THE firm created to run Northamptonshire County Council’s care homes has been nominated for five awards.

Olympus Care Services has received nominations in the Great East Midlands Care Awards, despite only opening its doors on April 1 this year.

Staff have received nominations for categories including registered manager, dementia carer, care trainer, care team and care innovator.

Olympus Care Services is a limited company wholly owned by Northamptonshire County Council. It runs the Evelyn Wright and Grange homes in Daventry.

Managing director Fiona Seymour said: “I’m thrilled with the recognition we have received.”

BRAUNSTON is one Northamptonshire village taking an early step towards faster broadband.

TalkTalk is installing its lastest network there to cover Braunston and surrounding villages.

The company is also sponsoring Braunston Village Hall to help with refurbishment costs.

Village hall chairman Alan Dent said: “They got in touch, possibly because they are putting in this broadband, and offered to sponsor the hall and give us £600.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do to bring the building up to standard, so the committee thought Christmas had come when we heard about this!

“It may not sound like a lot, but it’s a big help.”

A COLOURFUL celebration of literature has taken place at Badby Primary School.

All of the children and staff bought in their favourite stories and dressed up as some of their favourite heroes and heroines from books on Friday. This included Maid Marion, Paddington Bear and Professor Dumbledore from the Harry Potter novels.

The school’s headteacher Lyndsey Evans said: “All of the children were really excited and loved taking part.

“It engages the children with reading and encourages them to read a book they might not have read before.

“It was a good day.”

IMAGES of how Daventry’s museum could be transformed have been unveiled.

Daventry Town Council Museum, based in New Street, has £125,000 to launch ‘Sharing Stories – A People’s Museum for Daventry’ designed to get more of the community involved with its history. Now these artists’ impressions give an idea of what the building could look like.

The project has been developed by the volunteers who run the museum and the town council.

The idea behind the project is to give the building a more ‘museum’ feel to it, and allow items to be better displayed.

Improvements will be made to the entrance hall and the council chamber, where most of the exhibitions are displayed.

The money will also allow a disused room – previously a gents’ toilets – to be transformed into an old-fashioned room for workshops for visiting schoolchildren or for housing more displays.

David Adams, chairman of the Friends of Daventry Museums, said: “It’s pretty good to see what’s being planned there.

“Making use of rooms that are empty is a good idea and the new cases will look better and be more secure too.

“A good point is they want to put a glass door inside the entrance hall and leave the big wood outside door open, so people can come in at anytime.”

The project aims to involve more of the community in their history.

The museum hopes to involve other groups in the town, such as the Phoenix Youth Centre and schools, and potentially take the museum out to the people with displays and exhibitions going on show in different locations.

OPPOSITION appears to be mounting against the building of 200 new homes in Woodford Halse, according to the parish chairman.

On Friday Gladman Developments exhibited its proposals for land north of Byfield Road in Woodford Halse.

Parish council chairman June Irani said: “A lot of people don’t seem to be happy with this.

“It’ll mean a lot more traffic on a road that’s already inadequate, plus pressure on village services and facilities which are limited too.

“A lot of people aren’t happy – the first thing the parish council knew about this was when it appeared in the Daventry Express!”

THREE crashes on Braunston Road, Daventry – two of which resulted in injuries to young children – have led to calls for action over traffic.

On Friday a child was left lying in the road after being hurt in a hit and run at the pedestrian crossing.

A month ago today 10-year-old Oliver Roberts was hit while trying to cross Braunston Road outside his house.

His stepfather Paul Thompson said: “Oliver was just crossing the road and was hit. He was left with cuts all over his body, and a stone embedded into his skin which he’s still being treated for.

“Then more recently when he was going to hospital for treatment my wife Kay was just pulling away from the house with Oliver in the car when they were in a another head-on collision,” he added.

“Oliver was pretty outgoing before and confident crossing 
the road, but now he’s scared of cars and doesn’t like roads.

“With Oliver it wasn’t any one person’s fault, and in my wife’s crash the speed of the cars didn’t matter in determining who was at fault. But we get a huge volume of cars along this road, and a lot of them go too fast.

“People living along here were not happy about the situation so someone got in touch with Northamptonshire County Council, and asked whether someone had to die before anything would be done.

“And then on Friday I was walking down the road just after the accident, and when I saw that child lying motionless in the road with a blanket over them I thought the worst had happened.”

In this incident the young person was left with a leg broken in two places. The motorist drove off leaving the child in the road.

