How becoming addicted to the former legal high Spice led a Brighton man into addiction and prison.

Nathan Delfouneso's goal earns Blackpool victory over Gillingham to end their three-match losing streak in all competitions.

A scientist left a witness box in 1987 to be confronted by a police officer, the Old Bailey is told.

Sarah Booker-Lewis
Local Democracy Reporter

Two Brighton and Hove secondary schools have pitched for funding to help them cater for an increase in the number of children with autism, it has been confirmed.

Hove Park and Dorothy Stringer hope to make use of a £2m donation from The Cullum Family charitable trust as well as £500,000 funding from the government.

Two specialist "Cullum Centres", to support secondary school pupils with the condition, are proposed for the two schools.

At the same time Brighton and Hove City Council said it was working with local support groups to make improvements.

According to the council the number of children in the city with autism has risen markedly over the past three years.

A council CCTV operator in Brighton has been jailed for possessing indecent images of children.

Anthony East was given a 16-month sentence at Hove Crown Court on 1 November, having pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing.

The 68-year-old, of Balcombe Road, Peacehaven, was given an indefinite Sexual Harm Prevention Order, restricting his access to children and computers, and will be placed on the sexual offenders register.

Sussex Police said they began investigating East after they discovered that while operating council CCTV cameras he had been “zooming in on children at the Level Park in Brighton without any proper reason”.

Detective Chief Inspector Pierre Serra, of the Brighton safeguarding investigations unit, said: “The indecent images were found on his home computer system and were unrelated to his work. All came from the internet, and there is no evidence that any were of local children.”

Image source, Sussex Police

A man who was killed in a crash on a pedestrian crossing in Crawley, in which a five-year-old boy riding a bike was injured, has been named as Robert Taylor.

Mr Taylor, 49, from the Langley Green area of Crawley died after being hit by a red Fiat 500 at the Tushmore roundabout on Crawley Avenue at 08:30 GMT on Thursday.

The five-year-old boy riding the bike suffered a broken leg and has been released from hospital. The two were not known to each other.

The driver of the car - a 30-old-woman from Crawley - suffered minor injuries, Sussex Police said.

Image source, Google

A mother suffered a psychiatric injury following the birth at the Medway Maritime Hospital in Gillingham.

Dean Kilpatrick
Local Democracy Reporter

Street cleansing in Dover and Folkestone could once again be carried out by council workers if proposals to bring the service back in-house go ahead.

Both Dover and Folkestone & Hythe district councils have agreed to assess whether the work could be carried out jointly by their respective garden maintenance teams, with a new contract due to start in January 2021.

Veolia currently carries out both councils' street cleansing responsibilities.

Papers submitted to Dover District Council's cabinet on Monday said the authority had outsourced its waste collection contract for more than 20 years and while Veolia "operated effectively", the contract was "loss-making" to the company.

Hillingdon Council "wasted" the money it spent fighting plans for a third runway, campaigners say.

Reindeer are seen being kicked, abused and neglected in undercover footage shot at centres across the country.

Dean Kilpatrick
Local Democracy Reporter

Dover's council leader has said he wants to "keep the ball rolling" for plans to launch a local authority lottery.

Members of the policy and performance scrutiny committee had called on Dover District Council to "not proceed further" with the scheme until clarity was provided over concerns raised by members.

Those included what would happen to the prize fund if the lottery was wound up, if there was a limit on how many tickets an individual could buy, and other safeguarding issues.

Conservative council leader Keith Morris said the committee posed "good questions", but told cabinet colleagues on Monday: "I feel content that we will be able to go forward on this."

Cabinet members unanimously rejected the recommendation to pause work relating to the lottery.

Huw Oxburgh
Local Democracy Reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Hastings council leaders have agreed to move ahead with plans which could see a new football stadium built in the town.

Hastings Borough Council's cabinet yesterday agreed to support a Hastings United FC scheme to build a home at the Tilekiln Recreation Ground in Hollington by agreeing in principle to the sale of council-owned land.

While still at an early stage, the council says the proposals are expected to include the construction of a 1,950-capacity stadium as well as new gym facilities and two additional football pitches for community use.

The overall scheme is expected to be funded through the sale of the club's current ground at Pilot Field to housing developers.

Further details of the proposals are expected to be published in January with the next steps expected to be considered in March at the earliest.

Sarah Booker-Lewis
Local Democracy Reporter

Thirty-one homeless people have died while being temporarily housed by Brighton and Hove City Council in the past two years, a new report shows.

