The Porthampton Tea Rooms in Abbot Street, had the whole of their front torn apart as the van hurtled into the café. The driver of the van suffered neck and back injuries though fortunately  none of the customers were seriously hurt and were treated on the scene for minor cuts from flying shards of glass.

Firefighters removed doors from the van for paramedics to be able to assess the driver’s injuries before he was carefully removed from the vehicle and taken by ambulance to Nightingale Hospital.

Abbot Street was closed for aapproximately three hours while the scene was assessed by police and the vehicles removed.

The match was physical throughout, Bowerstone  trying to put their stamp on the match, while Porthampton looked for a much needed win.

Porthampton opened the scoring after 30 minutes, a free kick from just outside the box brilliantly deflected onto the post by Bowerstone keeper Lucien Fairfax. However, he was helpless when Jackson tapped in the rebound.

Bowerstone had the perfect opportunity to level the score with five minutes remaining in the half when they were awarded a penalty, Austin bringing Garth Will down within the area.

A soft header in the second half from Rupert Giles which, until the last moment, looked as if it was going wide, levelled affairs for the Bowerstone side.

By now, Fairfax in the Bowerstone net was being bombarded, however, he did a brilliant job in keeping Porthampton at bay, pulling off some outstanding saves. there was however, nothing he could do when, with around seven minutes left, Jackson’s substitute Carlton volleyed in.

The colourfully named “Wayfarer’s Wench” was on its first journey since the wooden keeled sloop received a £10,000 restoration over the winter.

The unlucky crew were rescued by the Porthampton Harbour Patrol after they received the distress signal from the yachts captain.

“We received a distress call stating that the Wayfarer’s Wench was sinking from the captain of the yacht and as soon as we had received their location and after assessing the urgency of the situation we responded as quickly as we could.” Said Harbour Patrol skipper Martin Chiltern.

“We arrived to find that the yacht had capsized and the crew holding onto the sinking hull in their lifejackets. The water is still pretty cold at this time of year so we tried to get them on board as quickly as possible and radioed ahead for them to be met by paramedics when we arrived back at port.”

The crew were in good spirits as the paramedics treated them for the effects of the cold water but they were cheery enough and managed to tell us what they thought had happened.”

When contacted about the incident, the skipper of the Wayfarer’s Wench, Pete Button, said “Something obviously hadn’t been sealed properly when they did the works over the winter and we soon realised that we were taking on water. A sudden strong gust of wind sent us over but we’d all seen what was coming and were ready to go over. The Harbour Patrol was fantastic and arrived in no time, if not for them I’m sure we would have ended up far worse off.”

The heavy loss to South Meon this week sees Porthampton having lost 3 out of their last 4 games.

A too soon return by Gibson this week after his back injury saw inconsistent play between the posts, and the return in the last 20 minutes of his stand in, Eric Pascoe.

The veteran keeper was injured against Newton Ashcliffe when he came off his line to punch the ball clear and connected with Ashcliffe’s Plunkett as he came forward for the header. The resulting back injury saw him being stretchered off after only 17 minutes of play.

The South Meon strikers’ too full advantage of Gibson’s less than 100% fitness, firing shots at all corners that saw him struggling to reach on many occasions.

The strategy paid off for The Meon after half an hour when Gibson, just in time to get a hand to a low left hand corner shot, could not scramble back in time for the follow up in the bottom right. Both shots came courtesy of front man, Robbie Billyard, who would continue to make Gibson suffer across the duration of the game.

Billyard’s partner up front, Steve Daniell, highlighted Gibson’s premature return five minutes later. A misplaced pass across the box was intercepted leaving him in a 1 on 1 with the Porthampton goalie.

A relatively poor attempt at a chip over Gibson saw Porthampton’s goalie fall heavily after jumping to push the ball over the crossbar. The usually routine save saw Gibson take a moment to get up and seemed to act as a further incentive for the opposition.

The resulting corner was poorly cleared by Varner and collected by David Moore whose composed cross was met by Billyard, hammering the ball across the face of the goal and Gibson’s outstretched hands to make it 2-0 by the half time whistle.

South Meon had tasted blood in the first half and were hungry for more, pressing forward and giving the away side little time to regain their composure.

Porthampton’s defence put up a valiant attempt to close down the onslaught at the back but it only took one lapse of concentration to see Billyard once again up against Gibson, this time at the penalty spot after a frustrated Franks took him down within the area.

Billyard took advantage of the keeper’s limited movement and placed a timely shot into the bottom right corner with ease to gain his hat trick.

With the next break in play, Gibson was pulled from the pitch in favour of Pascoe, far too late to have an impact on the course of the game but enough to prevent the score line being any more of an embarrassment.

After the match one Porthampton supporter had this to say: “I hope someone’s asking about Bain’s decision to field a blatantly unfit player, I don’t know what he was thinking!”

