Latest news with #DavidHolmes
BBC News
2 days ago
- BBC News
Burning toxic waste 'like Bonfire Night', Bradford court told
A man caught burning hazardous waste on a Bradford farm asked Environment Agency officers "who grassed me up?", a court was magistrates heard how Scott Wilkin, 33, had been involved in the illegal burning of waste, including household appliances, in himself, Wilkin, of Riverside Road, said: "I didn't think I was doing a lot wrong - it was like what happens on Bonfire Night, just not on Bonfire Night."He was given a 12-month community order including 160 hours of unpaid work after he admitted burning waste without a permit. David Holmes, 69, of Henholme Lane, charged with the same offence, failed to appear in court and a warrant was issued for his arrest. According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the Environment Agency carried out an investigation after complaints about burning on land off Henholme Lane in Silsden between October and January.A prosecutor told the court firefighters had been called to the farm on three occasions to reports of fires, and had told those present they should not be burning. 'Caught red-handed' Environmental officers visited the site on 5 November after reports of illegal burning of fridges, freezers, mattresses and other household prosecutor said Mr Holmes was seen sorting through the waste and told them they "had him red-handed".Mr Holmes allegedly said they were burning "fridges, freezers, everything" and that Wilkin would "bury" the waste pair were sent letters on 19 November ordering them to stop burning on the site, but a future visit found the burning had seemingly continued, the court was that visit, Wilkin confirmed he had received the previous letter, but asked officers: "How did you get my address? Who grassed me up?"The prosecutor told magistrates: "The defendant clearly knew he was doing something wrong," adding that the items being burned included "noxious and harmful waste".Wilkin said he had recently taken on the tenancy of the farm and had been trying to clear waste to make room for storing livestock."It never came into my head what I was doing was as serious as it was," he told the court."I probably pushed my luck burning some things I shouldn't."Wilkin, who was also ordered to pay £160 towards the Environment Agency's costs, said he understood Mr Holmes was stuck in Spain.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Man admits he 'burned some things he shouldn't' on farmland
A MAN who burned hazardous waste on a farm in the Bradford district asked who had 'grassed me up' when he was visited by Environment Agency officers. A court heard how Scott Wilkin, aged 33, had been involved of the illegal burning of waste, including household appliances and fridges, late last year. The Environment Agency carried out an investigation into the site after several complaints about burning on Henholme Lane, Silsden. On Wednesday Wilkin, of Riverside Road, appeared in court charged over the burning of waste on the site without a permit. He admitted the charge. Another man, David Holmes, 69, of Henholme Lane, was charged with the same offence. He failed to appear in court and a warrant was issued for his arrest The court was told that the crime related to a period between October 17 and January 10. Mr Newman, prosecuting on behalf of the Environment Agency, said: 'Bradford Council had been informed of an illegal waste operation taking place on land off Henholme Lane. They attended and saw various pieces of waste on the site. 'Firefighters attended on three occasions to reports of burning on the site and told those present they shouldn't be burning. 'Officers visited the site on November 5 to reports of illegal burning of fridges, freezers, mattresses and other household goods. 'A male was seen sorting through the waste. He was identified as David Holmes, who told officers they 'had him red handed.'' He said they were burning 'everything, fridges, freezers, everything' and that Scott would 'bury' the waste afterwards. Mr Newman said: 'There were plastics, aerosols and other waste items.' Holmes and Wilkin were sent letters on November 19 ordering them to stop burning on the site. A future visit found that the burning had apparently continued. On that visit Wilkin confirmed he had received the previous letter, but told officers 'how did you get my address? Who grassed me up?' Referring to this exchange, Mr Newman told Magistrates: 'The defendant clearly knew he was doing something wrong.' Magistrates heard that Wilkin was 'no stranger to the courts' and was currently serving suspended sentences for handling stolen goods and driving while disqualified. Representing himself in court, Wilkin said he had recently taken on the tenancy of the farm. A barn that he planned to store livestock in during the winter months had been full of waste, and he carried out burning to try to clear it. He said: 'In my eyes I didn't think I was doing a lot wrong." He said the fridges were going to be taken away, and weren't being burned. He added: 'It never came into my head what I was doing was as serious as it was. 'I probably pushed my luck burning some things I shouldn't.' He told Magistrates he understood Holmes was stuck in Spain. Wilkin was handed a 12-month community order that will require him to carry out 160 hours unpaid work. He will also have to pay £114 towards the Environment Agency costs.
