The Times - UK (2022-01-26)

the times | Wednesday January 26 2022 23

News

A caver who was trapped for 54 hours in
the deepest cave system in the UK and
thought he “might never come out”
has said that he will volunteer with the
rescue team that saved him.
George Linnane, 38, broke his leg,
jaw, ribs and collarbone in a fall after
going caving with a group in the Ogof
Ffynnon Ddu system in the Brecon
Beacons in November last year. It took
about 300 volunteers and the longest
stretcher carry in British cave-rescue
history to bring him to the surface.
Linnane said he was “lucky to be
alive” and that it was “the right thing to
do” to become a volunteer member of
the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue
Team, which co-ordinated the opera-
tion to save him.
Despite also suffering a punctured
lung and damaged spleen, he told BBC
Wales that he wanted to get back

Responsibility for child welfare in the
city where the 16-month-old girl Star
Hobson was murdered has been
removed from the local authority.
Bradford children’s social care
services are instead being lifted into a
trust to “drive rapid improvements”, the
government said yesterday.
The trust will be owned by the
council but run at “arms-length”, with a
new independent chairman and board

A

n Afghan war

veteran is on

the verge of

becoming the

first disabled

person to complete an

extraordinary explorer’s

challenge, taking on the

toughest expeditions on

every continent (Neil

Johnston writes).

Martin Hewitt, 41,

from Cheshire, set out a

decade ago to scale the

seven highest summits

in the world and reach

both the North and the

South Pole. About 70

people are known to

have completed the

“explorers grand slam”.

Hewitt, who lost the use

of his right arm in a

firefight with the

Taliban, hopes to

become the first

disabled person to do so.

Last week he returned

from Antarctica, where

he and Louis Rudd,

another explorer,

reached the summit of

Mount Vinson — after a

50-day, 600-mile

unsupported trek to the

South Pole in

temperatures as low as

minus 40C. Hewitt,

the Sochi Olympics, said

yesterday that his South

Pole odyssey may have

been the toughest

challenge yet. “The

sheer combination of

the weather, the weight

we are pulling and

negotiating terrain with

one arm was really

hard,” he told The

Times. “Antarctica is

simultaneously brutal

and beautiful.”

He added: “We have

been from one extreme

to another on these

expeditions. The

challenges are as close

to the military as

anything else because

there is a genuine risk of

loss of life. If you make a

mistake, you or

somebody else isn’t

coming home.”

He hopes he can

inspire others who have

disabilities to achieve

their potential. “I’ve

seen the power that

these expeditions have

had on people’s recovery

and their mindset. It’s a

significant endeavour

within the challenge

community and I

thought if we have a

disabled team it would

send the right message.

We wanted to do

something able-bodied

people would look at,

and see that it was a

significant challenge.”

Disabled veteran goes

to ends of the earth

His grand slam

Denali

Mount Vinson

Mount

Aconcagua

Mount

Kosciuszko

Mount

Everest

Mount

Kilimanjaro

South Pole

Carstensz

Pyramid

North Pole

Mount

Elbrus

founder of the accessible

exploring charity

Adaptive Grandslam,

now has one last

mountain to climb: he

will head to New

Guinea, home of the

Carstensz Pyramid,

when Covid-19

restrictions are lifted.

The Sandhurst

graduate was on his

second tour with the

Parachute Regiment in

Afghanistan in 2007

when he was hit by

heavy machinegun fire,

severing an artery and

nerves to his right arm.

His fellow soldiers

rescued him and he was

flown back to the UK,

where he has had 13

operations.

He failed in his first

attempt on Everest, in

2012, but went back in

2019 and fought through

hurricane-force winds

and lethal ice fields to

reach the summit.

Hewitt, who competed

for Team GB in skiing at

Martin Hewitt, left, and

Louis Rudd completed a

gruelling South Pole trek

before setting their sights

on Mount Vinson, far left;

ticking two more boxes in

the grand slam collection

MARTIN HEWITT; JOSIAS DEIN/SHACKLETON

Caver to join rescue team that

saved him from 54-hour ordeal

Will Humphries
Southwest Correspondent

underground. “I’m a caver and a diver.

It’s what I do and what makes me

happy,” he said. “And I know that while

something bad did happen to me, the

chances of it happening again are very,

very low. Let’s hope so.”

Linnane, an engineer from Bristol,

fell when a boulder gave way and he

plunged 30ft down a chasm. The expe-

rienced caver and diver lost several

teeth in the fall and spent more than

two weeks in hospital.

He said that he endured “dark mo-

ments” while waiting to be saved.

