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Kent weekly round-up: 24 August - 30 August 2024

EAST KENT HOSPITALS CHARITY Sue Threadingham holding a huge cheque.EAST KENT HOSPITALS CHARITY
Sue Threadingham sells her home-made jams and chutneys to raise money

The story about a former nurse raising £11,000 for dementia care by selling home-made jams and chutneys proved a popular read this week.

A variety of local issues featured on the BBC News website, BBC Radio Kent and BBC South East Today.

We have picked five stories from the past week in case you missed them.

Paralympic torch heads to Paris via Channel Tunnel

IPC The Paralympic flame is handed over by two athletes who are wheelchair users while behind them a group is applaudingIPC
The flame will be split in France and journey around the country

The build-up to the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games in Paris has seen the torch cross from England to France via the Channel Tunnel.

After being lit in Stoke Mandeville, the birthplace of the Paralympic movement, the flame is making the journey to Paris to mark the start of the games.

On 25 August the relay saw 24 British athletes travel through the tunnel from Folkestone, joined halfway by 24 French athletes to hand over the flame.

On arriving on the French coast in Calais, the flame splits into 12 separate ones that will journey across France.

Read more here

'Bionic' peer calls for better care for amputees

MICHAEL KEOHAN Craig Mackinlay sat on a sofa with his prosthetic legs on a table.MICHAEL KEOHAN
Craig Mackinlay said the limbs he paid for privately made him feel "whole again"

Former MP Craig Mackinlay, who lost his hands and feet after a life-threatening episode of sepsis, has urged the government to end what he says is a "postcode lottery" for amputee care.

Speaking as the Paralympics gets under way in Paris, Lord Mackinlay said he wanted to use the focus on the games to push the government to do more for people who lose limbs.

The former MP for South Thanet warned that NHS prosthetics currently on offer could leave people “in a pit of despair” while the ones he paid for privately made him "feel whole again”.

The Department of Health & Social Care has been approached for a comment.

Read more here

Craig Mackinlay, the former MP for South Thanet lost his hands and feet to Sepsis.

Trader 'first' in UK charged with operating crypto ATM

Google Gadcet store front Google
Kent Police said they seized a number of crypto ATMs at the Gadcet shop on Chatham's High Street

The owner of a high street mobile phone shop has become the first person in the UK to be charged with operating an illegal cryptocurrency ATM, according to Kent Police.

Officers carried out a search warrant at the Gadcet shop in Chatham's High Street on 28 April 2023, where they said they seized a number of crypto ATMs, including one on public display.

Habibur Rahman, 37, of Langdon Crescent in East Ham, London, was arrested on the same day and has now been charged with operating the machine without registration from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

He is also alleged to have laundered £300,000 of criminal cash by converting it into cryptocurrency.

Read more here

Family of boy injured in pier jump speak of hope

DOLAN FAMILY A still from a video showing Jack Dolan with his face close to his mother in hospital. She is looking at the camera.DOLAN FAMILY
The family of Jack Dolan, 15, said they have seen improvements in his condition

The family of a Kent teenager who suffered brain damage following a jump off Margate's Stone Pier said they have seen signs of recovery.

Jack Dolan, 15, was hospitalised in June and his life support was turned off two weeks later after an MRI showed no brain activity.

But the family's hope has been reignited as his stepfather said Jack has responded to his mother and can move his feet.

Speaking to BBC South East, Dave Dolan said: "He is an absolute trooper. Everyday he is progressing."

Read more here

Rare Ellen Terry dresses go on display together

NATIONAL TRUST/CASSIE DICKSON The beetle-wing and banqueting dresses on display.NATIONAL TRUST/CASSIE DICKSON
The beetle-wing and banqueting dresses are both on display at Smallhythe Place

Two dresses worn by a Victorian theatre idol have gone on display together for the first time in decades.

Ellen Terry wore both costumes playing Lady Macbeth at the Lyceum Theatre in London in 1888.

The green beetle-wing dress has been returned to the former home of the actress, Smallhythe Place in Kent, to be exhibited alongside a newly-restored cream and gold banqueting outfit.

A National Trust spokesperson said the dresses were "lavishly decorated" and on display together "for the first time probably since the 1990s".

Read more here

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