7NEWS
01-08-2025
- Business
- 7NEWS
New Queensland property law sparks market jitters and creates niche disclosure services industry
The Queensland real estate market faces some of the biggest changes to property law in a generation. New requirements are shifting the burden firmly from buyers onto sellers, under the Seller Disclosure Scheme, to reveal detailed information before any contract is signed. This has sparked both confusion and opportunity across the industry. WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: New seller disclosure laws From August 1, every seller must provide detailed disclosures before a contract is signed Sellers who aren't fully across the new laws could find themselves unable to list the properties. 'It is now a legal obligation,' REIQ chief executive Antonia Mercorella told 7NEWS. 'Sellers must disclose everything from structural defects to flooding, easements and contamination or risk major legal consequences.' The changes, aimed at improving transparency and empower buyers, represent one of the biggest legal shifts the Queensland property market has seen in decades. However, real estate agents warn the rollout has been rushed. 'We've had sellers and agents scrambling this week to get deals done before today,' said David Holmes from Homes and Co Auctions. 'We're expecting low clearance rates and confusion at open homes this weekend.' This weekend, Brisbane has 269 properties scheduled for auction, showing a 22 per cent decrease from last week's 344, according to What must sellers now disclose? Under the new rules, vendors must provide a completed Form 1 covering land title, planning notices, defects, and any adverse matters affecting the property. For units, the requirements go further. Strata sellers must also supply Form 2 and Form 33, including: Body corporate certificates Insurance details Sinking fund forecasts Bylaws and levies 'There's no flexibility anymore,' said CEO of Archers the Strata Professionals, Nicky Lonergan. 'Without those forms, you can't enter a contract.' But with the official forms only made publicly available on Friday morning, many sellers are already on the back foot. 'Weeks to catch up' The REIQ has warned the new regime could choke supply and disrupt auctions, particularly in the already sluggish unit market. 'We're concerned about sellers who aren't prepared, and buyers who'll face delays,' Mercorella said. 'This has come in fast and there are still gaps in education across the industry.' Agents said the changes are well-intentioned, but poor timing and lack of lead-in support are a recipe for short-term pain. 'It's going to take weeks for the market to catch up,' Holmes said. 'Until then, sellers will wear the cost in advertising, legal prep and lost momentum.' New law, new business The legislation has also given rise to a niche industry: businesses now offering to manage disclosure paperwork on behalf of sellers, for a fee. 'We've been really busy. There's been a lot of work to get this new platform ready,' said FormCheck chief executive and co-founder Druen Dorn. 'This takes something that is otherwise quite complex and it makes it really simple for them.' FormCheck charges $799 per property and promises a 24-to-48-hour turnaround for standalone homes and individual land, using a digital platform to streamline the process. 'Most of it is automated. We have plug-ins ... that allow us to order all the searches we need very quickly.' Still, depending on the property, some packages may take longer, 'up to five days because you are relying on multiple searches and multiple pieces of information back'.
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The radio debut of the House of Commons: ‘there could be a long-running series here' – archive, 1975
Permanent radio broadcasts from the House of Commons began on 3 April 1978, and from the House of Lords on 4 April. Television broadcasts began on 21 November 1989. 10 June 1975 Ed Boyle, the commercial radio commentator for the first broadcast of parliament, yesterday spent two hours cooped up in a tiny glass box at a temperature of nearly 90 degrees, wearing a jacket, tie, and buttoned up collar, suffering from a particularly ferocious type of dysentery which has already brought his weight down to eight stone. Just to add a touch of challenge to the job, he was operating a new type of microphone kindly supplied by the BBC with operating instructions entirely in Japanese. In spite of this, Mr Boyle and his BBC colleague, David Holmes, who were trapped together in the same tiny glass box, managed somehow to give composed and informative account of the proceedings. Mr Holmes admitted afterwards that the heat had been so great that at times he had thought he would not be able to carry on, and though listeners may have noticed his voice fading occasionally, he always remained strikingly coherent and apparently in command. Mr Boyle now intends to make a few swift changes to make life slightly more bearable. Apart from sartorial changes to Bermuda shorts, for himself, he plans to make commentating easier by fading out some members when the discussion gets too technical. 