An eyewitness' account of the armed robbery in King's Lynn

Strolling along Norfolk Street just before 10am to go to the Post Office to pay my road tax, I never in a million years could have predicted the situation I was about to find myself in. Just as I reached the Post Office, I noticed a silver Mercedes pull up outside Francis Wain jewellery shop and the driver put on his hazard lights. "That's strange," I thought. "This is a pedestrianised road, surely the shop gets deliveries at night or through a back door?"

Then in the blink of an eye, a gang of men in white hooded tops raced out of the vehicle and started smashing glass with sledgehammers before stealing items from the shop. For about 10 seconds, I was quite literally frozen to the spot as the usually busy shopping street began to empty with people either running away screaming or diving into the closest shop to hide. As people continued to brush past me to get away, I noticed a few people were already on their mobile phones and talking to the emergency services. The driver of the silver Mercedes then started pumping smoke out of the vehicle to block CCTV footage and shouted at anyone still stood watching the robbery unfold.

The next thing I knew, the men were clambering back into the vehicle with their pockets loaded with jewellery, the driver put his foot down on the gas and headed straight towards me. Thankfully, I managed to dive for cover as the vehicle sped off towards Austin Street. The silver Mercedes was later found in nearby North Lynn. I was absolutely stunned and just looked around in utter disbelief as people slowly emerged from the shops they had raced into moments earlier. I then heard police sirens in the distance as the shop's shutters kicked into life and came down and Norfolk Street returned to its normal busy self.

When a lone Norfolk Police car pulled up outside the shop a few moments later, I heard one woman shout: "You took your time". The officer responded by saying they had been "rather busy" trying to catch the armed robbers, which seemed to satisfy the lady as she walked towards Waterstones. After checking my phone to see what pictures I had taken, I walked up to one of the members of staff to give her the registration plate of the silver Mercedes before walking into the Post Office to sort out my road tax and thinking to myself: "Did that really just happen?!"

Overall it was an extraordinary couple of minutes. One minute Norfolk Street was packed, the next minute people were running, screaming and diving into shops and then moments later everything returned to normal. Thinking back to this morning now, I know the raid only took a matter of moments but in my mind everything has now slowed down and it feels like it went on for more than an hour. It is not everyday you see something as horrific as this and I'm sure I will remember what happened today for a long time to come.

An embarrasing tale of mine aired to thousands across King's Lynn & West Norfolk

(@AdamNewstead)

In the run up to Christmas last year, I saw a tweet by Adam Newstead, the breakfast show presenter at my local radio station KLFM, which read: "So does anyone want me to write a song about them? Get in touch!". Now for those of you who don't know, Adam does a Song of the Day feature on his show and I have to admit most of them are pretty good - I would say the majority are good but I'm sure Adam will read this and I don't want him to get a big head!

Some of his recent efforts includes a song about ways to reduce your electric bill, a song about a guy called Mr Gymcredible and a song about a woman who is the biggest boyband fan in West Norfolk. So after reading his tweet, I sent a tweet straight back to him saying: "Me please!" but I didn't think any more of it until we entered 2012 and Adam got in touch wanting to know more about me to help him write a song. Here were his questions:

1. Who is the most famous person you've met? Tell us about it!
2. Any embarassing stories?
3. Tell us something interesting about you

I obviously sent him an essay in reply and somehow he managed to fight his way through all the rubbish I had sent him and wrote a song about the time I tried to go swimming at Guildford Leisure Centre in Surrey whilst stilll wearing my socks and I think it is bloody brilliant! 

Here it is:

For those of you wanting to hear the other songs that Adam (or @AdamNewstead) has done click here

Farewell to the Campbell's Tower

The famous Campbell’s Soup tower, which has been one of the best-known landmarks in King’s Lynn for decades, was blown up today. Thousands of people from West Norfolk and beyond woke up early, wrapped up warm and braved the cold weather to watch the demolition at 8am.

It was a fightfully cold morning and I was really surprised to see that so many people had come out to see the demolition of the tower. For many, it was a rare opportunity to watch a building fall and for others, the event gave them the chance to say goodbye to their favourite landmark in King's Lynn which had been there for as long as they cared to remember.