The figures have come to light following a spate of deaths at an emergency accommodation block in Newhaven after concerns were raised about how easy it is for people housed outside the city to access support services,

Five people died in two months last summer at Kendal Court in Newhaven.

The new report reveals that over the past two years, 12 people have died in emergency accommodation supplied by the council, both within and outside Brighton and Hove, with a further 19 deaths in longer-term temporary accommodation within the city.

Of the 31, 14 died of natural causes, six from multiple health problems, three from drugs, and two from suicide. The causes of death of the remaining six are not known.

The council currently houses 493 households in emergency accommodation, 365 within Brighton and Hove and 128 outside. A further 1,600 households are in longer-term temporary accommodation.

Officers were asked to look at differences in services available in Newhaven and Brighton and Hove.

The report said that because of the shortage and high costs of emergency accommodation in the city, all newly homeless households are now initially housed in other areas, including Newhaven.

It said: "Due to the demand for emergency accommodation, invariably there is no availability in the city. We will therefore have to place households out of area initially."

It adds: "Some individuals have been banned from emergency accommodation within the city due to serious breaches of their licence agreement, which means that the only option for accommodation is outside of the city."

The report notes that Newhaven has no dedicated drug advice service or mental health service. These are based in Eastbourne and Hastings.

In comparison the report shows Brighton and Hove has seven organisations dedicated to supporting the homeless with various housing needs.

A further four organisations offer general health services and support for the homeless, while two others help people with mental health issues and three services help people with substance abuse problems.

Karen Dunn
Local Democracy Reporter

Adur councillors have approved plans to tear down six empty houses and replace them with 50 flats, praising the design as 'attractive'.

The development, in Albion Street, Southwick, would have been bigger if it was not for one strip of unregistered land going right through the site, which cannot be built on.

Instead the site will house one block of 15 affordable flats, another block of 35 flats to be sold on the open market, and six more flats in two converted semi-detached houses.

Each block will be four to six storeys high.

Home Office deportees were "at risk of being killed or seriously harmed", a protestor tells a court.

Karen Dunn
Local Democracy Reporter

West Sussex County Council will be meeting with The Kemnal Academies Trust (TKAT) in order to improve their “working relationship” after concerns were raised following the resignation of a dozen teachers at one college.

Strike action was threatened after 12 teachers and the head of school resigned at Thomas Bennett Community College, Crawley. It led to calls for the college to be brought under the control of the local authority.

Councillor Richard Burrett, cabinet member for education and skills, had called for local authorities to be given power to intervene in the running of academies, which are funded directly by central government.

Speaking at a children and young people’s services committee meeting in Chichester, Councillor Burrett said the council's relationship with TKAT had “not been as strong as with a number of the other trusts”, adding: “We'll be having a discussion about our working relationship with the trust and trying to improve that, because it's something that perhaps hasn't been as strong over the last couple of years.”

The trust also runs six primary schools in Crawley.

TKAT has been approached for comment.

Bob Dale
BBC Live reporter

Police are hunting a man who raped another man in Brighton at the weekend.

The victim, who's 20, was pushed to the ground and attacked at Duke's Mound.

It happened sometime between 05:00 and 07:00 GMT on 3 November.

The attacker is described as white, in his late 20s or early 30s, 5ft 8in tall.

Image source, Google

Karen Dunn
Local Democracy Reporter

A West Sussex school which did not receive a full inspection from Ofsted for 12 years has seen its overall rating drop from "outstanding" to "requires improvement".

The case of Heene CE Primary School, in Worthing, was mentioned at a West Sussex County Council meeting in Chichester during a discussion about school performance figures and inspections.

The school had its last full inspection by Ofsted in November 2006.

The quality of teaching at the school was described by Ofsted inspectors as "too variable", with not enough children making good progress in writing and maths.

The headteacher, Jo MacGovern, writing to parents on the school's website, said: "Obviously we are disappointed with this judgement and will be working together as a school community along with the local authority and the diocese to move out of this category by the time of the next inspection."

The school has not responded to a request for a comment.

Image source, Google

Mark Jenner, head of school effectiveness, told the council meeting that Ofsted had recently started "playing catch-up" with schools it had not visited for a while.

In its new School Effectiveness Strategy, the council set itself the target of reaching the top 25% of local authorities for education by 2022 with 92% of the county's children needing to be attending "good" or "outstanding" schools.

While acknowledging this progress, Mr Jenner said there was still 'quite a distance to go', with some 6,500 children still attending schools needing improvement.

Search our interactive map of Britain to see where rent is judged as "unaffordable".

A member of staff has been fired after cameras caught him kicking reindeer at a centre in Ashford, Kent.