Trust hands out 1m trees
MORE than a million free saplings are being given away to schools and communities to feed a “real passion” for planting trees.
It is the first time The Woodland Trust has distributed as many in a single season.
The charity said the milestone showed a growing desire among the public to plant trees and care for the environment.
Beccy Speight, chief executive of the trust, said: “People want to feel they are making a difference.” A DETECTIVE who broke wind on duty is fighting to be let off charges of gross behaviour.
Detective Constable Claire Fitzpatrick, 44, also allegedly asked a junior officer if he wanted a “fatter, ugly, older woman”.
She is also accused of often using the C-word in front of other officers.
But the mum-of-two, who had been promoted to a temporary sergeant, claims it was all part of a “culture of banter” at her village police station.
When a junior constable turned down her offer of “an affair with an older woman”, she told him: “I’ll be gentle, I promise,” a misconduct hearing was told.
She admitted breaking wind outside the sergeant’s office, but said she had not done it deliberately.
She added: “I would joke about it...Use a silly voice to say: ‘Rather out than in’.” The panel also heard she once told a motorist who she was arresting: “You’re driving like a c***.”
She told the hearing: “The officer with me said: ‘You can’t say that to him’. I took a deep breath with my head in my hands, and said I’m sorry to the driver. The driver also apologised for his driving.”
DC Fitzpatrick, who has served with Gwent Police in South Wales for 22 years, also asked another female officer if she Force cop “had any cream for thrush” while inside the packed station. But she told the panel: “I wasn’t suffering from thrush at the time. It was just another example of stupid, inappropriate things being said.”
She denies 25 counts of inappropriate behaviour, amounting to gross misconduct and the hearing continues at Gwent Police Headquarters in Cwmbran.