Highlights
Mary Goodchild
Journalist
United Kingdom
NQJ-qualified senior reporter with three years' experience on respected regional weekly newspaper and website. Contact [email protected].
United Kingdom
NQJ-qualified senior reporter with three years' experience on respected regional weekly newspaper and website. Contact [email protected].
Highlights
Exclusive meeting with PM David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne at Downing Street
TAXPAYERS could shell out more than £400,000 to keep a child rapist who targeted a Yeovil boy behind bars. But his six-year-old victim has been left to deal with the trauma with no help from publicly-funded social services or the NHS. His mum has begged the authorities to urgently offer her son psychological help.
A DRINK driver has been jailed for 21 months for crashing his car and killing his ex-girlfriend passenger after she "leant in for a kiss". Katie Bagwell, 19, of South Petherton, was trapped in the car and drowned after the Fiat Punto swerved off the road and ended up on its roof, submerged in the River Parrett.
Election 2015
FORMER Yeovil MP David Laws has put his shock defeat down to a "political tidal wave" against the Lib Dems. On Tuesday he said: "Obviously I am disappointed not to have been returned as MP. It is a fantastic job and I have hugely enjoyed doing it, but the thing with democracy is you have to accept the vote.
FORMER Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown sounded deflated this morning as he reflected on the events in his home constituency of Yeovil. Lord Ashdown, who represented the seat between 1983 and 2001, said his "beloved" Yeovil has lost an outstanding member of parliament in Liberal Democrat David Laws.
YEOVIL'S new MP Marcus Fysh has high hopes for the area as he takes up the baton following his victory at the polls on Thursday. Speaking on his first day as an MP in Westminster on Monday, he said: "It feels great to be here today.
Local Issues
DOZENS of trolley-wielding Somerset farmers stripped the shelves of milk and dairy products at Asda in Yeovil this evening in a protest against low prices paid to dairy farmers for their produce.
NEWS that a quarter of the workforce at a Yeovil aerospace firm will be slashed has sparked fear for the future of an industry which has historic- ally offered job security to thousands of south Somerset workers.
THE waters may be drying up but for many affected by the Somerset flooding disaster the nightmare continues. A family of four who were forced to evacuate their Thorney home just weeks after moving in have revealed it is likely to be another six months before they can return.
Crime
THE mum of a 26-year-old man accused of attacking three ambulance staff and three police officers in Yeovil and Somerton this morning said she "pleaded" for someone to help her son who is suffering from severe mental health problems. The desperate mother said her son "is not a monster" and is in serious need of mental health help, after he was arrested today on suspicion of assaulting ambulance staff at Reckleford, opposite Yeovil District Hospital, and a police officer at a Somerton home.
A MAN attacked three ambulance workers and two police officers after running out of Yeovil District Hospital on Thursday morning.
YEOVIL police blew the lid on a national paedophile network leading to seven convictions after officers followed-up an emergency call from a sobbing man who confessed to doing "terrible things" to children.
Features
BEST known for his regular slot on BBC Two's ever-popular Mock the Week, Andy Parsons in person is more 'funny dad' than acerbic satirist. He's a charmingly self-effacing man, whose humour feels of the warm-hearted kind rather than poking fun - perhaps a surprise given his role on the show as chief shot-taker at the failings of the rich and powerful.
IT’S 10.30am on Valentine’s Day and I am going to see Fifty Shades of Grey at the Yeovil Cineworld with a reluctant man.