Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Crisis in NHS ‘will put stop to winter ops’
ROUTINE surgery during winter could become “a thing of the past” for the NHS, research suggests.
Hospital bed occupancy is currently at 94.9%, above the safe maximum of 85% – despite a shutdown of non-emergency ops.
Thousands of patients will be left in pain or with worsening health under current spending plans, according to political activist group 38 Degrees.
Its campaign chief Trish Murray said: “Without a significant injection of resources, routine surgery during winter will become a thing of the past.”
The Department of Health said the claim was “unfounded”, adding: “The NHS prioritises its services to accommodate spikes in demand every year.” TWO burglars have been jailed for life after blasting a millionaire to death with a shotgun in front of his terrified husband who had hit a panic alarm button.
Masked raiders Jason Baccus and Kevin Downton burst in on high-flying businessman Guy Hedger, 61, and Simon-pierre Hedger-cooper, 48, as they slept.
Baccus snarled: “We’ll shoot if you don’t do what we say”, as Downton pointed the gun, Winchester crown court heard.
As they ransacked the room stealing £125,000 worth of luxury items, including pricey Cartier watches, one demanded the code to the couple’s safe.
The court heard Mr Hedger, who worked for LV Insurance, got up and started reading out the number but then froze.
Mr Hedger-cooper pressed the panic button as he went to help his husband of 12 years.
Giving evidence, he said: “The alarms went off and lights started flashing.
“I heard an almighty boom and Guy said, ‘I’ve been hit’. He fell to the floor.”
GREED
Downton blasted Mr Hedger in the chest with a sawn-off shotgun then fled with Baccus.
The court was told the callous burglars stole mobile and landline phones to give them more time to escape.
Gunshot residue was found in a snood used by Downton, 40, in his car, and DNA from a cigarette placed Baccus, 42, at the scene.
In a victim impact statement read out in court, Mr Hedgercooper said the final moments of his partner’s life “were full of terror, fear and pain”.
He added: “This was a crime fuelled by greed.
“What I saw, what I heard and how I felt... will haunt me until my dying day.”
Jailing the pair yesterday, Mr Justice Jay said: “Nothing I can say could possibly prevent Mr Hedger-cooper continuing to be tormented by the thought that if he hadn’t pressed the button, his partner might still be alive today.
“The decision... was not irrational and was made in circumstances of extreme stress.”
Downton and Baccus broke into the couple’s £1million home in Ashley, near Ringwood, Hants, at around 3am on April 30.
Downton, of Winterborne Stickland, Dorset, and Baccus, of Bournemouth, each got at least 34 years’ jail. Scott Keeping, 44, of Bournemouth, was cleared of acting as an accomplice and his wife Helen, 40, was cleared of
assisting an offender.