the times | Thursday February 3 2022 21
News
The BBC has responded to Nadine
Dorries’s threat to abolish the licence
fee with a campaign video that says the
broadcaster “belongs to all of us”.
The corporation published the two-
minute clip across its social media
channels yesterday, showcasing 100
years of BBC programming.
Mining the BBC’s vast archives, the
A farmer who used a forklift to wreck a
car parked on his land has said he had
been plagued by crime and told a court:
“An Englishman’s home is his castle.”
Robert Hooper, 57, was captured on
video flipping the brand new Vauxhall
Corsa and pushing it on to a main road.
He does not dispute he caused the
damage but says he did so in defence of
himself and his property after anti-
social behaviour in his isolated commu-
nity. Giving evidence at Durham crown
court, Hooper said his Brockersgill
Farm at Newbiggin, County Durham,
had been burgled eight times. “An En-
glishman’s home is his castle and my
castle starts at that front gate,” he said.
He told the court he was punched
four times by a passenger in the Corsa,
Charlie Burns, 21, who he described as
“agitated and full of himself”.
Asked by his barrister Michael Rawl-
Radar search
for remains
Ben ElleryPolice are preparing to use radar in the
search for the remains of a woman who
died in a kidnapping after she was
mistaken for Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife.
Detectives met the landowner this
week at the Hertfordshire farm where
one of Muriel McKay’s abductors con-
fessed to burying her body more than
50 years ago. The family had already
employed a specialist who scanned the
site from neighbouring land, reporting
ground disturbance up to four feet deep.
The landowner had rejected a family
request to scan from closer, but said he
would co-operate if the police asked
him. The move follows a sympathetic
letter to the family from Dame Cressida
Dick, head of the Metropolitan Police.
In 1969 Nizamodeen and Arthur Ho-
sein demanded a ransom for Mrs
McKay, 55, who was married to Alick
McKay, Murdoch’s deputy in the UK,
believing her to be his wife, Anna.
Murdoch is now executive chairman of
News Corp, the owner of The Times.An Englishman’s home is his castle,
insists the farmer who flipped a car
John Simpson Crime Correspondent inson why he did not call the police, he
replied: “I have had a number of burgla-
ries at the farm over the years, about
eight. We have not had the best re-
sponse from the police and there was
not time for anyone to be coming.” He
said the nearest police station was Bar-
nard Castle but it was unmanned, so it
would take an hour for help to arrive.
Hooper told the court: “We have a
small hill farm in Upper Teesdale and
I’m the fourth-generation tenant of it.
The area had had an influx of youths
coming, particularly at Low Force
which is just half a mile to a mile up theroad. There has been antisocial
behaviour, drug taking, lighting fires,
knocking walls down and blocking the
roads with parking, causing a threat to
people as well.”
He said he knew that visiting youths
had threatened people.
On June 5 last year Burns and his
friend Elliott Johnson, the driver, had
been among eight men from South Ty-
neside who had visited the Low Force
waterfall, drinking lager. Johnson, who
was not drinking, suffered a double
blow out of the tyres of his courtesy car,
which belonged to Vauxhall Finance.
Hooper said he had been farming
with his partner Karen Henderson
when he saw the car pull on to the drive
so he drove down in a farm vehicle to
ask them to move it.
“Instantly Burns was right in my face.
Throughout Covid we’d been two
metres from people and here he was
five inches from my nose. I asked himpolitely again ‘can we have this car
moved?’ and he said ‘I’m not f***ing
moving this car’.” Hooper said that
Burns then punched him twice in the
face, splitting his lip. My mind was
racing and my heart was. These lads
were half my age and I didn’t know if
they had weapons or what they were
capable of.”