For me, it was a truly historic event in the town that I will remember forever which also gave me a great opportunity to try out my ever-improving video skills (see below) Listen out for "It's falling the wrong way" & watch the camera shake after the explosion - that was me jumping like a sissy!

Sarah Griffiths, whose father was scalded to death at the soup factory, was selected to detonate the tower after winning a competition. She said the event was a chance for closure after her father Mick Locke was killed at the site in 1995.

The tower and the former factory are being demolished to make way for a business complex, including a new Tesco Extra store. The demolition comes after the King’s Lynn civic society tried to get the tower listed in 2010 but English Heritage said the tower had no “special architectural or historic interest” and rejected the group’s application.

Tesco’s plan for the site was approved by West Norfolk Council in November 2010 and it is thought the £40m Campbell’s Meadow project could bring up to 1,000 jobs to the area. East Anglian firm RG Carter, which originally built the factory on the 63-acre site in 1959, has been carrying out the demolition work on behalf of Tesco.

International news channel debut after a busy start to 2012

As the chimes of Big Ben echoed around the South Bank in London and fireworks lit up the night sky with an array of colours to officially welcome 2012, little did I know of the rather eventful week in store for me culminating in an appearance on an international news channel.

The first week of any New Year is traditionally difficult for news so as I checked my e-mails the night before returning to work after being off between Christmas and New Year, I didn't hold out much hope of there being any major breaking news stories.

But just as I was about to put my phone away, a new e-mail popped into my inbox which would shape my upcoming working week. It was a Google news alert of a story my paper, the Eastern Daily Press, had just put online with the e-mail subject which simply read: "Human remains found in Norfolk woodland near royal estate at Sandringham".

On arriving at work on Tuesday morning, I was sent straight up to Sandringham where I was joined by local, national and international media trying to get as much as information about this discovery as we could. The weather wasn't really helping us though with gale force winds and heavy rain driving many of us media folk back to the comfort and dry of our cars. As the rain ceased and the wind died ever so slightly, we were joined by  Det Chief Insp Jes Fry, who is leading the investigation into the case, who updated us on the murder inquiry before answering our questions.

Right from the launch of the murder investigation, the possibility the body could be of Alisa Dmitrijeva was not ruled out by police which sparked fierce international speculation over the next few days that the body belonged to the 17-year-old. With the identification process taking longer than usual, the coverage of the case from all corners of the globe maintained its velocity and kept me very busy.

After a couple of days of covering the murder investigation, I received an e-mail from Iranian news channel Press TV asking if I would be happy to talk about the discovery the following day and I (obviously) jumped at the chance to be interviewed. I wasn't nervous at all driving up to the Royal Estate and I think that was down to the fact I had spent the last week absorbing everything to do with this investigation so felt confident in being able to answer the Press TV reporter's questions.
 

Picture taken by @ LynnNewsTibbsy

 
I thought the reporter Roshan Muhammed Salih and his cameraman were very friendly and keen to absorb as much as they could about this investigation. I felt I interviewed well and after leaving them to capture general views around the estate, I headed back to the office excited to watch the video later. I managed to watch it in full on Saturday morning and here it is:



It was great to see how the report was pieced together and although I thought I looked a bit serious, I felt I came across well and have had positive things said about my debut performance on an international news channel. I did, however, have some reservations about the reporter's inaccurate suggestion that the Royal family might become suspects in the murder investigation.

This weekend I was at work and the Sandringham body find continued to heavily influence my news agenda. I put up a few stories online about the investigation and speculation on who the murder victim is before writing a story for Monday's paper after Norfolk Police confirmed on Sunday afternoon that the indentity of the body as that of missing teenager 17-year-old Alisa Dmitrijeva. Miss Dmitrijeva had been reported missing on September 6 and was last seen getting into a car on August 31. It must have been a terribly distressing time for her family waiting to hear if the body was of Miss Dmitrijeva and throughout the past week, my thoughts and prayers went out to the family of this young girl.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the murder investigation over the upcoming week. Will anyone be arrested?