'Some of the questions are really on very minor and erudite issues, and I guess the MPs won't mind if we turn them down occasionally so as to explain to the listeners what is happening.' Yesterday the two broadcasters were blessed by a good chunk of pungent topical debates, with Tony Benn using industry questions as the chance to prove himself a good Euro-democrat, and with splendid quotations like: 'If the opposition wants any head on a charger, the leader of the Conservative party will have to be a lot more seductive as a Salome than she has been so far.' At the same time, there were highly complex questions about, for example, the funding of the new pod for the stretched version of the Rolls-Royce RB 211 – a matter of great importance, but one which cannot be explained in the few seconds between question and answer. Both commentators had to trim down their remarks to within a second or so either way: Mr Holmes reckoned that if he did not spot immediately whether the speaker was calling an MP for a supplementary or for the next question on the order paper, he would lose two of the four or five vital seconds of explaining time. Time was so tight that Mr Boyle had to make a definite policy decision to give the first name of each MP as well as his surname and party. Often their time was so limited they could only say: 'This is a question about Europe' or, 'This is about British Leyland.' Mr Holmes hopes to grab a few more seconds of talking time while MPs are laughing and cheering between answers. But both men were pleased with the way things had gone, and came out of the box easier in mind if not in body than they had been when they went in. 'What's encouraging is that it looks as if we can do a proper job without the house having to change its way of going about business or even the tempo of its debates, so no one need feel that we are interfering in any way,' said Mr Holmes. The commercial company plans to use more material than the BBC will use, with prime minister's questions live every Tuesday and Thursday, plus special debates. It will also have an hour of extracts and highlights each morning – twice as long as the BBC – with an instant feedback service from a panel of MPs who took part in the debate; and possibly a Saturday morning edition giving chunks of the week's committees. Val Arnold-Forster, our radio critic, adds: It was a lucky day for broadcasters, according to David Holmes at the end of the transmission – audibly breathing a sigh of relief. It was too, it was a well or luckily chosen parliamentary day. At first, both Holmes and his opposite number, Ed Boyle of IRN, seemed to feel a trifle defensive about parliament. Well they might, for BBC listeners anyway missed not only some of Woman's Hour and a play, but since political events always seem to invade children's entertainment, they also missed Listen with Mother. Before the actual live broadcast started, both political editors showed us round like keen members of a parent-teachers association displaying their school: eager to tell us about the hallowed tradition, the problems that the whole institution had in a changing society, and the usefulness of the work done. The leader of the house, Edward Short, appeared on both channels in his headmasterly capacity to say that this was a particularly noisy House of Commons, but he hoped that the MPs would be on their best behaviour. A bit unruly, he thought, and not only the MPs either. There would have been more room, said Mr Short, in the tiny broadcaster's box if IRN and BBC had done the decent thing and agreed to a joint transmission. Nobody need have worried: from the moment question time started we were in capable hands. Both David Holmes and Ed Boyle chipped into the debate sotto voce, to identify and give party allegiances and explanations. Both tried valiantly to feed the listener with the details that make the House of Commons come alive. 'Mr Bidwell, chairman of the Tribune Group … Mr Denis Skinner, always a lively performer … Mr Benn is smiling to himself.' But they need not really have bothered: the proceedings were jolly enough. For those of us used to hearing politicians debating cautiously in front of untried audiences or answering laboured questions and phone-ins, it was an entertaining experience to hear such skilful parliamentary technicians as Harold Wilson and Tony Benn, parrying questions, riposting, joking, and scolding. The jokes were not always very good, but that's true of other radio comedians. Perhaps the laughter and applause sometimes seemed excessive but the barbed retorts were well placed and, as in other radio shows, what seemed like impromptu repartee must have been rehearsed, if only in the bath. 'I do not require lessons in political morality from an honourable member who regularly signs the oath of allegiance and snipes continually at the royal family,' snapped Tony Benn to Willie Hamilton. The uproar which worried Edward Short was cheerful mostly. The general cosiness, which came through strikingly as everyone complimented everyone else on performances in the referendum debate, seemed as easy to grasp as the Archers: we could become as familiar with William Whitelaw's idiosyncrasies as Walter Gabriel's. Final verdict: early days yet, but there could be a compulsive, long-running series here.
