Catch up with all the news from across the county with Bartholomew Hall.
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00:00Good evening and welcome to Kent Tonight, live on KMTV.
00:28I'm Bartholomew Hall, here are your top stories on Friday the 18th of October.
00:33The best day of my life.
00:36Former sub-postmaster's reaction to finding his criminal convictions dropped.
00:40You just felt like you just won the lottery.
00:43It's like all the weight's gone off your shoulder.
00:47Hedgehogs under threat.
00:49Kent Rescue Centre says demand has never been higher as it calls for support.
00:54It means that the ones that are still left are facing more threats than ever before and
01:00needing help to be able to survive.
01:02And breaking the silence, after 60 years with OCD, Maidstone campaigner says more should
01:08understand the condition on its awareness week.
01:11You know, how I put it, you can't really see it, you know, it's all going on in there.
01:24Good evening.
01:28It was hell.
01:29The words of Sunil Patel, a former sub-postmaster for St Mary's Bay, who spent seven months
01:35in prison and paid huge amounts of damages, unlawfully, as part of the Horizon scandal.
01:42Only a few days ago did he receive a letter from the post office telling him his convictions
01:46were quashed and that he would be compensated.
01:48Finn McDermott has been to meet him to talk about the impacts this has on his future.
01:54Over a decade of being a wrongly convicted criminal and now he's a free man.
01:58After the Horizon IT scandal branded, at the time, sub-postmaster Sunil Patel a criminal,
02:04he's now received a letter telling him his convictions have been quashed.
02:08He's one of more than 700 people who were wrongly convicted because of the faulty Horizon
02:12IT system and it completely changed the course of his life.
02:17I had to do a seven and a half month sentence and then the rest of it, I was allowed out
02:24on a tag.
02:25It was still on a curfew, so I couldn't, it was like between seven to seven, so I couldn't
02:31go out.
02:32But all this affected us badly, it's the stigma of being a criminal now.
02:38They'll always be saying, oh, that's the postmaster who stole the money.
02:42And what was your reaction when the letters came through and it told you that the conviction
02:47had been overturned?
02:48That was the best moment of my life.
02:51You just felt like you just won the lottery.
02:54It's like the emotions, all the weight's gone off your shoulder.
03:00And the impact on your family, you said you had a six-year-old at the time.
03:04Yeah, so three daughters.
03:06The oldest was just finishing first year uni and she was going to sit back a year so she
03:12could help in the shop.
03:13My middle daughter was in her second year A-levels, that impacted her a bit.
03:18And my youngest was just six and my mum moved down from London to take her to school and
03:26bring her home and do the things that I would have done if I was at home.
03:30Yeah, the impact was, it was that, it was the day-to-day that was hard.
03:35He had all but lost hope, with his face on national newspapers, even in his own news
03:39agents and his finances heavily impacted until a drama was released on ITV earlier
03:44this year.
03:45I must say this, it's all thanks to that TV programme about Alan Bates.
03:52He changed everything.
03:53And I think without that programme, this wouldn't have happened.
03:58Despite all the clear positives of the conviction being quashed for Sunil and his family, the
04:02process has been a slow one, with any financial compensation set to take plenty of time.
04:08The redress compensation, it's like 15 years ago, all the losses you suffered.
04:14How much losses have you, what position you would be in now if that incident didn't happen
04:19to you?
04:20Again, it's going to take, I can see it taking at least a few more years before we get anything.
04:25Questions will also be drawn about the prosecution of those who knew the system was faulty.
04:30But for now, Sunil is just relieved his life can start to go back to normal.
04:35Finn McDermid for KMTV in Littlestone.
04:38And Finn joins me here in the studio now.
04:40Finn, such an emotional story that he's been through.
04:44Tell us about that financial loss that he faced.
04:46Well, it's really hard to quantify to an exact number.
04:49So the original numbers that we were working with was that he, it was believed at the time
04:54of the scandal that he had stolen £48,000 from the system.
05:00And once he was convicted, he had to pay his own legal fees, which we can only speculate
05:04on the costs there.
05:06And after coming out of prison, his bank actually demanded his pending business loans at the
05:11time in full.
05:12So that was around £180,000 that he had to pay back immediately.
05:16I believe he had to sell several of his rental properties and his credit card as well for
05:21his bank, his credit score flatlined.
05:24So there was all these small, well not small, these very large financial impacts that happened
05:28to him really all at once.
05:29And of course, all of this brought to light by last year's Mr Bates TV drama, of course,
05:35a very emotional series to watch.
05:37But the true stories as we're hearing as these convictions being quashed are coming to light
05:41now, a very emotional time for them as well and emotional damage, which can't really be
05:46repaid, can it?
05:47No, I don't think any amount of money can repay what he had to go through.
05:50Seven months in prison, missing family time.
05:52He had three daughters, one as young as six, the oldest at university age, who even offered
05:58to come back and help out with the family business.
06:00So it's really just a heartbreaking story all around.
06:03Well, Finn, thank you very much for the update.
06:06A body believed to be a missing man from Gravesend has been found at a former hospital.
06:12Police were searching for Slavik Dubovskis after he went missing this week.
06:16Forensics and a private ambulance were spotted at the scene.