He raced back to the farm and
switched to a telehandler tractor,
attaching a forklift. He said: “I was
frightened and shaking, I didn’t know
what they were going to do. Karen had
told me she’d seen a second carful of
youths associated with them parked at
the road end. I was worried for my
safety, for Karen’s safety and the gener-
al safety of the farm. If they had moved
the car, it would have been fine, I’d have
done nothing,” he added
Hooper denies dangerous driving
and criminal damage on the basis of
self-defence. The trial continues.Robert Hooper
moved the Corsa
after it parked on
his farm’s driveBBC goes on licence-fee offensive with ‘it belongs to us all’ clip
Jake Kanter Media Correspondent video threads together a message using
some of the broadcaster’s biggest
names and shows. A young Jeremy
Paxman opens the montage by asking:
“Defining the BBC’s role involves
answering the central question: what is
public service broadcasting?”
The question is answered with
glimpses of shows and events including
Strictly Come Dancing, Line of Duty, The
Vicar of Dibley, The Morecambe and
Wise Show and Antiques Roadshow.
“The BBC is a unique experiment,” the
video says. “There’s no angle, there’s no
biased vibes, no sponsors interfering
with play. It’s a bridge between us, a
common ground between us. Look a bit
closer, it’s a reflection of who we are.
It adds: “The BBC is something that
belongs to all of us. Every one of us,
every one of us.” The final line is spoken
by Sir David Attenborough.The argument about universality is
central to the BBC’s defence of the £159
licence fee amid calls for alternative
funding models. Kerris Bright, its chief
customer officer, said the campaign
was developed last year but acknowl-
edged that it had been published after
the government asked questions about
the future of the licence fee.
“This licence fee announcement will
be the last,” Dorries, the culture secre-tary, tweeted last month in reference to
the BBC’s six-year funding settlement,
although she later retreated slightly.
Sir Keir Starmer said last night that
government plans to abolish the BBC
licence fee and privatise Channel 4 are
a “direct attack” on the UK’s creative
industry. Speaking at the Creative
Coalition festival, the Labour leader
said his party would “look after” the
two public service broadcasters.The path follows Hadrian’s Wall
across countryside but then
avoids the west of NewcastleALAMYA
walk along the
Hadrian’s Wall
Path may conjure
up images of open
countryside,
historic sites and ancient
stone (Jack Blackburn
writes). Most people would
not picture suburban back
gardens and a Kwik-Fit.
Perhaps that is why, in the
western suburbs of
Newcastle, the path takes a
detour down to the Tyne.Now an MP is demanding
that the trail be redrawn to
its “true” route.
Chi Onwurah, who
represents Wallsend, used a
debate in Westminster Hall
to call for the change this
year, the 1,900th anniversary
of the wall, suggesting that
skirting Newcastle’s west end
may have been down to
“snobbish elitism”.
She pointed out that the
diversion also missed outsections of the wall in the
city centre, including the
remains of one of the mile
castles. “Every day, tens of
thousands of tourists pass by
without knowing how close
they are to the Roman wall,”
she said.
The Hadrian’s Wall Path
runs for 84 miles from coastto coast, and while largely
rural, does run through
parts of Carlisle. On the
outskirts of Newcastle,
however, the original wall
ran along what is now the
busy West Road. That
section includes a Roman
temple and the foundations
of one of the wall’s turrets.
Nowadays there is a
medical centre, a petrol
station, a Catholic church,
a Hindu temple and
Newcastle Central
Mosque. “There may have
been a snobbish elitism that
felt that semi-detached
housing and a contemporary
high street were not suitable
for tourism,” Onwurah said.She suggested there may
also have been concerns
that areas with immigrant
populations did not
present the right image.
Nigel Huddleston, the
heritage minister, said he
was sympathetic and that
guides to the original route
were now provided, but a
case needed to be made to
the trail partnership.
Hadrian, eager to defend
the Roman Empire from
the Picts, began the wall in
AD122. Its 1,900th
anniversary is being
celebrated throughout this
year, ending with the Roman
festival of Saturnalia on
December 23.lltSh
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l‘Let Hadrian’s walkers
roam into Newcastle’
Heddon-
on -the-wall Newcastle
WallsendHadrian’s Wall pathPossible
route2 miles