Ding dong! Ringing a bell signals fresh start for Cohen
BRAVE BOY, FIVE, HAS FIRST FULL DAY AT SCHOOL AFTER CHEMO
WHEN most children his age were starting school, Cohen Earley was fighting for his life.
Since he was diagnosed with stage four cancer in May last year, the youngster has undergone a rigorous regime of treatment in a bid to get a tumour removed from his leg.
“They shrank it, then cut it out and then zapped it as much as they could,” said his mum, Kat.
“He had horrible side-effects from the chemo, and had to have calf muscle removed, which means he’s now having physiotherapy.”
Despite his ordeal, Cohen is making excellent progress, said Kat.
The five-year-old, from Narborough, was last featured in the Mercury at the end of last year, when he was allowed home to spend Christmas with his family.
He then spent January having daily doses of radiotherapy at Nottingham City Hospital – and got to ring a special bell to signal the end of his treatment.
Kat said: “The consultants are really pleased with how he’s coping. After he finished his sessions he dressed up in his costume as Woody from Toy Story, pictured right, and rang the bell.
“All the radiographers came out to cheer him and the other patients too – a lot of them are much older and they obviously loved seeing him with all his energy.” Cohen should have started school in September, but with all the side-effects he only went in for a handful of afternoons in October.
His first day back was yesterday. Kat said: “It’s so good to see him doing so well, running around with no side-effects and no feeding tube. He’s so active.”
The family are keeping their fingers crossed that Cohen’s next scan, on March 18 – which is also Cohen’s dad Adrian’s birthday – will lead to good news. It will hopefully show the cancer, called an alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, is completely gone.
“It’s a kind of cancer that can pop up again so he’s having ‘maintenance chemo’ which is a pill I give him each day,” said Kat. “It’s so powerful I’m not allowed to touch it and have to put gloves on when I give it to him, which is a bit mind-blowing.
“I’m still anxious for him but he’s very excited about going to school for the first full day!”
Kat is fund-raising for the charity CLIC Sargent, which supports cancer patients and their families by walking 500,000 steps throughout the month. To donate, visit:
TRAFFIC levels have soared in Leicester since schools reopened.
Congestion levels jumped by 15 per cent as thousands of pupils went back, many in the taxi of mum and dad.
Research by location technology firm TomTom revealed that traffic congestion in the city surged from 26 per cent to 41 per cent.
Primary school pupils who have been learning from home since December have rejoined the vulnerable and key worker children in class in step one on the roadmap to recovery from Covid-19.
Other cities saw an increase in traffic jams including Birmingham (from 29 per cent to 33 per cent), Liverpool (from 35 per cent to 39 per cent) and Manchester (from 25 per cent to 45 per cent).
Congestion levels represent the proportion of additional time required for journeys compared with free-flow conditions.
The figures also indicate Monday’s hold-ups were worse than on September 2 last year, the first day back at school for many pupils after the first national coronavirus lockdown.
At 8am on that day, congestion was up 39 per cent in Leicester.
There were rises of 25 per cent in Birmingham, 27 per cent in Liverpool, 41 per cent in London and 24 per cent in Manchester.
TomTom’s head of traffic innovation and policy Stephanie Leonard told the PA news agency its data shows “a significant increase in traffic congestion”.
“This could indicate that while the country is taking its first steps back to normality, the car continues to be the preferred choice of transport for many parents during the pandemic,” she said.
The AA urged motorists to allow extra time for their journeys, and to carry out maintenance checks on their cars if they have been rarely used in recent weeks.
Edmund King, the organisation’s president, said: “The ‘rush hour’ has started earlier in the day with the return of school. Many parents are probably cranking up their car as they don’t want their schoolchildren risking public transport.”
Latest Department for Transport figures show car use has returned to 66 per cent of what it was before the virus crisis, whereas passenger numbers for buses outside London and the railway are at 31 per cent and 17 per cent respectively.
Despite demand being well below normal, many train operators ramped up services on Monday in response to schools and colleges reopening.
Some parents have told the Mercury they are anxious about sending their children back to school with coronavirus rates in the city and some parts of the county still much higher than the national average.
However, public health bosses and education officials have been seeking to reassure them and they believe the school environment will present a low risk to children.
The city council says schools have been working hard to ensure the environment is Covid-secure for both children and staff, and as well as increased cleaning regimes and strict social distancing measures, all staff will have the opportunity to take two Covid tests each week.
A HEROIN and crack-cocaine dealer, who ran a network of runners to hand over drugs, has been sentenced.
Connor Jordan Tooms operated two dealer lines in Loughborough.
But he was unaware his activities were under surveillance – and even twice handed over class A drugs to an officer posing as a customer.
James Bide-Thomas, prosecuting, told Leicester Crown Court that the dealer line numbers were “advertised locally” among drug users.
Two officers, posing as customers, rang the lines and on six occasions Tooms – described by the judge as leading “the life of Riley” before his arrest – answered their calls and redirected others to make street deal deliveries. Mr Bide-Thomas said: “The Crown’s case is that between July and October, 2018, the defendant was running drugs lines and controlling a network of runners to make deliveries and collect the money.”
When arrested in October of that year, he had the SIM cards for both mobile phone lines on him.
Since then, 24-year-old Tooms, of no fixed address, was jailed for a total of five years and eight months – for two separate offences of inflicting grievous bodily harm.
However, he appeared back at court last week to be given an additional three-year term for drug dealing.
Tooms admitted being concerned in the supply of heroin and crackcocaine between July 18 and October 5, 2018, as well as two counts of supplying class A drugs and possessing cocaine with intent to supply.
There was a long delay in bringing Tooms’ drugs case to court, partly because he was waiting for the trial of a co-accused to take place, but the proceedings had now been dropped against the other person, said the prosecutor.
Mark Nicholls, mitigating, said the judge should take into account the fact Tooms was already serving a long sentence – with an earliest release date of October 23, 2023 – in difficult and strict lockdown conditions because of the pandemic.
He told the judge: “He’s banged up in his cell for long periods and has become low, depressed and anxious.
“He fully accepts selling these drugs, which he did to fund his own use of cannabis. It wasn’t a big operation.
“He’s already a broken man and has been kept waiting for these matters to come to court through no fault of his own.”
Recorder Graham Huston said the prison service should be notified of concerns expressed about the defendant’s mental health.
Sentencing, he told Tooms: “One has to remember, irrespective of your current situation and sentence you’re already serving, that between July and October 2018 you were living the life of Riley, swanning about dealing in drugs and benefiting from the profits.
“Undercover officers phoned your number to request heroin and cocaine and on at least six occasions drugs were delivered by others brought in to do the actual deals.
“I have to ask myself what you would have been sentenced to if you were dealt with for all the matters (including two GBH offences) at the same time.”
He said he took into account the unusually strict prison regime, because of Covid, and sentenced him to three years imprisonment to run consecutively to the sentence he is already serving.