Hoax call sparks extensive sea and air search
JASON Baugh sparked a major air and sea search off the Lincolnshire coast in 1999 when he faked his suicide, magistrates heard.
Personal belongings and clothes were found on the beach at Skegness after Baugh made a hoax telephone call to the coastguard, the court at Skegness was told.
Baugh, 30, of Magdalen Road, Norwich, pleaded guilty to making a hoax telephone call, intending to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety.
Finding Baugh £250, magistrate Mr Geoff Smith said: “You put a lot of people to a lot of inconvenience and the court won’t stand for that.”
Telephone call
Had he been in a better financial position, he would have received a greater penalty, said Mr Smith.
Prosecuting, Mr John Mitchell said that after Baugh’s belongings were found on the beach, police launched a missing person’s enquiry.
Baugh made a telephone call to the coastguard and an extensive air and sea search swung into action.
Police enquiries revealed that on August 30 last year Baugh rented a room at a Skegness bed and breakfast establishment. The following day he had contacted his wife to say he would be going for a swim in the sea and told his landlady a similar story.
During their enquiries police contacted a property management compa
ny, who said that a man had paid in cash six months’ rent in advance for a room in Norwich.
A search of the room revealed six rounds of .22 ammunition.
When interviewed by police Baugh had said he had intended to drop out of sight and take on a new identity.
Mr Mitchell said the total cost of the air and sea search was not known.
For Baugh, Mr David Eager said his client had had enough of his life in his own name. He had suffered various tragedies and had felt he could not cope any more.
He returned to his roots in Skegness with a plan to fake his suicide. His plan was that the old Mr Baugh would cease to exist and he would start a new life in a new name.
“He wasn’t trying to get away from his debts. He was going to make payments of these debts, albeit under a new name,” said Mr Eager.
“What he was not thinking about was the effect his telephone call would have on the coastguard.”
In the time the emergency services were dealing with this matter, a real tragedy could have occurred, but fortunately it didn’t,” said Mr Eager.
There was no sinister motive behind his possession of the ammunition. It was simply something he had failed to clear out.
Baugh was given a 12-month conditional discharge for the ammunition offence.

Source: Skegness Standard 22nd September 1978
Photos: Wrates Studio Skegness

Wall Collapses Briar Way Indoor Market Skegness

Tragedy struck in September of 1978 when the wall of the Briar Way indoor market collapsed. Two men were killed and fourteen people were injured.
Strong winds caused a 20 feet high semi-circular brick wall to come crashing down on the asbestos roof of the market arcade, burying people in rubble.
The wall was part of an old hangar that the Skegness Council had sold to the adjacent working men’s club, and was in the throws of being demolished.

*****

AFTER visiting Briar Way Market, Skegness, where a falling wall killed two people and injured 14 others, Mr Peter Tapsell, MP, said he was going to call for an inquiry into the tragedy.