06:20The death is not currently being treated as suspicious and a coroner's report is being
06:24prepared.
06:25He was last seen in the Inglesby Road area of Gravesend on Tuesday night.
06:30New pictures show how Dover's western docks have been transformed in the last months as
06:34BOSS is prepared to introduce the EU's new entry exit system border checks.
06:40This is how Dover's docks looked back in 2022.
06:45And in just a moment, we'll see how the docks are looking today.
06:48This is the Granville dock filled in with aggregate to make space for vehicles to queue
06:52before boarding ferries.
06:55It comes after the introduction of the new system, which was set to be the 10th of November.
07:00But as we heard earlier this week, that has been pushed back.
07:04After being ignored by an Arriva bus, 83-year-old David Poole was forced to go to small claims
07:09court to get the fare money refunded.
07:11Him and his wife Gwyneth, who struggles with dementia and mobility issues, were forced
07:15to take a taxi after being passed by.
07:18But despite being given a positive judgement, Arriva have ignored any communication since
07:22then.
07:24To date, we have not had any satisfactory response from Arriva.
07:31This is very awkward, upsetting, particularly as my wife has dementia and we were left standing
07:47in the cold.
07:51Last night, a hedgehog rescue from just outside Ashford says demand is rising year on year.
07:57It comes as a new national strategy is being rolled out to protect hedgehogs who have seen
08:01their numbers more than half in rural areas.
08:04Oliver Leeds-Saxe has been finding out how you can help at home.
08:10A hedgehog on the move, a species on the decline.
08:15Across rural parts of the UK, hedgehogs have seen their numbers cut down over the last
08:2120 years, falling by up to 75% since 2000.
08:27That means in places like Kent, where the majority of the county is undeveloped countryside
08:33or farmland, hedgehogs are most at risk.
08:37Several rescues, larger rescues, five across the county closed in the last year or two.
08:42The demand for rescue spaces is also increasing as well, so those of us that are left are
08:48seeing much higher demand.
08:49Not only is the species declining at a massive rate, there's estimations that hedgehogs could
08:55be extinct by as soon as 2050.
08:59The hazards that they're facing because of population growth means that the ones that
09:03are still left are facing more threats than ever before and needing help to be able to
09:10survive.
09:11With the Hedgehog Rescue nurturing up to 150 hogs back to health at any one time, the pressure
09:17is on.
09:18But the future isn't all bleak.
09:21Hedgehog numbers have evened out in urban areas and this week conservation charities
09:26launched the first ever National Hedgehog Conservation Strategy, aiming to tackle the
09:32root causes of hedgehog decline.
09:36With access to food, reducing the number of hedgehogs being hit by vehicles and habitat
09:41loss all being priorities for the next decade.
09:46And the co-author of the report says you can also help at home.
09:51First and foremost, we've got this idea of hedgehog highways, which are the 13 centimetre
09:55gaps in fences.
09:56I think a lot of people have heard of those now, which is brilliant.
09:59So it's a case of cutting a gap in the fence or digging a channel underneath that lets
10:03hedgehogs in, you know, encouraging friends and neighbours to do the same thing, to create
10:07a hedgehog street.
10:09And then once you've done that, you can start to think about lovely wildlife friendly features
10:12in the garden.
10:13So things like log piles, leaf piles, compost heaps, all of those things are going to increase
10:17that creepy crawly, that invertebrate prey.
10:20And that's going to, you know, that's going to bring hedgehogs in.
10:22A prickly conversation then, but one that could keep Kent's hedgehogs safe for years
10:27to come.
10:28Oliver, lead of the Sats reporting for KMTV.
10:33In sport now, Gillingham are looking to bounce back after a dip in form this weekend, as
10:38Mark Bonner's team travel to take on Bradford City.
10:40The League Two side have lost their last three games, leaving them fifth in the table.
10:44Meanwhile, Bradford, who are seventh, have been steadily climbing the standings.
10:49Here's the Gilles boss speaking to the press this week.
10:51I don't know if you can ever set out to draw a game.
10:54If you do, you probably lose it.
10:56So you have to go out to win a game.
10:58How you go to win the game and the strategy you go to go after it, that can look so different
11:03from one week to the next, obviously.
11:05But we want to go there and win.
11:06It's as simple as that, really.
11:07And then if at the end of the day we get a positive result that ends a run of defeats,
11:14depending on what that game looked like, we may say we're delighted with it or we're a
11:17bit disappointed.
11:18So it's impossible to answer that now.
11:20If you offer me any result now, we want to win the game, that's it.
11:24Staying nice and positive there.
11:25I'm sure it'll be a lovely day for all those Gilles fans making the trip to Bradford City.
11:28Well, that's it for now.
11:30Coming up after this break, we'll be joined by our politics producer, Oliver Leeder-DeSax,
11:34to give us the update on Kent's political scene both here in the county and in Westminster
11:38following earlier's Kent Politics Show episode.
11:41If you missed it, don't worry.
11:42We'll have a quick clip on the show here, but of course, all episodes on our website
11:46as well.
11:47We'll be back after this very quick break.
12:00Thanks for tuning in.
12:01We'll see you again soon.
12:02Bye-bye.
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