Syrian Defence Forces say that is not true. There have been further clashes with police as demonstrations by indigenous groups against rising prices continue in ecuador. At ten oclock, a full round up of the days news. Now on bbc news, our world. Michael buchanan meets people in hartlepool in the north east of england to find out how government cuts have affected their lives. On the north east coast of england lies one of britains poorest towns. A lack of work, a lack of money, has left a proud area struggling badly. Drug abuse is rife, killing people at a faster rate than almost anywhere else in england. For a year, this town has become my second home, witnessing at firsthand its fears. Ive lost one son. Dont want to lose another. And the dedication of those battling its demons. He bought us a sandwich in the doorway bought us a cheeseburger. That contributed to him turning his life around . Poverty and deprivation arent unique to this town. But here, they have gripped too many people who cant see a way out. So why are you at the food bank . Because ive got a shortage of food at home. Ijust dont have anything to eat. This is a side of britain we rarely see. This is hartlepool. It is saturday night. Sergeant Kevin Rutherford and his colleague have been called to an incident in the town centre, a suspected drugs overdose. It never stops. It doesnt matter what day of the week it is, it never stops. It doesnt matter if its 9 00am in the morning or 1 00am in the morning on a saturday, i would say theres a lot of drugs, theres a lot of alcohol. The woman is believed to have taken a combination of psychoactive drugs, an emerging problem in hartlepool, another challenge for the towns stretched police force. Since 2010, Cleveland Police have had its budget cut by a third. Almost 500 officers have gone. Tonight, there are just ten of them available, should any of hartlepools 93,000 residents need immediate help. Screaming. Cuts have many consequences. Expensive equipment lies idle. There is no one to staff this custody suite, a visual impact of the uk governments essentially ongoing reduction in Public Sector spending, a policy that has been in place since 2010. This has been, like, out of action now for a month, 1. 5 months. Weve got the holding room there, where the prisoner would come in before hes presented to the custody sergeant. And used to have, like, the custody sergeant and two detention staff, but that got cut to one. So i think weve got 1a cells in here, if you want to come and have a look. I think if you go back, like eight, nine years ago, everything was here and it was like a little community. But i miss it. It makes the job easier, if youve got everything where we need it. Another emergency call, this time for a man having a Mental Health breakdown. Stop banging your head against the door. Youre going to hurt yourself. I dont care he is also alleged to have harassed a woman, so kevin and his colleague arrest him. But, as the local custody suite is closed, they have to drive to another town 25 minutes away. As kevin and his colleague deal with that incident, another 999 call has come through. Two officers have gone to deal with that one. So, as we speak, 3 10am on saturday night, there are now no response officers available should there be another incident in hartlepool just now. The lack of police has allowed the drug trade to thrive, as martin and angela can testify. They take me to a house where they sometimes shoot up, usually heroin or crack cocaine. So you sleep in the room with the window smashed. Yeah, yeah. Must get cold, huh . 0h, do you . Yeah. Scattered throughout, the paraphernalia of a destructive habit that impedes both senses and speech. Drugs are an equally massive part of your family as well . Yeah, cos two of them have died of it. And my brother is on it, hes on it, and me and my twin sisters on it. So its taken all of them. Of the five kids. Two died, and the three thats left are still on it. Yeah. There is a danger that your parents will outlive all five of their children. I know. My mum sits there, and she sits and waits for a knock on the door whens one of her next kids going to be dead . Do you have a fear that youll never stop . Yeah. I do. Yeah. Thinking about when and where youre going to get your next one from. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Life is equally tough for tom and roz, their days blighted by drugs too. All right, then, son. Today theyre off to meet their son terry, who is being freed from prison after serving four months in jail for shoplifting to feed his drug habit. No, well be there in about 5 10 minutes. All right, then. Love you, bye. Their other son, shaun, died of a drugs overdose last year. I love you. I dont want to go through this anymore, terry. Ive lost one son. Dont want to lose another. A long term user, terry knows keeping clean wont be easy, but promises to make his mum and dad proud of him. Temptations still there, obviously, because ive been on them for a lot of years. But hopefully im going to try and beat that this time. The boys were still at school when they first started using, terry introducing younger brother shaun to drugs. One day he