The accident happened at about 1.30 pm on Friday when a strong wind was blowing. The semi-circular single-brick wall, over 20 feet high, suddenly crashed down on to the asbestos roof of a market arcade, burying shoppers and stall holders in rubble.
The wall was part of the old hangar which the urban and district councils used to use as a store and workshop. The site had been sold by the Council to Skegness Working Men’s Club, on the far side, for an extension and the hangar was being demolished.
As stallholders and passers-by strove to release the trapped victims, they were quickly joined by ambulancemen, firemen and police and within about 45 minutes the rescuers were convinced that the last one had been freed.
Dr David Pendrigh, a LIVES doctor, was soon on the scene and certified two men as dead. An inquest was opened on them by the coroner, Mr Ian Mitchell-Smith, on Saturday and adjourned sine die.
One of the men was Mr John Ranson (59), of 20 Jacksdale Close, Allestree, Derbyshire, a senior project designer, whose son, from South Ascot, Berkshire, gave evidence of identification.
The other was Mr Stanley Eyre (55), a joiner, of 40 Walshaw Road, Worrall, Sheffield, whose son-in-law, Mr Trevor Ray Weckhert, of Sheffield, gave evidence of identification.
Family hurt
Other members of this family were among the injured, who were taken to Skegness Hospital by four ambulances from Skegness and Spilsby.
Mr Eyre’s wife, Margaret, and 12-year-old daughter, Michelle, received treatment. Mr Weckhert’s wife, Kathleen, of 195 Tower Drive. Norfolk Park, Sheffield, was detained with a fractured spine in Pilgrim Hospital, Boston, and said on Wednesday to be “satisfactory.”
Her daughter, Debbie, was detained for observation but later released.
A stallholder, Mr John Kerslake, of 23 Glentworth Crescent, Skegness, who had head injuries, was also discharged after being kept in for observation.
All the others, except one who was referred to her own doctor, received hospital treatment.
They were: James, Diane and Donna Gandy, of 6 Wyking Way, Coventry, Mary Freeman Kirk, of 78 Jubilee Road, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Dorothy Gwendoline Bishop, of Trelawn, Park Road, Sutton-on-Sea, Rosemary Shreaves, of 1 Talbot Road, Skegness, Selina Wahi, of 71 Drum-mond Road, Skegness, Carol Davies, of 14 Sandbeck Avenue, Skegness, and Denise Robinson, of Croft Haven, Tattershall Road, Woodhall Spa.
Grateful
The police issued a statement, saying they were grateful for the co-operation of local stallholders and passers-by who lent assistance and were anxious to trace any witnesses who could provide information concerning the wall.
Mr D. Howden, secretary of the Working Men’s Club, said Eccleshare Construction Group Services Ltd, of Lincoln, were the contractors engaged to build the extension — a games room — in time for next Easter.
They were prevented from getting on to the Lawn Car Park to start the demolition by East Lindsey District Council until 11 September, when the summer crowds would have dwindled.
“Work has had to stop but for how long I can’t say,” he said. “The factory inspectors have been in and we shall have to wait for the coroner’s report.
”All the committee members and members of the club regret what has happened”.
It is understood that the demolition was being carried out by a subsidiary, Lincoln Elms Contracts. Neither Eccleshare nor Skegness scrap merchant Mr Sid Dennis, who had men on the site at the time, would make any comment or answer any questions.
Sealed off
Chief Supt Edward Beverley, police divisional commander, was on the scene and sealed off that entire section of the market.
Deputy divisional commander Alex Lawrence was in charge of the 15 firemen who arrived in two pumping appliances and the emergency tender.
When they arrived, he said, the ambulancemen had extricated one girl from the rubble and laid her on a trestle. One of the dead men had to be freed from rubble; the other had been pinned down by a metal girder, which had to be cut through by a pneumatic saw.
Mr Lawrence said he organised a human chain to get the rubble over the 5ft concrete block wall on to which the brick wall had been built. On the other side it was loaded on to council dumper trucks and taken away.
The last fire appliance returned at 4.18 pm.
All the emergency services worked well together, added Mr Lawrence.
Mr Douglas Russell, the ambulance station officer, said his men helped to move debris and treat people’s injuries. “There were no demarcation lines,” he said. “Everyone there got stuck in and worked as a team together.”
The market owner, Mr Fred Nicholls, had just gone to lunch when the accident happened and was called straight back.
Indescribable
When the last person had been rescued, he said: “It was indescribable. One can’t imagine that the place could be full of activity and retail trade and everyone enjoying themselves — and suddenly devastation.
“The thing that amazes me is how the stallholders escaped — there were four on each side. One of them, Peter Studt, was working frantically to get people out with his bare hands and with a hacksaw.”
Mr Nicholls thought it lucky the accident happened during the lunch hour, saying that earlier the arcade had been “packed like a football match” with about 100 people.
“I saw three young constables go into the rubble like beavers,” he said. “All the services were marvellous, fantastic. They were in there like a shot, clawing away, trying to get at the people”.
He heard a number of cries for help and said there were a lot of lucky escapes.
Later he told our reporter that the roof broke in the middle snapping the iron girders. But the girders, for-ming triangles with the walls, protected the stallholders. It was the strength of the building —part of R. G. Mitchell Ltd’s factory on the site before it was a market — which had saved them.
Unfair
Mr Nicholls said “What has hurt me most of all is that people have said that markets shouldn’t have paper thin walls. It’s unfair to level an accusation against us when I was the victim.”
He said he was now making plans to replace the building with a new arcade.
Mr Studt said he was having lunch in the Brief Encounter when he heard a thud. Told what had happened he ran back and started looking for survivors and children in particular.
“There wasn’t much confusion; everybody was very good” he said. “The ambulancemen arrived first. They saw the arms and bodies and knew what they were looking for. It was terrible. From photos I have seen of the blitz this is what it really looked like. I don’t think the men who died knew what hit them.”
Selina Wahl, who had an Indian stall in the arcade, described how a girder on her back prevented her from moving until she was freed some 40 minutes later.
I screamed for a little while but I can’t remember what happened, then all I could hear were the screams of everyone for a few minutes.
Mr Kerslake said “I got knocked on the head and the market traders carried me out. They were very good.”
Since the tragedy the corresponding wall at the other end of the hangar has been pulled down on the coroners instructions.