Mr Thompson said: “It was a boy, aged 10 to 12 I’d guess. He was just lying there with paramedics, and there was a wing mirror lying in the road, a big six-inch one with burgundy paint on.”

An NCC spokesman said: “The budget for casualty reduction work is not unlimited so has to be prioritised to achieve the best overall results for the county.

“All the roads in Northamptonshire are monitored for their accident record and those considered to be the most dangerous become ‘red routes’ which means they become a higher priority for casualty reduction work.”

Witnesses to the incident on Friday should contact police on 101.

AN INQUEST into the death of a Daventry teenager will be held on Wednesday.

Joe Butler, 19, who lived in Chaucer Way, was driving a black Volkswagen Polo south on the A5 from Watford Gap at around 2am when it left the road and rolled several times back in March. He died at the scene.

It will be held at Northampton General Hospital.

A MAN has been left with a deep cut to his face following an assault in the early hours of this morning (Monday).

It took place in New Street, Daventry at 3.30am when the 29-year-old was stood at a taxi rank.

He was approached by another man who approached him and punched him in the face.

The attacker is described by police as white, aged around 25 years old, around 5ft 11” tall, with short, dark brown coloured hair. He was clean shaven and wore a dark coloured tee-shirt, dark coloured jeans and black shoes.

Anyone with information about this incident can call police on 101 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

A POLICE blitz on metal thefts has seen an 11 per cent fall over the last 12 months across the county.

The operation, which has also seen 68 cars seized, has been running in the county for the past year and has resulted in police receiving a total of 908 calls from members of the public.

Sergeant Mark McDonnell of the rural crime team said: “One of our tactics as part of the operation is to target the vehicles used by offenders.

“We have been engaging with individuals and groups in the rural and business communities to request that they immediately phone the police with details of any vehicles seen in suspicious circumstances.

“Examples might include vehicles driving around fields, people who appear to be tampering with electric or phone lines, hare coursing, people entering premises without authority, taking items from recycling skips, or touting for scrap.

“It is important that people call the police as quickly as possible so that we have the best possible chance of preventing and detecting these crimes. We check the details of every vehicle registration reported to us; no call is considered to be a waste of our time.

“As a result of the 908 calls received in the last year, 175 vehicles have been identified as suspected of being used in crimes involving rural incidents or metal theft.

“Consequently, the police have stopped 154 of these vehicles in the last year. 68 were immediately seized - mostly due to not having the relevant insurance cover to carry scrap metal. A number of these stops also resulted in the arrest of the driver.

“We work closely with Local Authority enforcement officers regarding the production of Waste Carrier certificates. A Northampton man recently received a fine of over £1,500 for failing to produce his certificate when stopped carrying scrap metal.”

Tougher legislation on metal theft has recently been announced outlawing all cash transactions at metal recycling yards across England and Wales and there will be a significant increase in fines for those dealers who fail to abide by the rules.

The NSPCC has called for an urgent crackdown on computer owners who indulge in the sick trade of child sex abuse images after 46 people in Northamptonshire were prosecuted last year.

The child protection charity revealed today 26 million images were confiscated in the last two years while the number of people across the country prosecuted for making, possessing and distributing indecent images has rocketed by 1,700 per cent since 1995.

The staggering total of confiscated images comes from just five of 43 police forces in England and Wales which were able to check their records. A sixth force said it had records of more than 10 million images going back a number of years.

The figures are in stark contrast to 1990, before the internet became popular, when the Home Office estimated there were just 7,000 hard copy images in circulation in the UK. Now, at least five times that are being confiscated every day.

They are graded on the Oliver scale from level one, the lowest kind of seriousness, to category five, which involves sadism and bestiality.

In response to a Freedom of Information (FoI) request, Northamptonshire Police was not able to provide a breakdown of the number of images discovered, but did reveal that last year it arrested 46 people for taking, possessing or distributing indecent images of children.

The county force’s policy stops an investigation once a suspect’s computer 400 level four images have been found on a suspect’s computer.

Often, the computer holds hundreds, if not thousands, of images showing children being subjected to violent, sexual abuse.

Since 1995, the number of people convicted in England and Wales has risen more than 1,700 per cent from 85 to 1,495 last year.

There have been several court cases involving huge amounts of indecent images of children. In December, a 38-year old man from Northampton was jailed for 18 months for eight counts of possession indecent images and sexual assault.