came home from school, i remember, and he sat on the worktop in the kitchen, and hejust started crying. I said, shaun, whats the matter . He said, mum, i dont know how to tell you. I said, what . He said, ive been using drugs. And i said, well, how have you got into that . And he said, through terry and a couple of mates. He said, i need help. And thats when we started looking for help, which there was none really in the town. For nearly two decades they watched as their sons lives became defined by drugs, powerless to stop them spiralling towards addiction and criminality. Then, in october 2018, tom and roz got the news they had long feared. Shaun had been found dead. I wasjust numb numb. Yeah. It was the worst thing any parent could go through. Its horrible. Ill never, ever forget it. It broke my heart. Hes my baby. 33 year olds no age. When the police came to take us out to view his body, i actually took a picture of him laid there, cos i was hoping. We were hoping that it would have shocked terry. But. A few days after his release from prison, i bump into terry in the town centre. Terry, how you doing . Im doing fine, yeah. Its a week later, since we met you. Yeah, and ill tell the truth, ive had one go of crack. But i went in and i told my mum straightaway. And she said, right, anymore, and thats it. So that is the end. So you promised, promised, promised last week that you wouldnt go back to it. I know, it wasjust, like, i bumped into an old friend yesterday. And so all youve had since you came out is one crack pipe . 0ne crack pipe and a few drinks. And thats been it . And thats been it. And no more . No more. And when you told your mother that youd had the crack pipe, what did she say . 0h, she wasnt happy, wasnt happy at all. But i promised her, i swore on my brothers ashes, that im not going to take no more. At the centre of hartlepools drug problem is poverty a destructive mix of deprivation, helplessness and hopelessness. The town has the highest levels of unemployment in britain, the highest proportion of households where no one works. Many of the jobs that do exist are of lower quality, and wages lag the national average. If you arrive in hartlepool by train, then this is the first place that you come to. Its called church street. Lots of the businesses are shut down, and on any particular day, it can feel that the busiest place here is actually the food bank. Amid growing need, more people are turning to charities to make ends meet. This food bank is one of nine places that have opened since 2010, providing food parcels and hot meals to those who have nothing. Among todays clients, i meet ian batty, a former retail manager who lost his job after being injured in a car accident. Ian has had to come to the food bank as his Welfare Benefits have been stopped. Ive got a shortage of food at home. Ijust dont have anything to eat. And what do they expect you to live on . Thats a good question, and i cant answer that. Ive sold personal belongings and furniture in my flat to buy food, and pay bills. When youre not getting many fresh vegetables, you have to go for the healthy rice. Ian invites me back to his flat, which he fears hell shortly lose. Ive painted the walls and ive put up netting to make it private, and started to make it a home. Mm hm. Up until the money stopped, and then of course no budget to continue, really. So my wardrobe is missing, the chest of drawers is gone, and im living out of that suitcase down there. There are my clothes in there. I do sufferfrom insomnia, terribly. I cant sleep. Yeah. So im awake at 2 00am, and then again at 5 00am, and then im up and about by about 6 00am in the morning, because i just. I go for walks, long walks along the beach, just to get clear my head of the anxiety and the pressure. I climb the walls in here. Hartlepool used to matter greatly, a town with a glorious history of shipbuilding and steelmaking. Everyone worked and everyone played, its seaside resort crammed in summer. But the town started to suffer in the 1960s. As those heavy industries closed down, they were replaced by unemployment and decay. For decades, hartlepool was ignored and overlooked. But, in the 1990s and early 2000s, government invested in the town, regenerating some areas to attract private investors. The marina was an effort to change perceptions of hartlepool. The old shipyards, well, they were never coming back, so this was built instead. And, to a degree, it succeeded. There are people getting jobs from what happened here. But it wasnt enough. The Public Sector remained the bedrock of the town, so when the uk government decided to slash spending in 2010, hartlepool struggled to cope. Welfare payments crucial to many here were cut, removing tens of millions of pounds from the towns economy. 0ther cuts have seen the courthouse close and Health Services reduced. Babies can no longer be born in the towns hospital. Hartlepool has warmly welcomed me on each visit, opening its heart to a one time stranger, so four months later, ive come back to catch up with some of those ive gotten to know. For tom and roz, life remains a struggle. 