Daily Mail
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Tragic true story of 'the other Harry Potter' whose life changed forever after a catastrophic injury on set
A stunt double for Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe has opened up about the horrific injury he sustained on set 16 years ago which left him paralysed from the neck down. At 25 years old, David Holmes was working on film sets after becoming a trained gymnast; having overcome years of childhood bullying to live out his dream. He was at the height of his career and working on one of the biggest film franchises in the world when his life changed in an instant following an on-set accident. David, now 44, from Romford, was rehearsing a fight scene for The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 film in 2009 when he fell and plummeted to the ground, hearing the sound of his own neck snapping as he reached the ground. Medics rushed around him but the damage had already been done, with David left paralysed from the chest down bar some limited movements in his arms and hands. Now he has detailed his dismay at the horrendous injury that wrecked his career, calling it 'the gift that keeps on taking'. Despite the catastrophic consequences of his injuries he is ever the optimist, and said he believes that being alive in itself is a 'gift'. Appearing as a guests on Mamamia's No Filter podcast, he opened up about his gratitude for the Harry Potter franchise and how the injury it left him with has changed his outlook on life. David was first cast as the 'second Harry' when he was just 17-years-old, his small frame making him the ideal stunt man for 11-year-old Daniel Radcliffe. Throughout his nearly decade-long tenure working on the iconic film set, he was more than just a second Harry. 'I'm the Hermione when the troll smashes through the bathroom doors. I'm the Ron sitting on the back of the horses he gets hit with on the chest piece. I'm the Malfoy in the Quidditch match, flying off of his broom,' he recalled. But his fearless streak would soon to come to end. During a routine stunt filming The Deathly Hallows: Part 1, the wire attaching him to a harness and pulley system, suddenly snapped, causing David to plummet to the ground. He was paralysed instantly. He was initially taken to A&E at Watford General Hospital but transferred to a specialist spinal injury centre when the extent of his injuries became apparent. He spent several months in hospital and has since undergone years of treatment and surgeries. 'My spinal cord separated at the C 67 vertebrae just at the bottom of your at the bottom of your neck before your thorax starts,' he said. He recalled how the accident 16 years ago made him 'vulnerable' and 'needy' after being 'stripped back' to how he was as a toddler. 'People needed to feed me, people needed to dress me, wash me, you name it, and then gruelling rehabilitation,' he remembered in painstaking detail. Several cast members remained by his side, visiting David in hospital and showing their support. 'They were young to have to see me like that, with wires in me and stuff hanging out my nose,' he said in the podcast. 'For me being brave for them on camera all those years... they got the opportunity to flip that and be brave for me.' David and Daniel's bond is one that still endures today, with the two having collaborated in filming a documentary on the former stunt master titled The Boy Who Lived. In 2020, the pair also recorded a podcast series, Cunning Stunts, about stunt double acting. Daniel took time out a busy filming schedule to visit his stunt double in hospital, a gesture David has never forgotten, describing his as 'a great human being that will sacrifice his life to make sure other people stay employed.' Now 16-years on snap that changed the trajectory of his life for ever, David is able to look on his injury with optimism. 'What's worse than breaking your neck is the pain in your loved one's eyes,' he said. 'Life is hard, broken neck or not. I learned that lesson at 25, and it made me make peace with the fact it teaches you gratitude. I am here today, now. Where am I going to be in 10 years' time, in my body? I can't tell you… it forces me to be here now to take in the day.' Being paralysed from the waist down comes with it's complications, from which David doesn't shy away - and he's always able to see the funny side. 'I can't have control of my bowel routine,' he said. 'So that means I've had more hands up my a** than the cast of The Muppets.' 'I've cr**ped myself everywhere — top of mountains, film premieres, you name it … it never gets easier. But if you can find the joy and humour after it, it gets a little bit more digestible. So I always just laugh at myself.' Elsewhere in the interview, he discussed his relationship with his partner Rosie, a C-4 quadriplegic he met while renting her property in Spain. 'We don't connect over our injuries,' he said. 'We connect over our love for each other and our shared experience of being loved by great families and friends and committed care teams.' 'Our shared life experience when we go on holiday together, it means more because we have to work harder for it. And every orgasm that we both give each other, it means more because we're having an orgasm below our level of injury, something that most people say is unachievable.' He said he was 'grateful' for the life that the two are able to share, adding that they were enjoying having the best sex of their lives together. David also holds immense gratitude for having shared in the Harry Potter experience, praising the franchise for how it has helped others through difficult times. 'There are kids in conflict zones right now, petrified… their parents put Harry Potter on a phone in front of them, and it helps them escape their reality,' he said. 'There are people struggling with mental health issues right now that are always like turning to those films to help them get through a tough time. I'm very, very grateful that I was able to contribute to that fact for tons and tons of people.' 'I get to share my perspective, and hopefully someone goes, 'That's helped me today',' he said. 'We get one chance in life. The best thing is sharing, to share the experience of being a dumb monkey on a rock, spinning through space with a load of other dumb monkeys on a rock.' 'There'll be a generation of people behind me that have a spinal cord injury that will be like that lost little boy that I was in hospital feeling like hope is all gone. And then maybe, just maybe, they might find my journey and my story, and it might give them hope.'
