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Thursday, November 5, 2009
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FIND YOUR COUPON AND ALL THE DETAILS ON PAGE 20 Sister facing stab charge DEVASTATED: Nancy Watts outside her home, which is shielded by metal mesh. Picture: Alex Severn
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I’M CAGED IN BY ALEX CAMPBELL
alex.campbell@thesentinel.co.uk
DISABLED Nancy Watts lives in a bungalow covered in steel mesh after claiming a mobile phone mast at the end of her garden has left her in a wheelchair. Former IT consultant Nancy, aged 54, spends most of her time confined to a tiny room at the back of her home to try to avoid the mast just 20ft from her front window. Fears over electro-magnetic currents from the mast mean Nancy and
husband Phillip, aged 56, have spent £1,500 protecting the building with ground-to-roof cladding. Their small back room has also been converted into a ‘Faraday cage’, covered wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling in steel mesh sheets, to block out all electrical currents and they sleep under a mesh tent above their bed. Nancy has had Multiple Sclerosis (MS) since 1985 and suffered only three relapses in 11 years. But after moving to Ashley Heath, near Loggerheads, in 1996 she began suffering several relapses a year and
has been in a wheelchair since 2001. Mobile phone companies started using the existing electricity pylon in late 1996 for their transmitters. She said: “There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the mast has caused these complications. “Having to live with metal mesh around us is devastating.” Nancy says she cannot spend more than a couple of hours outside the cage without feeling disorientated and losing feeling in her limbs. Her husband complains of electrosensitivity, which causes him pain.
Professor Clive Hawkins, a clinical neurologist at Keele University Medical School and the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, who has treated Nancy, said: “There is good reason to believe that the electro-magnetic current disturbs the barrier between blood and brain, and blood and spinal cord. “This is an important part of MS, the barrier breaks down and so proteins and antibodies enter the spinal cord or brain and cause inflammation.” Mobile mast has ruined my life: Page 6
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A WOMAN has appeared in court accused of attempting to murder her sister. Susan Thomas, aged 44, of Peterfield Road, Chell, is charged with the attempted murder of Carla Jones at an address in Fegg Hayes on Tuesday. During a hearing lasting 30 minutes at North Staffordshire Magistrates Court yesterday, Thomas frequently held her head in her hands and wept. She spoke only to confirm her name, age and address. District Judge David Taylor adjourned the case for a further hearing at Stafford Crown Court on Friday, November 13. He remanded Thomas in custody until that date. It is alleged Ms Jones suffered a stab wound to her thigh in an early-morning incident at her home.
Dead mum’s family tribute
RELATIVES of murder victim Amanda Birks have paid tribute to her. The mum-of-two was killed by her husband Christopher at their house in Norton. Following his appearance at Stafford Crown Court, where he admitted the killing, Amanda’s family described her as a “loving mum who was so kind and caring”. See Page 5
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