0ctober marks the First Anniversary of shauns death, but their thoughts are also with the living. Terry has relapsed into severe drug addiction. Hes worse than ever, though, now. Is he . I stopped him coming up here cause he was bothering his mum all the time for her pills or her money. And he only comes up if he wants any money. And i said, ive got no money. You might as well go. But he tries and tries. When did you last see him . Saturday. Well, you did, i never. Yeah, saturday. How is he . His body is a mess, with these abscesses and that, like, on his legs. And he had one on his side there, didnt he . cause hes injecting all over the place . Yeah. I even got him a necklace and put some of shauns ashes in it for him. Hes kept that, like, but it hasnt changed him in anyway. I think he just thinks hes invincible. Drug addiction is a precarious, unpredictable illness, a fact hammered home to me when i met up with martin and angela again. Since i last saw them, martins life has dramatically deteriorated. He got crushed between a train and a railway platform, shattering his pelvis in ten different places. How did you end up being hit by a train . He thought hed catch it by the tracks. It threw him in the air. Can i ask, when you were hit by the train, were you high at the time . But, when you look at your condition now, do you think drugs were a factor . Yeah. You do, dont you . Truthfully, someone must have been looking down. You wish theyd turned the machine off . Dont talk like that. It was desperately sad to see martin in that state, tearful, sick of life. As i head to meet up with Sergeant Rutherford again, i hope that life is easierfor him. Cleveland police have requested another 100 cops, which theyre going through the process now of adding 25 or 20 a month. And the ones now have just come through the probation, and theyre really good cops. Really keen, which is what you need. But you still have the issue of going down to middlesborough when you arrest somebody here. Yeah, custodys still shut. And theres no real plan to reopen it . No. And youre changing jobs yourself. Yeah, hopefully. Yes. You do get burned out. Doing response, ive done it for, what, 10. 5 11 years now, and you do get burnt out. And i need to move onto something else. As we are filming, kevin is approached by carl, a former homeless heroin user he met last december, and who is now trying to turn his life around. He bought us a sandwich in the doorway, bought us a cheeseburger. I believe it was new years eve. It was either Christmas Eve or new years eve. What helped me starting to be able to care and love myself was to realise people do care about me, and that wasjust a great help. Ive only been in hartlepool about three years, but ive been an addict for 16 years now. A lot of people in hartlepool have given me ten minutes of their time, but that ten minutes of conversation could save someones life. Yeah. I think now, since ive got clean for the last month and a half, im starting to feel more emotions. cause thats what heroin does, it blocks everything out. I didnt care whether i died the next day. That decision buy that cheeseburger that night, that ten minutes or five minutes you spent with him, that contributed to him turning his life around. That must be brilliant for you. Its brilliant to see someone, cause in 11 years ive probably seen about half a dozen people who have gotten clean, legitimately gotten clean. And if thats what youve done, thats fantastic. And your life will change around. Oh, no, mate, iwant to thank you so much. Carls story of hope is testament to the power of a close knit community. Good services may be in short supply, but there are many good people ready to help. But you have to want to help yourself too, which brings me back to terry. Before leaving hartlepool, i want to find him one more time. As carl has shown, it is possible to stop drugs, to start overcoming addiction. With perseverance, perhaps, even terrys 20 year long habit can be beaten. But, when i find him, hes a shadow of his former self. Hes lost three stone, around 20 kg, a fix always more important than food. So terry, its been a while since weve met. How are you doing . All right. Youre back on it, arent you . Yeah. What happened . Ijust relapsed, from prison. And ive got ulcers in my legs, so. Its not good. Not good at all. Been discharged from hospital last week. And, like, i was at shauns memorial last week. Went over everything with mum, and that. Got his ashes around my neck, and. Im just lost without him, to tell you the truth. What will it take for you to stop . I want to go into rehab, but ive got no one to help me get in one. How often do you take at the moment . How many times a day . Just once, twice a day. And you wear shauns ashes, do you . Yes, ive got them around my neck. Remind you of what happened to him. Yeah. It could happen to you. I know. Its what my mums worried about. Are you not scared . Yeah, definitely. Part of rozs morning is to get a tattoo of shaun inked on her arm. She knows she may well outlive terry, too. I see hes following his brothers life. And on his ashes, he was going to go off the drugs. No, i think hes got worse, because hes grieving. Isaid, terry, you have to be ready yourself. Its