Triumph and heartbreak, heroism and joy: the Wigan news review of 2023 January to June

And fair to say it has been quite a rollercoaster as we encountered individuals’ highs and lows, reported intense drama for our sporting teams on and off the pitch and seen business ventures fail and new ones heading towards success, all with a backdrop of international insecurity and an ongoing cost of living crisis.

Here are just some of the stories which made the headlines in 2023:

JANUARY

We met the family of four-year-old Levi Hewitt who were beside themselves with worry as he battled sepsis and meningitis while in an induced coma at Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital.

Astonishingly the youngster’s grandmother also collapsed with meningitis just a few days later.

Later in the year we revisited Levi and his family and were delighted to report that he was making a strong recovery.

Simon, Jade and young Jack Beaumont were left homeless after a blaze caused by a faulty tumble dryer tore through rooms while they were out and also killed the family cat.

Had the Beaumonts been in the house in Orrell at the time, they were told there was a good chance they wouldn’t have survived due to the smoke and heat.

Afterwards they were deeply moved by the charity they were shown by friends, relatives, neighbours and strangers.

From the tragedy of little Holly Prince’s death came heartwarming kindness from her family.

The five-year-old had an extremely rare genetic condition called Bloom syndrome and battled cancer three times before passing away in April 2022.

Thousands of pounds had been raised to support her which was left unspent, so her parents Mark and Jenny set up Holly’s Hearts which funds treats and happy memories for other children with cancer.

FEBRUARY

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) completed a probe into the circumstances leading up to the tragic death of 35-year-old Wigan dad Gareth Roper in the small hours of New Year’s Day 2022. He had been arrested by police after a domestic incident then left to walk miles home barefoot when he was killed in a hit and run collision.

The IOPC said there could be a case to answer for those who detained and then de-arrested him, and referred the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service. The matter is still being investigated. In the meantime Jamie Evans has been jailed for causing Mr Roper’s death by dangerous driving.

The vigilante kidnappers and killers of Wigan dad Christopher Hughes were jailed for a total of 235 years.

The eight men had wrongly identified the Marsh Green 37-year-old as the person responsible for raping a girl at knifepoint and took the law into their own hands with horrific and tragic results.

The court heard that forensic evidence proved that the murder victim had not been the sexual predator.

The journalistic legend who is Geoffrey Shryhane finally hung up his pen and notepad for good.

Our Geoff had first begun as a cub reporter on the Wigan Observer in the 1950s and rose to become deputy editor in the 1990s before retiring.

However he carried on with his popular Wigan Worldcolumn until this year, suddenly announcing to many people’s surprise and sadness, that he had finally decided to call it a day.

MARCH

Young Jack Johnson has regularly appeared in local news stories as he is the inspiration for the Joining Jack charity which raises money for research into the Duchenne muscular dystrophy from which he suffers.

But March was a particularly special month for the teen because he became the youngest person to be awarded a star on the Wigan Walk of Fame in Believe Square.

The charity has helped to fund scientific breakthroughs since it was established nearly 12 years ago.

A grieving widow has made a formal complaint after her husband's phone went missing as he died on a ward at Wigan Infirmary.

Julie Lawrence, from Abram, said the phone contained precious memories and vital information which she needed to "go forward with closure."

The device, belonging to her late spouse, Roy, has never been recovered.

We were given the chance to look round Wigan’s biggest ever restoration project.

Work was getting under way at Eckersley Mills – a long neglected complex of Victorian mills and other industrial buildings – to transform the site into a village offering hospitality, leisure, business accommodation and homes.

It is hoped the first phase will be completed in the coming year and already Wiganers have been given a flavour of the food hall that is planned through the weekend Feasts at the Mills events in the ruins.

APRIL

A Wigan nursery was blasted by education inspectors who found mouse droppings in a room for babies and deep water where crawling children could drown.

Ofsted found youngsters were at risk of injury at Almond Brook All Stars Nursery in Standish, as staff did not highlight potential hazards, and the standard of care and education was described as “poor”.

But less than six months later inspectors had been back and the nursery was praised for performing a remarkable turnaround and its rating was upgraded from “inadequate” to “good.”

A woman who worked as a carer for many years around the Wigan area escaped a jail sentence after helping herself to £45,000 from her 88-year-old grandmother.

Kay Brown, 31, from Ince, appeared at Chester Crown Court to be sentenced after pleading guilty to one count of theft and two of fraud.

Brown was the grand-daughter of Laura Ollier, who only discovered the money was missing when she tried to draw money from her account and found it was missing.

Teachers’ unions in Wigan called on the Government to do more to support schools struggling to cope with a massively increased number of pupils diagnosed with special educational needs (SEN).

A Freedom of Information request put in by Wigan Today found the local authority currently maintains 2,655 pupils on an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP), compared with just 1,008 in 2016 - more than double the number.

The Government was criticised for providing insufficient funding to cope with the upsurge in problems but no-one was able to offer an explanation as to why the figures had rocketed in the first place.

MAY

A 91-year-old Wigan woman followed in the footsteps of Captain Sir Tom Moore as she took on her own walking challenge for a good cause.

Cath Brookfield was regularly attending Ashton Deaf Club but found that some members couldn’t get upstairs to a larger room at their base which they needed as membership expanded.

So she decided to raise money for a lift to help them get upstairs with a 31-day challenge to walk 200m a day. She had a £1,000 target but by the end of the month had trebled it.

A grieving Wigan mum was dealt a cruel blow as heartless thieves stole the plant pot where her baby daughter was buried.

Jo Pass, 29, was devastated by the loss of the memorial and has appealed for whoever took the pot to return it to the family.

Police investigated the Beech Hill theft and Jo made an emotional public appeal but, sadly, the pot and remains have never been returned.

Warm tributes were paid to popular former DJ and Wigan pub landlord Dean Prescott who lost a long battle with serious illness at the age of only 38.

He had been suffering from neorological issues, early onset dementia and epilepsy, the first of those conditions also claiming the life of his beloved mum Irene 10 years earlier.

Family and friends raised funds for his funeral with a series of events for all the family at The White Swan in Pemberton where both he and partner Stephen James were once DJs.

JUNE

A new era began for professional sport in Wigan as local lad and tycoon Mike Danson, already a 25 per cent shareholder in Wigan Warriors, became the new owner of Wigan Athletic after another turbulent period for the football club.

It came after previous owners Phoenix 2021 Limited effectively pulled the plug on Latics’ funding. The newly relegated team began life in League One with an eight-point deficit but have played well enough since for a mid-table placing.

Meanwhile Mr Danson would later take over the ownership of the Warriors too following predecessor Ian Lenagan’s retirement.

Nigel Brookwell caused a stir as he walked from Wigan town centre to Standish – wearing only a kilt and carrying a 35kg sandbag.

He also spent the night blindfolded in the stocks outside St Wilfrid’s Church, before walking back to Wigan in the same attire.

Readers should know that all this bizarre behaviour was for the best of causes: Nigel was raising money and awareness for Wigan-based Empathy Northwest CIC, which offers therapy sessions at a subsidised rate for people struggling with their mental health.

Wigan-born film director Chris Jones told students from his old college at Winstanley how his latest assignment had seen him work with Tom Cruise on the new Mission: Impossible films.

The 56-year-old was a “splinter unit” director on the Dead Reckoning Part I blockbuster, coordinating the filming of close-up details on the mammoth project.

Since then he has produced a four-part documentary for Apple+ about the country’s most famous haunting: the Enfield Poltergeist.

The second part of our review of the year will appear next week