And on Friday, businessman Mark Rogers, 54, of Rushmere, Northampton was jailed for 23 months for downloading and distributing images.

Fiona Richards, NSPCC regional head of service for the East Midlands, said: “The number of these dreadful images is absolutely appalling.

“The truly awful thing is that more and more children are being abused so these pictures can be produced and once in circulation they may stay there for many years. If we can halt this vile trade, we will be saving countless children from suffering sexual assaults.

“The authorities are working hard to clamp down on this but there are still far too many pictures available. It’s time the government and industry got together to this corrosive problem.”

A SOFA was set on fire in Yelvertoft last night (Monday October 15)

Firefighters from Guilsborough and Long Buckby were called to the incident in Merrycot Lane in the village at 7pm.

The sofa was severely damaged by fire and there was smoke damage to the living room.

The cause of the fire is believed to be accidental.

Police officers took 94 days off sick over the past five years after being attacked.

New figures show that Northamptonshire Police has one of the lowest rates of staff losing working days because they were assaulted.

Officers have taken off less than a hundred days since 2007-08, while Nottinghamshire - which is a force similar in size and geography - had their staff take off 328 sick days last year alone after officers were assaulted.

In 2007-08, just six days were lost as officers took sick days because of assaults. This number increased to 20 the year after, and 25 for both 2009-10 and 2010-11.

In 2011-12, 18 days were lost.

Avon and Somerset’s force lost the highest amount of days last year with a huge 1,302.

PLANS for a 140 ft turbine near Badby have been refused planning permission.

Daventry District Council’s planning committee discussed the proposals on Wednesday last week.

The single turbine was proposed for land between the A361 and Hellidon.

Officers had recommended the scheme for approval. But councillors decided the turbine would have a negative impact on a special landscape area, and that it would also have a negative impact on heritage assets including listed buildings and registered parkland, so they voted to refuse permission.

A QUESTION and answer sessions will take place of the candidates for the Police and Crime Comissioner role in Northamptonshire.

The University of Northampton will be hosting the event in which people can quiz them on their policy statements and manifestos.

The event will have two sessions on Thursday November 1. The first, from 6.30pm to 7.30pm, is dedicated to young people aged 17 and under. The teenagers will be invited to propose questions open for discussion. An adult session will be held immediately after, from 7.45pm to 9pm.

Northamptonshire residents will elect the county’s first Police and Crime Commissioner on November 15.

The Police and Crime Commissioner will oversee the Chief Constable, develop the policing plan and set the budget (including the percentage of council tax that goes towards policing).

Sarah Armstrong-Hallam, manager at the centre for children and youth at the University of Northampton said: “Young people may not be able to vote in this election, but the University is keen to ensure that the prospective candidates hear what matters to young people in Northamptonshire.

“Whatever your age, it is an exciting opportunity to be involved in the most significant change in how the police are managed in more than 20 years.”

Tickets are limited, anyone interested in attending either session and/or submitting a question can register online for either the youth session or the adult session. Alternatively contact Sarah Armstrong-Hallam on 01604 892514 or email sarah.armstrong@northampton.ac.uk.

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A TEENAGER from Daventry was three times the legal drink-drive limit when he died in a car crash, an inquest heard yesterday (Wednesday October 17).

Joe Butler, 19, of Chaucer Way, Daventry, died at the scene of the collision south on the A5 from Watford Gap on March 11 at around 2am.

Speaking at the inquest into his death, Dr David Fattah, consultant histopathologist at Northampton General Hospital, said Joe died as a result of a head injury he sustained in the crash.

Joe’s friends, Sam Allen and Shaun Claxton, were passengers in his black Volkswagen Polo when it left the road and rolled several times.

The group of friends had been at a party in Weedon before taking another friend to The Square nightclub in Daventry and going onto Watford Gap service station to fill the car up with petrol and buy cigarettes.

The group saw their friend, Nicholas Wilkins, at the service station and he followed them in his car as they left.

Speaking at the inquest Mr Allen said: “We left Watford Gap to go back to Weedon and Nick overook us at about 60mph. Joe started to go faster and faster and overtook 
Nick.

“I was being thrown about in the car and was screaming at him to slow down because I was scared.

“Then suddenly Joe lost control of the car and it flipped and rolled along the carriageway.”

Shaun added: “I was frightened by the way Joe was driving. He was going really fast. I told him to slow down.