no good saying youre going to do it for other people. I said, youve got to actually do it yourself. That is a very good likeness. Just what he looked like. What does it mean to you . It means everything. Yeah. Really everything. Brilliant, isnt it . Yep. I hope that things improve for you. The next time we see you, youll probably have a lot of tattoos, will you . There is an infectious warmth and resilience to the people here. They care, but does anyone else . While the government says austerity is now over, it doesnt feel that way here. Hartlepool needs help. Hartlepool needs hope. Hello, once again, well update you on the weeks weather prospects in the British Isles and a second. First, an update on typhoon hagibis, which, through the course of sunday, should take the very worst of its conditions away from the main islands of japan, but not before its delivered in some areas in excess of 900 millimetres of rain, nearly a metre of rain. Winds in excess of 100 mph. And while this weather system are still around, dangerous waves and still the risk of landslides, too. Coming a little bit closer to home, saturday was not very sparkling, to say the very least, across southern counties of both england and wales. All thanks to this area of cloud. A waving weather front which, during the course of sunday, should make some progress, both to the north and to the east. Such that eventually i think we will see some sunshine returning to parts of wales on the south west of england. And all the while, northern and North Western parts of scotland and Northern Ireland should be in for a pretty decent sort of day, temperatures again, nothing to write home about. Tops of around 15 or 16, if you are lucky. Eventually, the whole system begins to move its way, it would appear, off into the north sea. But heres the rub. Come monday, the trailing portion of the front is still trailing perilously close to the south east and quarter of the British Isles. At the same time, it will introduce another feature here, further to the west. So it may well be that we see this rain, and there is some doubt at the moment, coming a little further towards the north and west across the south east and quarter towards the north and west across the south east quarter of the British Isles. And all the while we got that more westerly system really pepping up the rain across the west of wales, south west of england and, eventually, Northern Ireland and western scotland. Come tuesday, this is the point in which we see the last of that wriggling weather front. Another one out towards the west, rather dying a death. The northern portion is still there to provide a fairly dreich old day across the western side of scotland. Elsewhere, its not a bad day. Once the cloud begins to break up, theres not too much in the way a breeze. A bit of dry weather around. A half decent day if youve got a plan for the outdoors. Temperature, if youre lucky, round about the mid teens also, but do make the most of it, especially so across Western Areas initially on wednesday because we have another set of atlantic fronts, spreading in some heavy pulses of rain at times. Initially in the west, as i say, but at least it is quite a mobile system. I think having introduced some rain, it wont hang around all day in any one location. A pretty damp old end to the day across the north east of scotland. Drier, brighter skies to finish off the day across the west. This pattern becomes really quite well established as we take you through the middle part of the weekend on into thursday. A big area of low pressure dominating the north west of the British Isles. Swinging bands of showery rain at times across northern and Western Areas, trying to make a little bit of progress. But i think again, on thursday, generally speaking, the further east you are the drier and finer that the day will be. All the while, those temperatures come at this stage, not very far from the mid teens also. The secondary lows, as we call them, swing through the British Isles as we move towards the weekend. Then a little edge of high pressure, just for a while those winds will turn into the north west. So what, you say . So it may well be that towards next weekend we have that north westerly, the colours drain away and it looks as though we are going to end up with something a little bit cooler and brighter until it slips back to something, again, more mild. This is bbc news, im lukwesa burak. The headlines at 10pm Turkish Forces continue to strike targets in North Eastern syria, on the fourth day of their offensive against kurdish forces. Two people are killed as typhoon hagibis, the biggest storm to hitjapan in 60 years, makes landfall near tokyo. Cheering. A moment of sporting history, as kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge becomes the first person to run a marathon in under two hours. I am the happiest man to run under two hours in order to inspire many people and to tell people no human is limited, you can do it. Two members of the public are praised for helping to stop a suspect who stabbed three people in Manchesters Arndale Shopping Centre yesterday
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