Follow the latest news stories from the National League, including transfers and selected contract announcements.

Martin Lewes
Reporter

We've now finished posting news and other useful or interesting information for Cumbria for today, and this week.

Here's a reminder of some of today's developments:

• A police sergeant who wrestled a man armed with an axe to the ground was given a bravery award
• Severely disabled people were at last able to visit at least one Lake District beauty spot in the knowledge that they can, if necessary, go to the loo designed with them in mind
• Conservationists who restored a west Cumbrian beck to its original windy meanders, told us they went back five years later and found hundreds of baby fish born, where few were born before

We'll be back from 08:00 on Monday to do it again. If there's news you think we should know or a photo you've taken in the county that you reckon is worth sharing, let us know by sending an email, on Facebook, external, or on Twitter, external.

Have a very good weekend.

BBC Weather

Tonight will be mainly cloudy with further outbreaks of rain.

The rain is likely to be heavy in places, perhaps with some rumbles of thunder, with lowest temperatures from 11C to 14C (52F to 57F).

There is a yellow Met Office warning, external just over the Scottish border for thunderstorms.

You can always find the latest, hour-by-hour, BBC weather forecast for where you are, here.

Local Democracy Reporting Service
John Connell

Councillors in Allerdale unanimously condemned "racist hatred" after hearing about abuse of a Syrian refugee and her children in Workington town centre.

The Cockermouth councillor Joan Ellis moved a special motion, telling a meeting that west Cumbria had a record of welcoming people from around the world dating back to the Irish famines of the 19th century.

Mr Ellis said two women had intervened and called police after the Syrian, who was with a baby and a toddler, was abused.

She told the meeting: "We must stamp out any racism and racial hatred in our area. We must offer protection and maintain out friendliness, hospitality and our neighbourliness."

• A man appeared before Workington Magistrates today and admitted racially aggravated harassment on 1 July in Murray Road in the town.

A Workington man who left another man's face scarred by slashing him with a knife has been jailed for more than three years.

Carlisle Crown Court heard Kieren Alan Winder, 26, of Hunday Court, was high on Valium in March when he took a craft knife to a night-time meeting after an argument about who owned some illegal drugs.

Afterwards, Winder talked briefly with a passer-by before lashing out at him and causing what the judge called a "gruesome" injury.

Winder admitted wounding, and was sentenced to three years and seven months in jail.

Traffic-calming measures designed to put the brakes on "joy boys" are to be installed at Biggar Bank, Walney, councillors have decided.

The Cumbria County Council scheme, costing about £20,000, aims to break up the long straight of Biggar Bank Road where racers accelerate as the road speed switches between 30mph and 60mph.

Image source, Google

The new scheme could be installed by the end of the year and follows numerous complaints from residents about drivers speeding past their homes.

The county council said it would involve signage, new white lines and chicanes.

A man who had denied the alleged historical sexual abuse of a young girl has been cleared of all the charges he faced.

David Andrew Little, 54, of The Crescent, Egremont, went on trial at Carlisle Crown Court this week facing charges dating back more than three decades which all related to the same primary school-aged complainant.

One alleged that he raped the child, another that he tried to rape her and two more alleged he had indecently assaulted her.

Mr Little was found not guilty of the attempted rape allegation midway through the trial, and today the jury also acquitted him of the alleged rape and indecent assaults.

Judge Brian Cummings QC told Mr Little: "That is the end of the trial. You are free to go."

Local Democracy Reporting Service

There was “no evidence” of high-level commitment from either of the proposed tenants for Workington’s multimillion-pound stadium, according to the leader of Allerdale council.

Independent councillor Marion Fitzgerald made the comments as she faced questions over why the executive scrapped the ambitious plans put forward by the previous Labour administration.

Image source, Allerdale BC

The business case for the original project hinged on a lease agreement with Sellafield and the NHS to take office space for hundreds of staff in the stadium, but Mrs Fitzgerald said there were insufficient guarantees upon which to base such a “momentous decision”.

The Independent-led executive voted last month to look instead into the creation of a smaller scaled-back version of the project, ending the town’s dreams of hosting the Rugby League World Cup in 2021.

A husband who launched an attack on his wife so violent that police heard her screaming from outside their home, has been jailed for almost two years.

Kevin Steel, 53, of South Henry Street, Carlisle, denied causing actual bodily harm to Hannah Gavin but was found guilty after a trial at Carlisle Crown Court.

Miss Gavin told the court she remembered being on the floor and kicked, with blood all over her face.