“I remember the car hitting the kerb and then it turned over. I think Joe was going at around 80mph.”

Sam and Shaun both suffered injuries in the collision but Joe died at the scene.

The inquest heard that after the collision Nicholas drove past and saw Joe’s upturned car but he did not remain at the scene.

Joe was a former student at William Parker School, he went on to Northampton College in Daventry where he studied art and design.

He was well known around the town and beyond, particularly for his BMX skills and was regularly at the town’s ramps on the New Street Rec, honing his own skills, but also helping others and showing them how to do tricks.

County coroner Anne Pember recorded a verdict of accidental death.

She said: “Joe drove at far too fast a speed while he was severely impaired by the amount of alcohol he had consumed.

“What a pity he didn’t listen to his mother when she didn’t want him to go out driving.”

For an interview with Joe’s dad and his reaction to the inquest, see this week’s Daventry Express.

GCSE results in the county are still lagging behind the national average for the number of pupils achieving five “good” grades.

Figures released by the Department for Education today show that 55.7 per cent of pupils achieved five A* to C grades, including English and maths, in their exams this summer up from 55.3 per cent last year.

The county is now ranked 106th out of the 150 local authorities in England, up from 111th in 2011.

But Northamptonshire is still below the national average of 58.4 per cent and the East Midlands average of 57.2 per cent.

The county is sixth out of the nine local authorities in the region, below Leicestershire but above Rutland.

The number of the students in the county achieving five GCSEs in any subjects is 79.7 per cent, which is below the national average of 82.7 per cent for state funded schools.

The proportion of teenagers achieving at least five GCSEs including English and maths has fallen for the first time.

PARENTS and carers can snap up some bargains for babies and toddlers at an NCT nearly new sale on Saturday.

The event takes place from 1pm to 2.30pm at the Parker E-ACT Academy (formerly William Parker), Ashby Road, Daventry.

NCT members can gain entrance at 12.30pm on production of a valid membership card.

There is a charge of £1 admission, which goes towards the NCT charity, and the sale will be full of baby and children’s clothes and equipment.

As well as maternity, baby and children’s clothing, there will also be a range of toys, books and equipment, including essentials such as cots, high chairs and pushchairs.

Laura Wild, chairman of Daventry NCT, said: “The nearly new sale is a fantastic opportunity to pick up some brilliant bargains for your little ones. Volunteers have put in a huge amount of work and we hope the sale will be a great success.”

Daventry NCT has been awarded the Gold Standard Rosette for providing a valuable service for new and expectant parents, and achieving outstanding fundraising success for the NCT Charity.

For more details of the event, call 0844 243 6102 or email daventrynct@hotmail.com

IT’S all lights, camera, action for budding young filmmakers as villagers launch a new film project.

Youngsters aged 10 to 18 in the villages of Badby, Newnham and Staverton can get involved in the forthcoming meetings of MicroMovies where they will get the chance to learn how to make a movie or short film from start to finish.

Member of Badby and District Film Society (BDFS) and project organiser, Richard Bird, said: “This is an exciting project for the villagers and pupils who go to the three schools.

“We had a preliminary meeting and had a lot of interest in what we are trying to do.

“The free project will give young people the chance to make a short film – from the early stages of making a script and a story board and then to filming and eventually to showing it on a big screen.”

The project is being developed by BDFS and Threshold Studios of Northampton (TSN) and funded by Daventry District Council, Northamptonshire County Council and the Northamptonshire Community Foundation.

Mr Bird added: “Our film society has been running for five years but this is the first time we have run anything like this, which is why we are working with the TSN who has a lot of experience in this area.”

The society has a 17ft-screen on which to show the films when completed but Mr Bird said filming could even be done by youngsters on something as simple as an iPhone.

Mr Bird is particularly pleased with the project as the late chairman of the BDFS was very passionate about encouraging youth projects.

He added: “We celebrated the life of David Pearce last week - he would have been delighted with the project.”

The first meeting of MicroMovies is on Sunday October 21 in Badby Village Hall at 2.30pm.

CONTROVERSIAL plans for a 132 homes in Long Buckby have been approved by the planning inspectorate.

Hallam Land Management has been given the go-ahead to build the homes on the west side of Station Road. The application had gone to the planning inspectorate after Daventry District Council refused planning permission for the scheme.

The plans had led to the formation of a residents group Buckby Residents Against Controversial Estates.

For more reaction on this story, see next week’s Daventry Express.