SOUTHPORT
11 March 2020
Vol 27 l Issue 11
INSIDE THIS WEEK: Teen approached by ‘suspicious’ taxi driver who tried to lure him into cab A TEENAGE boy was targeted by a ‘suspicious’ taxi driver on Sunday evening, who attempted to convince him to get into the cab. Merseyside Police are looking into an incident following a report of suspicious circumstances on Stafford Road just before 9pm on Sunday, March 8. A 13 year old boy was approached by a man in possibly a private hire taxi, who asked the teenager to get into the car saying his mother had called a taxi for him. The boy was suspicious of this, refused to get into the car and ran away. CCTV and witness enquiries are ongoing to establish the full circumstances of the incident and anyone with information is asked to contact police. Detective Chief Inspector Gayle Rooney said: “I would like to reassure the community that we take any reports of this nature extremely seriously and enquiries are ongoing to establish exactly what happened. “I would like to praise the actions of this boy as he was extremely sensible and did exactly the right thing under the circumstances. “We would ask anyone who saw a male acting suspiciously in the area around 9pm to come forward. We are particularly interested in any mobile phone or dashcam footage which could help with our investigation. We would urge anyone with any information to contact us.” Anyone who witnessed the incident or saw anything suspicious that could help is asked to DM @MerPolCC or call 101 quoting reference 0836 of 09/03/20 or you can also call the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously and for free on 0800 555 111, or DM @CrimestoppersUK.
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MUM’S MESSAGE OF HOPE AFTER TERMINAL CANCER DIAGNOSIS Joanna went through every parent’s nightmare but was ‘thrown a lifeline’ when she found it could be controlled by a different treatment Report by Danielle Thompson A MUM from Southport has spoken of her experience of having a rare, terminal type of lung cancer – and is campaigning for more awareness for earlier diagnoses. Joanna Heard, 34, went through every parent’s worst nightmare when she was given her stage four terminal diagnosis last summer, when her daughter Freya was only seven months old – and was ‘horrified and terrified’ when she discovered that the average life expectancy Joanna Heard with fiancé Daniel and daughter Freya is only a year. But she said that she was ‘thrown a lifeline’ when ‘all of the textbook symptoms of lung cancer’ while she found out that she had the genetic variation, she was pregnant, including a cough that wouldn’t ALK, which can be ‘controlled’ by different treat- go away, shoulder pain, feeling tired and repeat chest infections. ment which slows it down and keeps it dormant. She says that medics ‘didn’t even consider it’ as The diagnosis came out of the blue for Joanna although she now realises that she had displayed she is young and a non-smoker and wants others to
recognise the signs. A mass, previously misdiagnosed as pneumonia on a scan while she was pregnant, had grown and she was given the shocking terminal diagnosis is July, which she said made her fear how long she had left with her fiancé Daniel and daughter. After being put on revolutionary daily chemotherapy tablet treatment, which came out in 2018 – which she will stay on for as long as it continues to work – she turned to online forums to find out more about her condition, and says that she found ‘endless support and a lot of answers from the online community.’ The type that she has, which is genetic, appears to most often rear its head during hormonal changes – so childbirth or menopause is a very common time to the cancer to appear. Joanna, who was in the middle of her first pregnancy, said she ‘didn’t know what to expect’ so put a lot of the symptoms down to the changes of pregnancy. She has launched her blog, ‘Just a mamma fighting cancer’ on Instagram and hopes to educate people about the rare strain – and to remind people it’s not ‘just the elderly and smokers’ that get it. She hopes to fund research into more treatments as the average treatment time is currently only Continued inside
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