First Lincolnshire businesses get indoor Google Street View tours

Lincolnshire “will be one of the last, if not the last” place in the Midlands to go into higher tier lockdown, health bosses said based on current guidance.

North and North East Lincolnshire (Northern Lincolnshire) will go into the “high” tier 2 lockdown from 0.01am on Saturday as part of tougher measures across the Yorkshire and Humber region from Saturday.

It follows a steep rise in cases, including areas of Grimsby with some of the highest infection rates in Greater Lincolnshire.

The tougher restrictions cover the areas surrounding Brigg, Scunthorpe, Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

Bosses at Lincolnshire County Council earlier this week advised public and health officials that there was no need to go into higher tier at this time.

Lincolnshire County Council’s director of public health Professor Derek Ward on Friday confirmed that advice had not yet changed.

He said there was a “significant difference” between the two areas, with North East Lincolnshire at 368 cases per 100,000 of the population, 196 in North Lincolnshire, and Lincolnshire as a county at 160.

Professor Ward said looking at the broader view, the county was continuing to watch the data and the rest of the region, and whether the benchmarks change.

“We’re in the positive because of the way people in Lincolnshire have behaved.

“We’re starting from a lower base than other places and everywhere seems to be increasing at the same rate.

“If you’re starting from further back, you’re always going to stay the same distance behind everybody else.

“If the government continues to change the benchmarks, I don’t know whether we’ll ever go up a tier, or, if the government keeps the benchmarks where they are, everywhere will end up in in a higher tea for the next couple of months.

“But, I think Lincolnshire will be one of, if not the, last places to go into a higher tier in the Midlands, and then we’ll see places in the south east start to go.”

However, there is nothing to stop the government coming to Lincolnshire to start discussions if they felt it was necessary.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is under increasing pressure to put a national “circuit breaker” lockdown in place.

Professor Ward said there was always a balance because that would have a “significant impact” on business and would only delay the increase.

Though he added: “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it’s good because obviously we’ve got to keep an eye on our NHS.

“In Lincolnshire at the moment we’re okay but if you look at Nottinghamshire and parts of Derbyshire they are struggling.”

He said there was “no golden bullet” for dealing with COVID-19 right now and moved to reassure the public that his team were constantly discussing the latest data.

“I certainly won’t hesitate to speak truth to power and give our politicians my view,” he said.

He urged people on border areas such as Gainsborough, Market Rasen, Louth and Mablethorpe, to learn the restrictions and not to travel across borders if unnecessary.

See more advice about travel and restrictions between tier 1, 2 and 3 areas.

An elderly cyclist was seriously injured after a crash with a lorry on Friday morning.

Police believe the crash happened near Riseholme Roundabout in Lincoln or in that area at around 10.26am on October 30.

The man in his 70s suffered injuries that are not believed to be life threatening.

He was taken home by a passer-by and the emergency services were called, so police are trying to pinpoint the exact location of the incident.

Any witnesses or anyone with information or dashcam footage should contact Lincolnshire Police on 101 quoting incident number 134 of October 30.

A farmer who contaminated baby food with metal, a man who tried to kidnap a teenage girl, and a drug driver who killed two “utterly devoted” parents, were among the Lincolnshire criminals jailed in October.

The Lincolnite‘s court reporters cover all the biggest cases heard in courts in our region every day.

Here’s a round up of signifiant cases resulting in prison sentences in and near the county:

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Nigel Wright

Lincolnshire farmer Nigel Wright, 45, was jailed for 14 years after contaminating baby food with metal as part of a £1.4 million bitcoin scheme where he tried blackmailing Tesco.

See the full story here

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Kevin Haigh

Kevin Haigh, 53, from Cleethorpes, was jailed for 11 years after attempting to kidnap a teenage girl in a ‘vicious attack’.

See the full story here

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Luke Norton

Luke Norton, 31, from Lincoln, was jailed for eight years and eight months after taking cocaine through the night and then falling asleep behind the wheel before a crash which killed two “utterly devoted” parents.

Robert Bateman, 36, and his wife Paula, 35, died in the collision. Their two daughters Lexi, aged 10, and 18-month old Elizabeth were also in the car. Lexi suffered serious, but not life-threatening injuries, and both girls were discharged from hospital.

See the full story here

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Daniel Chandler

Grimsby teenager Daniel Chandler, 19, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years for carrying out a series of assaults including a vicious attack on an elderly man.