Porthampton made it 17 wins this season with their 1-0 win in a hard fought game against Westchester this week.

The Westchester side were taking no prisoners at Harbourside Road, playing extremely aggressive football that saw the game end with three yellow cards for Irving, Sefton and Hopkins.

Pascoe showed that he could handle the pressure in his third game as Gibson’s stand in, having gotten over the nerves from his first two games for Porthampton. The highlight being a cat-like save across the face of the goal to shut out Sefton’s thunderous shot at the top right corner.

The first half ended in a goalless stalemate and we had to wait until the 81^st minute for Purcy to execute a masterful run up the right wing, followed by a low cross to Jackson who finished it with a volley over the top of the outstretched Wanderers keeper.

Talking after the match Purcy spoke about the teams efforts “We put it all out on the pitch today, it was a hard slog and they gave us a tough time but it the end we pulled together and got the three points. Now it’s about looking forward and trying to recreate that for the rest of the season.”

Porthampton will be looking to repeat their success in next match against South Meon at Abbey Field, their previous meeting the game ended in a 1-1 draw.

Mitchell Lane, Southeast Business Council Chairman, who works closely with businesses within the city sees it as a potentially damaging move by the local council:

“I believe this is a poorly considered move by Porthampton City Council. The increase in parking charges is likely to discourage people from spending as much time within the city centre, potentially dissuading them from coming at all. This of course has a real impact on locally run businesses within the city centre and could result in a loss of revenue, or in the worst case scenario, closure for some retailers.”

Porthampton City Council however put a different spin on the initiative. When contacted the Council had this to say:

“Porthampton City Council is dedicated to the growth and success of the city. To that end we have recently announced our extensive plans to redevelop the north end of the high street. In order to make this possible however it stands to reason that we need to generate the funds necessary to make Porthampton the best leisure destination in the south and the minor increase in parking fees is one of a number of initiatives to help us achieve this.”

So far the thieves have struck at 20 homes within the last three weeks, targeting up to 4 houses in a single night, sometimes while the residents are sleeping in an adjacent room.

The thieves are targeting electrical devices such as mobile phones, games consoles and laptops, as well as documentation such as bank statements, passports and drivers licences that the police believe are being passed on for subsequent identity theft.

Police urge residents to be mindful of their home security in light of current thefts and to ensure that they keep personal documents in a secure location.

Porthampton were without their first string keeper this week after his back injury in last week’s loss to Newton Ashcliffe, Pascoe again taking his place between the posts.

It was to be a difficult test for Pascoe, against the league leaders in only his second match as Porthampton’s keeper. The young keeper showed more composure than in his debut performance and was more able to direct the back four.

It was however that Pascoe’s lack of experience that lead to the first goal. The fresh faced keeper’s poorly placed wall at a free kick 40 minutes in saw Holloway’s shot curl into the top corner past his outstretched finger tips.

Porthampton drew level in the second half with a 69^th minute corner cross finding Austin’s head at the back post.

Porthampton seemed to settle back at this point and resigned themselves to taking the single point, dropping back in an attempt to close out Moorgate who were on the offensive.

The strategy worked until the 83^rd minute when a poor clearance by Sinclair was picked up by Robertson who crossed it into the box, where Holloway headed it into the back of the net for his second of the day.

When asked about the damage to the team caused by such an inexperienced keeper Adam Bain said after the match said “This is a team game, we can’t point the finger at any one player. We need to work on our focus more, when we lost our focus, we lost the match”

After fleeing from the incident Daines’ took his blue Transit van back to his lock up where he attempted to remove any evidence from the van and proceded to repair the damage to the van caused when he struck the two children. Daines went to the extent of repainting part of the front of the van and replacing the front bumper in order to try and hide from the police inquiry.

It has since been revealed that the informant in the case was Daine’s girlfriend, Natasha Dobbes. In an interview with Miss Dobbes she revealed how he confessed to her after Jane’s death.

“I came home to find Matt in tears, he was hysterical and admitted that he was the one who killed the little girl.

He wanted to keep it between us and begged me not to tell anyone, but I had to tell the police, I can’t imagine what that that little girls family have gone through.”

Mr Daines faces charges of causing death by dangerous driving and could be gaoled for up to 14 years.

The scrap yard owner, Terry Long, lost all of his 500 car stock; the fire causing damage running into many tens of thousands of pounds.

Numerous explosions were heard as the fire spread through the cars, vans and trucks held within the yard.

David Garvock, from Porthampton Fire Service, said at the time: “The stacked cars, heavy smoke and small explosions from residual fuel in the petrol tanks made this a tough job for the firefighters on hand.”

The pair were found guilty of arson with reckless endangerment of life and sentenced to 4 years each as well as a two year ASBO on their release.