Judge James Adkin said anyone hearing the screams recorded on police body cams "would be shocked and appalled", and he jailed Steel for 21 months.

A 65-year-old man who told a young mother with two children to get back to her own country has been sentenced to a community order by magistrates in Workington.

Leslie Blaney, of Birch Close, Workington, told police he was a white supremacist who believed all non-white people should leave England, the Crown Prosecution Service said after the hearing.

Blaney, who admitted racially aggravated harassment, was given a 10-week curfew and ordered to pay £85 costs and £90 victim surcharge.

Later Pamela Fee, from the CPS, said Blaney had abused the woman simply because she was wearing a headscarf.

A beck on the western side of the Lake District has seen a fish population boom in the five years after a project to restore it to its natural condition.

Image source, West Cumbria Rivers Trust

The stream bed had been heavily modified and straightened, but in 2014 the West Cumbria Rivers Trust, Environment Agency and Natural England restored the meandering bends, to slow the flow, improve the habitat for fish, and reduce the flood risk downstream of the River Cocker.

In a recent survey, 400 young salmon and trout were found in the restored section, where areas of gravel have made it a vital breeding area for fish, and staff at the trust say the project is now "a massive success".

Local Democracy Reporting Service
Ellis Butcher

Health service managers have been accused of not telling the public well enough about a major change in how mental health services are provided in south Cumbria.

From 1 October, mental care will be handed over from the Cumbria Partnership trust to Lancashire Care.

When Lancashire Care directors Jo Moore and Mark Hindle appeared before Cumbria’s health scrutiny committee to update county councillors about the transfer, Ulverston councillor Mark Wilson said he was not seeing enough assurances that services would improve.

"We are constantly disappointed by the drift in this," he told them.

Mr Hindle said this was unfair: “We have done extensive consultation discussion recently."

Ms Moore said the Lancashire trust had a “comprehensive improvement plan” for services which would be shared at a later date, but she also said there were no quick fixes for waiting times or staff shortages.

BBC Cumbria Sport

Carlisle United forward Hallam Hope will not miss the start of the football season because of a one-match ban after he was given a red card at Chester.

The ban will be applied to tomorrow's friendly at home to Fleetwood.

It had been feared he'd miss the opening three competitive games of the season.

Image source, Getty Images

Fire crews from Carlisle, Longtown and Penrith spent more than three hours earlier today dousing a blaze in 70 tonnes of hay at a farm near Longtown.

A special new signpost has been installed at Port Carlisle, one of the starting points for people walking the length of Hadrian's Wall.

The signpost has been created by Roger Brough, from Port Carlisle so walkers can take photographs of themselves beside it.

The most sophisticated public toilet in the Lake District is being opened at a popular national park leisure area for people with severe disabilities.

A fully-accessible changing room and toilet have been installed at Fell Foot, beside Windermere, with a shower and an adult-sized changing table with a hoist.

About 250,000 people in Britain are too severely disabled to used normal accessible toilets, so the National Trust, which runs the park and boating centre included the more sophisticated facilities in a multimillion-pound facelift.

Kelley Sproston-Heath from the National Trust says it means more people will be able to take part in activities such as canoeing, kayaking and paddling, at Fell Foot..

BBC Weather

It will be rather cloudy with outbreaks of rain this afternoon, heavy and thundery in places.

There will be gentle to moderate southeasterly winds and highest temperatures from 16C to 19C (61F to 66F).

You can always find the latest, detailed, BBC weather forecast for where you are, here.

The managing director of Playdale, the Haverthwaite playground equipment firm, will be named a Freeman of the Worshipful World Traders, giving him the Freedom of the City of London, later today.

Image source, Playdale

The company exports to more than 40 countries around the world.

Once the honour would have exempted Barry Leahey from the toll for driving sheep across London Bridge, and from being press-ganged into the Royal Navy, but these days the privileges are more to do with charity and education.

Mr Leahey has also just been made an Honorary Professorial Fellow from Lancaster University Management School in Strategy and Entrepreneurship.

News and Star
Newspaper

A plea has been issued to young people not to start fires, external, following a series of incidents across Cumbria.

Image source, News and Star

A woman in her 20s suffered head, face and suspected neck injuries when she fell while scrambling up Stickle Ghyll in Great Langdale.

Image source, Langdale-Ambleside MRT

The woman, who was with an organised group, was treated at the scene and then flown to the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle, but her injuries are not thought to have been life-threatening.