See the full story here

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Craig and Dayne Sparkes

A Grimsby man and his nephew were jailed for a combined 12 years after forcing their way into a couple’s home and threatening them with a power tool and a sledgehammer over “a debt”.

Craig Sparkes, 30, was jailed for seven-and-a-half years. His nephew Dayne, 21, was jailed for four-and-a-half.

See the full story here

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Luke Templeman

Grantham man Luke Templeman, 28, carried out an unprovoked attack in a pub beer garden causing fatal injuries to his 34-year-old Danny Maguire with a single punch. Templeman was jailed for four years and eight months.

See the full story here

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Andrew Cook

Convicted Lincolnshire sex offender Andrew Martin Cook, who continued to message underage girls after he was released from prison, was sent back to jail for four years.

See full story here

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Daniel Edun

A dealer caught with a stash of drugs at a Lincolnshire music festival claimed he was simply trying to make people happy. Daniel Edun, 39, of Camden in North London, was jailed for three years and four months.

See the full story here

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Mark Milson

A man who inflicted “appalling” violence on his partner during an argument was jailed. Mark Milson, 30, punched, kicked, headbutted and stabbed Claire Hewson during the incident at his flat in Louth and was jailed for two years.

See the full story here

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Kamil Wojnarowicz

Grimsby man Kamil Wojnarowicz, 29, was caught running a cannabis factory in the Lincolnshire town and was sentenced to 22 months in prison.

See the full story here

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Philip Malone

A Lincoln man who deliberately coughed on a police custody worker, threatening to infect him with COVID-19, has been jailed. Philip Malone, 43, was jailed for six months for assaulting an emergency worker and given a 12 month consecutive sentence for affray making a total of 18 months.

See the full story here

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Patrick Kerrigan

A teenager whose driving was described as something out of the 1970s film Smokey and the Bandit while being pursued by police was jailed. Patrick Kerrigan, 19, of Telford House, Southwark, South East London, was jailed for 14 months.

See the full story here

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Luke Wilson

Luke Wilson, 29, from Scunthorpe, who was aggressive towards two paramedics and punched one of them, was sentenced to a year in jail.

See the full story here

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Nearly a third of all coronavirus cases in Greater Lincolnshire have been in the under 30s, but a quarter have been over 60, according to the latest Public Health England data.

It shows that up to October 23 there had been 9,818 cases of COVID-19 confirmed across the three upper tier authorities of Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire.

The data shows that 2,303 of those were over 60, but the figures under 30 were higher at 3,150.

The age bracket with the most cases was the 20-24 range with 1,012 cases.

This was followed by the 15-19 age range with 891 cases and the 50-54 category with 818.

483 children of school age up to 14 have had the virus, and 135 toddlers.

In total 7,471 people aged 59 or under have contracted the virus.

Lincolnshire’s Director of Public Health Professor Derek Ward admitted that, in Lincoln in particular, “the vast majority of our positives are that in the younger age group”.

He said this was partly due to the testing centre at the University of Lincoln and students coming forward when they had symptoms.

However, he said: “Our student population are doing a fabulous job — a really, really, really good job of making sure that they’re getting tested and therefore isolating and making sure they aren’t passing it on onto the older age bands across the city.”

He said it was a pattern across the county. Age is one of the factors bosses measure when deciding whether to move the county into a higher tier, particularly at any increases to the older range because they are generally the ones which drive hospital activity.

Evidence suggests COVID-19 has a lesser effect on the younger population — though there is growing data around the impacts of “long COVID” in the months after the initial illness has passed.

Prior to lockdown restrictions being lifted the first time round health bosses had moved to allay fears over school children going back to school.

Fears were raised however, after a surge in cases across the country among young people, and concerns are ongoing how that will filter through to the older age brackets, particularly as the number of deaths has started rising again.

As of Thursday there had been 10,943 cases across the region. There have been 460 deaths of residents living in the area, of which 303 have been in hospitals.

Professor ward confirmed that in the seven days up to October 28, 12,000 tests were carried out with just over 1,000 poisitves – a 10% positivity rate.

Here’s the breakdown in full until October 23, 2020:

• 0-4: 135
• 5-9: 122
• 10-14: 226
• 15-19: 891
• 20-24: 1,012
• 25-29: 764
• 30-34: 794
• 35-39: 649
• 40-44: 618
• 45-49: 699
• 50-54: 818
• 55-59: 743
• 60-64: 501
• 65-69: 278
• 70-74: 298
• 75-79: 296
• 80-84: 309
• 85-89: 307
• 90+: 314
• Unassigned: 44
• Total: 9,818