A farmer has been ordered to pay a total of £34,000 after breaking restrictions around moving cattle to stop the spread of bovine TB.

Image source, Google

Mark Pickford, from Kniveden Farm, Leek, Staffordshire was charged with moving the animals between March 2014 and May 2015, external, when Staffordshire County Council says they were infected with the disease.

He pleaded guilty at Birmingham Crown Court to five offences under Cattle Identification Regulations and two under Tuberculosis (England) Order 200.

The 54-year-old was ordered to pay over £14,000 in fines and £20,000 in costs.

Shropshire Live

A few of the stories appearing on the Shropshire Live website today:

• Telford teenager jailed for the murder of Derek Whyteside, external
• SaTH ninth best in country for hitting referral to treatment target, external
• New nature reserve in Dawley to join Telford’s green network, external

A cold case investigation has generated new leads in the hunt for a killer.

Lee Thomas
Newsreader, BBC Radio Stoke

Four people are being given "strong words of advice" after police say a bone found at a house turned out to be a hoax.

It was found early on Tuesday morning at an empty house on Whitchurch Road, Newhall, near Nantwich, Cheshire.

Officers say at first it appeared human, but they found it had been put there as a hoax.

Three men and a woman, all from Lancashire, were spoken to about putting it there.

A 52-year-old recording of the jazz musician Duke Ellington performing at Coventry Cathedral is going to be shown again in public for the first time since it was broadcast.

It will be shown at Coventry Cathedral on 29 December, after being digitally restored by the archive television company Kaleidoscope, with help from the University of Warwick.

Image source, StudioCanal

Image source, StudioCanal

The film has been held in the archives of Studio Canal and includes a piece especially written for Coventry that was only performed at this one concert.

John Clancy 'did not have approval from cabinet' for strike agreement with Unite, report says.

A man has appeared in court charged in connection with a suspected acid attack on his three-year-old son.

Image source, SWNS

The boy suffered serious burns to his face and arm at a Home Bargains store in the Tallow Hill area of Worcester on 21 July.

The man appeared at Worcester Crown Court, accused of conspiring to commit grievous bodily harm.

Three other men and a woman also appeared, facing the same charge.

Two other men, similarly charged, and also set to be tried over the allegations, did not attend court.

A trial date of 21 January has already been fixed.

The father cannot be named for legal reasons.

A two-foot-wide hole that appeared in a Smethwick street earlier has been made safe.

Image source, Sandwell Council

The sink-hole opened up in Wigorn Street, in the Bearwood area this morning, with the road closed for a time.

Sandwell Council said it would be working with Severn Trent to investigate whether the collapse was caused by utility apparatus.

Image source, Sandwell Council

The road will be resurfaced on Friday, it said, with further investigations set to take place in the new year to decide a permanent fix.

According to some local residents it is not the first time a hole has opened up in the street.

Vicki Edwards is stuck in hospital as her family cannot afford palliative accommodation.

Local Democracy Reporting Service
Tom Dare

Proposals for the Commonwealth Games Athletes’ village in Perry Barr were given the go-ahead today after a vote by the planning committee.

The scheme, on the old Birmingham City University campus, will accommodate up to 6,800 athletes and officials for the 2022 competition, before being converted into around 1,400 homes.

The plans also include a retirement village and a community centre.

Some concerns were raised over the lack of social and affordable housing, but the committee voted unanimously to approve the plans.

A steam railway is expanding with money raised through a popular Polar Express Christmas service.

Stoke City are fined £5,000 by the FA following a penalty incident in Saturday's Championship draw with Aston Villa.

Hereford Times

The Hereford Times has these main stories today:

• Freak crash outside Hereford church, external
• Secret probe into social care fiascos, external
• Work to begin in new year on Hereford Centre for Cyber Security, external

A woman and two children were tied up by burglars in their home during a raid in Penn near Wolverhampton this morning.

Officers were called to the property at about 10:00, said West Midlands Police.

The force tweeted, external the four were detained following the "particularly nasty job" after officers deployed Tasers.

Jennifer Meierhans
BBC News Online

A theatre says its Christmas pantomime "makes a huge contribution" to the money they make each year.

Image source, Google

BBC News has been looking at the impact of such productions as many of them get under way this year.

UK Theatre says, aside from London's West End, an average of 15% of all UK theatre tickets sold between 2013 and 2016 were for pantomimes.

And for the 600-seater auditorium at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury, putting on Mother Goose this year, that figure is closer to 30%.

According to marketing manager Craig Reeves, a successful pantomime season "makes a huge contribution to our overall sustainability, and affords us some greater freedom in programming live events through the rest of the year".

A former Burton Albion player has started a tongue-in-cheek campaign to get himself called up for the club's Carabao Cup semi-final with Manchester City.

Image source, Getty Images

One of the Brewers' previous biggest cup draws was their FA Cup third-round tie with Manchester United in 2005-06 and they took it to a replay.

Left-back Aaron Webster came off the bench in that replay at Old Trafford and went on to play more than 500 games for Burton.

Now 37, apparently he's still playing for an amateur team in Burton and he's after a recall for the EFL Cup semis.

He tweeted: "Who will sign my petition to get me in the squad for the 2 legs, external???!!"

Allen Cook
BBC News

The reason we might end up hating certain Christmas songs could be down to purely how often we hear them at this time of year, according to researchers.

Keele University experts have looked into our love-hate relationship with music like Wham's Last Christmas, Slade's Merry Christmas Everybody or The Pogues' Fairytale of New York.

Dr Alexandra Lamont, who led the research, says disliking certain hits is because they can be "earworms", which get stuck in our heads and because they get more heavily shared in December.

Derek Whyteside was hit over the head from behind by his killer, who had "emerged from the bushes".

Lindow Moss peat bog in Cheshire will be restored to wetland as part of plans to build 14 new homes.

BBC Weather Watchers

After the rain, the sun's come out - we've had photos of clearer skies and even rainbows in parts of the West Midlands from our BBC Weather Watchers.

These three are from users Garyjj in Broadwas, Worcestershire, Thornhill Watch in Hednesford, Staffordshire and Two Jays in Lee Brockhurst. Shropshire:

Image source, Garyjj

Image source, Thornhill Watch

Image source, Two Jays