely. So, red routes have within them the ability to designate areas for loading and unloading. So, very specific points. These are usually designed within the route itself so that traffic and other buses and emergency service vehicles could pass them if they were loading. There were also powers within those to say that they could only load and unload at particular times of day. And this has been done in random consultation with businesses. I know when I've driven in London, which is very rarely, I have always thought, "Oh my goodness, what happens if I break down on this red route? I mean, am I still going to get issued with a fine? What would the deal be in Medway if you were to have an incident and you had to stop your car on one of those routes?" Okay, so, for instance, that might happen as well with blue badge holders, for instance. They might need to pick someone up. So, blue badge holders would be exempt. So, as long as you could, you might get a fine sent through, but you could prove an exemption. That's absolutely fine. That would be taken on appeal. That would be accepted on appeal. Similarly, if you were broken down, there will be appeals processes for that as well. And when will they be reviewed, Tristan, are you going to look at it in a few months, six months, a year? When are you going to look at it again and see how it's working? Yeah, it's a really good question, actually, because in my view, they should be reviewed on a regular basis to see if they're being effective, how residents are communicating to us. And of course, red routes don't always have to have cameras on them either. So, you could introduce the concept of the red route without camera systems. So, it might be part of an iterative process where we look to introduce further ones. We might look to move cameras, change cameras, where people are complying with particular schemes. So, in my view, the idea of the red route is just simply enforcing the rules we already had before. But we are using camera technologies so we can redeploy our traffic rules elsewhere. In my view, we have to learn from all of the proposals we see. And of course, we will keep a watching brief to see how this is implemented and how people respond. Can online reports head over to our website to see footage of a man leaving a restaurant in Canterbury without paying his bill. He had a three-course meal and alcohol at Passilipo, racking up a 65-pound bill. The restaurant managers released CCTV to warn other businesses. A road linking the town centre and seafront in Folkestone could be closed for the rest of the year after two landslides. The road of remembrance was shut in January, but it was thought it would reopen this summer. Bosses say they still need to carry out surveys and repair work to stabilise the embankment. A petition has been set up to save one of the last remaining banks on Shepey. DSB announced last week they're shutting their branch on Sheens High Street, making it the fourth bank to close on the island in the last couple of years. It's due to go in September, but more than a thousand people have joined calls for it to stay open. His local resident Alan Welch. My main concern is for all these banks shutting down is that some businesses run on cash only. And so therefore it's getting harder and harder for us to get cash out. And I'm quite lucky in the fact that I've got a vehicle that I can go and travel to get all these facilities if I need it. But for people that are vulnerable, it's going to be a massive blow to them. The ATMs that we have got currently are becoming emptier and emptier quicker. So therefore people will run out of cash. And I had a prime example a little while ago, I went to a business and the internet had gone down. I didn't have any cash on me, so I couldn't do any shopping. So this is going to happen more and more a bit easier. And it's just becoming, it's having a knock on effect on the whole business business of the island. They're main excuses. They're not getting the foot from through the door, but they don't tell you that they're going to shut the ATM when they say that. We lose in the ATM, so you can't get access to your money. It's not their money. It's your money. We've worked. TSB say most customers are doing their banking online and they believe the closure will provide a better balance of digital and face-to-face services. Kent Online News There are calls for another review of a park and ride in Canterbury just weeks after it reopened. Green Party reps claim not enough people are using the Story Road facility to make it environmentally viable, but the Labor Lib Dem Council insists it's too early to tell. Early figures suggest a 16% increase in people paying to park in the first six weeks of operation compared to the time before it closed two years ago. The Medway Conservative Group have chosen their new leader, Councillor George Perfect will take over the job just a year after first being elected. He'll head up the opposition with Councillor Gary Hackwell as his deputy. Works finally started on a £60 million development in part of Maidstone. Over the next few weeks, 38 homes will be demolished on Cambridge Crescent in Shepway to make way for nearly 120 new properties. It will be mostly social housing with a mix of apartments and family homes. Tom Casey is the Executive Director of Development and Strategic Asset Manager at Golding Homes. He's been chatting to our reporter Cara Simmons about how the process works. So the demolition contractor is simultaneously working on what they call a strip-out and kind of demolition. The demolition is essentially like a large JCB. They call it a muncher on the end, so it's kind of munching away at the building to breaking it down. As they break things down, there's a there's a knock-rotive with a hose dampening down to minimise the dust for the local area. The key thing when I mentioned strip-out is taking any materials that have kind of re-exvalue. So we saw when we walked around a couple of guys kind of working on the bricks, removing the old mortar to get the bricks back to their shape. They'll be stored and there's a market for that. So they'll be looking to sell those to future users who need those bricks. The other thing is they're crunching and munching down the concrete to get down to like hardcore. What we don't want to do is pay for that to be carted away. That's disruptive. It's expensive. We'll be using that on the site to provide the base for new roads, new pathways. There's two things to that. It's efficient. It minimises kind of traffic. It minimises costs, but it's also sustainable and it reduces the carbon footprint of the development going forward. So why is it so important to you guys to sort of regenerate this area? Yeah. So where we are, the boundary of this site, the site that's affected has 114 homes at the moment. It has the biggest concentration of bed sits in all of our stock here. So roughly a third of those have bed sits. That's small apartments without separate bedrooms. So they really designed for a purpose when they were built, not long after the second one, but we really want to move forward with appropriate standards, one and two bedroom houses, but sorry, one