“It was meant to be a five or six-hour

easy trip, out in time for dinner and

fireworks,” he said. “One second I was

caving, the next minute the world went

mad. And then it all went black. And

then two minutes later, I woke up in a

very different state.”

He said that all he remembered of the

fall was “legs whirling around in mid-

air, arms grabbing for something — at

this point it was pure reflex.”

He said that he suffered “intense

waves of pain” as he struggled to move

his body. “I was just screaming and

screaming in pain at that point. It was

nasty. And then when I got to that

point, I also flipped myself from my

front over to my back,” he said.

“I did this so that I could prop myself

up into a sort of semi-seated position

and then start waiting it out. And that

was agony as well.”

Linnane was kept company by a

friend, who tried to keep him talking

while another caver took 90 minutes to

climb to the surface to alert rescuers.

“It was when those first advanced

first-aiders turned up — from that

point onwards, I always felt like I had a

chance,” Linnane said. “But initially, I

wasn’t sure I was going to make it.”

A 250-strong team swam through an

underground stream with Linnane on a

floating stretcher to get him to safety.

They then lifted him 90ft through a

vertical chasm with the stretcher on

ropes. Some even went back under-

ground to search for his missing teeth.

Linnane said his fellow cavers were

the only ones who could have saved

him after the fall. He said: “Caving is a

very safe sport, generally speaking, for

people that know what they’re doing.

“It’s as safe as crossing a road. But

things do happen occasionally. And

when they do, there is only one team of

people, one type of person that is going

to get you out of there. The fire service

can’t do it, mountain rescue can’t do it.

The only people that can do it are other

cavers, because they’re the only people

with the skill set to do it.”

Trust takes over social services role after child’s murder

of directors. Nadhim Zahawi, the

education secretary, has been in discus-

sions with the children’s services

commissioner after Star was murdered

at her mother Frankie Smith’s home in

Keighley, West Yorkshire.

A trial heard she suffered “catastro-

phic” injuries at the hands of Savannah

Brockhill, Smith’s girlfriend. Brockhill

said marks on Star were accidental and

that concerns had been raised by

people who didn’t like her relationship.

Zahawi said: “Where a council is not

meeting its duty to do this, we will take

action to protect children and put their

needs first.”

He said it was clear from recommen-

dations made by Bradford’s children’s

commissioner that the council needed

“support to improve”.

The government said the decision

followed “positive” talks with council

leaders, who had “voluntarily agreed to

the move” after the department was

rated inadequate by Ofsted in 2018.

In December Brockhill, 28, was given

life in prison with a minimum 25-year

term and Smith, 20, was given an eight-

year sentence for allowing her daugh-

ter’s death.

Star had two brain injuries, fractured

ribs, a re-fractured leg and a skull frac-

ture when she died in September 2020.

She had been subjected to months of

assaults and psychological harm.

Susan Hinchcliffe, the Labour leader

of Bradford council, said: “We are work-

ing constructively with government

in the best interests of our children.”

James Beal Social Affairs Editor

‘Sadistic’ girl

left doctor

for dead

Will Humphries

A consultant NHS psychiatrist was

beaten, tortured and left for dead by a

“sadistic” 16-year-old girl and two

men while looking for gay sex, a court

heard.

Gary Jenkins, 54, a father of two, died

from his injuries in the attack in Bute

Park, near Cardiff Castle in the early

hours of July 20 last year.

The jury at Merthyr Tydfil crown

court heard that he went to the park to

“explore his bisexuality” after the

break-up of his marriage, and would

“often drink heavily as well”.

Jason Edwards, 25, Lee William

Strickland, 36, and the girl, who is now

17 but too young to be named, deny

murder but have pleaded guilty to man-

slaughter, robbery and assault occa-

sioning actual bodily harm. A witness

called the girl “f***ing evil. Sadistic.”

CCTV showed her allegedly saying

after the assault: “Yeah, I needed that.”

Dafydd Enoch QC, for the prosecu-

tion, said: “It was a beating apparently

motivated by greed, homophobia and

a straightforward liking of violence.”

Jenkins died of an “unsurvivable” brain

injury 16 days later.

Enoch said Louis Williams, a passer-

by, saw the three “shouting at Dr

Jenkins and kicking him” as they pulled

at his bag, with the teenage girl heard

yelling: “Take his bag. Get his bag.”

Enoch said: “They were hurting

Dr Jenkins for the best part of 15 min-

utes as he lay on the ground. It was

torture, pure and simple.”

Williams, who was also assaulted,

said the three were laughing and “egg-

ing each other on”.

The trial continues.

George Linnane

was rescued by

300 volunteers