and two bedroom apartments of good size with appropriate storage, with a meanity space and good size bedrooms and what have you, and also some two or three bedroom houses. So it has some diversity. It won't be all the same. So it's quite unusual at the moment that the homes are quite spread out, they're low density. There's lots of open space, but not particularly well utilised open space. So we're able, over the course of the project, to increase from 114 homes to 236. And that's whilst removing the bed sits and increasing the size of the homes. And obviously we'll have open space going forward, but we'll have it well planned. The Housing Association has been working with residents who are having to relocate while constructions carried out. Lucy Alder is the regeneration coordinator. So the current tenants that are in the homes at the moment, they meet up with me in person, we have a meeting and are taken through the process. So for, we have obviously two different type of tenures currently on site at the moment. We have social tenants and we also have lease holders. The process for the social tenants is that we get them to apply to the Kent home choice and they do not have to stay within Maidstone. They can choose other councils that they can apply to. We also have an agreement with NBC that I'm able to offer them a direct let process. So the voice that we currently have in our housing stock, I'm able to offer them to two of the tenants. So if I know for example that they're looking for a two bed and they want to drive away or something something little like that, I can kind of look at that in our housing self-incorporated to them exactly what they're looking for. We appreciate the amount of inconvenience they're going for as young families and elderly people that have been there for over 20 years. So we want to make that process as smooth as virtually possible and why they're meeting and talking to me exactly what they're looking for to prevent any extra stress. And then that's something that I worked towards for them. So I think I'm talking over time. It's been a bit of a target for and social behaviour. So I think they're looking forward to that sort of removing from that area. And I think the homes as Tom said as well, they're not very good quality and to put good quality homes in there and create that community feel that you can 100% see there was that community feel at the beginning. When these were built, there's so much bigger land. You can imagine all the family getting together and all that all the neighbours all being friendly. But it feels like it's lost that now. And I think by us by doing this project, we will bring that back that community feel and bring it all. It will be a nice space for people to want to come to. Elsewhere in UBIDS, being launched to build 125 homes on farmland in Dim Church. Previous plans for 132 properties near High Knock Farm were rejected after being branded out of character. Developers say they've taken steps to alleviate concerns. Head over to Kent Online to see how part of our coast could be turned into a Covent Garden style food hall. The plans for Folkstance Harbour Arm would transform the goods yard. It's all part of a wider master plan for up to 1000 new homes on the seafront. A golf club in North Kent is announced plans to create a hotel, spa and wedding venue. South Ashmana at London Golf Club in Ash would also be refurbished as part of the project. We're told the hotel would have 240 bedrooms and if it's all approved, it could be up and running by 2028. And a group of teachers have completed a challenge to run from Maidstone to Paris ahead of the Olympics. Six members of staff at Bauer Grove took part in Relay to raise money for a summer festival for special needs pupils. They've finished in 33 hours, which is three hours quicker than their target. Two of the teammates, Catherine Candy and Beth Flisher, have been chatting to Abby Hook on KMTV. It definitely was a challenge for everybody. There were definite moments where all of us needed a bit of a pick-me-up and we all had to support each other and really be a team to push each other onwards. There were definite periods of doubting. Probably we'd all trained really, really hard. Everybody had put in a lot of hours to make sure that the running side of things. And we all say whilst one person was running another person was always on the bike. So you always had a partner to support you and talk you through and kind of keep you going and have a chat or tell you that you were doing great. But we really needed that. I think the thing that got to all of us and shocked us all was the exhaustion side of things. Because although we had a break, we did it as a relay. There were times and actually we didn't sleep for that 33 hours. I don't think anybody got any sleep at all. So it was pretty much being awake for 33 hours. So that was the thing that really got to all of us and exhausted us. And the fatigue was the hardest thing I think. Beth, I suppose another huge part of this is what you're doing it for. That's a huge driving force of course. So tell us where the money's going to go that you've raced. I believe it's nearly, you nearly got your target of £7,000 now. Yeah, we're really close to target. We are an NTMH school in made stones. All of our pupils have the expertise and who, for us, we wanted to throw a massive arts festival for them. We've held too previously and the impact it has on the pupils is incredible for the children who wouldn't usually get to experience live music and the first of blacks that we have in. So we wanted to raise as much money as possible so that we could have the biggest and best festival yet. And that's kind of the driving force behind it to give our people that experience of culture, of music. Being so close to target is crazy. I mean, we wouldn't have been able to do that without so many of our sponsors. I mean, we've had we've had donations big and small from friends, families, strangers, people we don't even know, lots of pupils and families. But we've got six main sponsors who without them, we wouldn't we wouldn't be able to run the festival. Donations are still open if you want to get involved. Ken's online sport cricket and Kent have managed to salvage a draw in their county championship match against Worcestershire. They batted out the final day after being asked to follow on at Canterbury. Kent finished on 146 for four 65 runs behind the visitors first in a score of 618, but with six wickets still in hand is their third draw out of five matches so far this season. That's all from us today. Thanks ever so much for listening. Don't forget you can follow us on FacebookX, 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. It's nearly time for fun at Causington Park Sports Centre. The family-friendly, inclusive pool and sports centre from Medway, opening on Wednesday the 17th of July. With a brand new fun pool, weight machine and flume, four lane swimming pool and splash pool for little ones, multi-purpose dance and fitness studio with children's party area and estate of the art gym. The countdown is on. Sign up to a membership and find out more at medway.gov.uk/causingtonpark.