Source: Skegness Herald 1883

THE SKEGNESS POLICE STATION

This new station which is situated on the Roman Bank has just been completed and Inspector Watkin has taken up his residence in the same.
At the Petty Sessions at Spilsby, on Monday, our new station was appointed to be used as
one of the occasional court-houses, where cases it may be heard, tried, determined, and adjudged, pursuant to the Summary Jurisdiction Act. 1879 The powers of the magistrate or magistrates at these occasional courts are confined to imprisonment for 14 days, and to fining offenders not, exceeding 20s including costs. Hitherto every trifling case has had to be taken to Spilsby, and the expense of moving prisoners thereto incurred, but in future, cases of drunkenness, and all other petty offences, may be disposed of here, and the services of any magistrate who happen to be in the town, or here on a visit, may be secured for that purpose.

The Police Station on Roman Bank, Skegness is pictured below as it is today. The building has altered very little. The second photo is of the rear of the police station which shows the securing bars up to the windows. The building was still used as police cells up until the early 1970s.

We were contacted by Carl Slater some time ago regarding an ‘isolation hospital’ on Wainfleet Road, Skegness, asking if we had any information.

Carl sent us the following photo:

The building above is on the A52, off the lay-by near the Croft turnoff.

At that time, we were not aware of the isolation hospital, so we asked a long-time resident of Skegness:
Mr Herbert Noel Crawshaw, age 90, son of the four-times Mayor of Skegness, Joseph Crawshaw and grandson of Joseph Crawshaw, a founder member of the first Local Board in Skegness, remembers the building. He said: ” Yes I remember the Isolation Hospital - though thank goodness not as a patient, it was a corrugated iron structure located in a wooded area on the left side of Wainfleet Road about 1½ miles out of town. It was difficult to see from the main road; I have a feeling that it was much longer than the structure shown in the photograph - possibly the latter was the nurses quarters; though I never went into the woods I do not recall seeing the adjacent brick building when cycling to school at Wainfleet.
I think it was used for people who had a contagious illness and/or those who had consumption.”

We talked to the owner of the building, who told us that it was currently used as storage space. She had been told that after the building ceased to be a hospital, it was turned into a school.

The owner very kindly allowed us access to take photos of the interior: (Please consider only the walls ceiling and fixtures.)

The first photograph shows the interior west door, the door you can see on the picture at the top of the page. There is a second door and a small window on the east side.There are wooden ‘tongue and groove’ ceiling and walls. Notice the old light fixture which hangs down from the ceiling.

In the next picture there is a wooden frame which is thought to be a remnent from the old school. Possibly these could have been a climbing frame, similar to the one in this picture.

A picture of one of the windows with hot water pipes underneath. Perhaps some passing expert plumber could date the pipe work for us!

Examining the old Skegness Heralds, we found several references to the Isolation Hospital. The first mention we found was in 1897 but it seems that debates at the Council meetings were still going on in 1901!

We will be adding to this pages as we find out more about the hospital.

Exact dates may be obtained from the 1900s newspaper index

Source: Skegness Herald 19th November 1897

Infections Disease Hospital

The Surveyor presented the following report:
Gentlemen,
In accordance with instructions I have been looking out for a suitable site for the proposed Infectious Disease Hospital, and I have come to the conclustion that the most suitable site in my opinion to be found within the district, is that which is shown on the plan I now have the pleasure of placing before you for your inspection.
The proposed site it will be seen from the plan is a portion of Lord Scarbrough’s plantation situated on the Wainfleet Road and nearly at the extreme boundary of the Council’s district.
I have made a careful survey of the site and a more favourable site I think could not be found, the surrounding trees would be a protection from east winds to patients recovering from infectious diseases.
I have interviewed Mr H.V. Tippet as to the purchase of the site and he informed me that he thought Lord Scarbrough would have no objection to selling or leasing the proposed site to the Council.

Source: Skegness Herald 1901

Infectious Disease Hospital

A letter was read from the Local Government Board stating that an enquiry would be held as soon as possible respecting the application of the Council to borrow £1320 for the purchase of the land and erection of the hospital.
After a brief discussion it was decided to ask for the enquiry to take place at an early date so that work might be proceeded with.

We have lots more information about the Isolation Hospital and we will be adding to this page shortly.

Source: Skegness Herald 9th February 1883

We have heard a great deal of late of the desirability of a fire engine being provided for Skegness, and the necessity of such a provision will, we presume, be brought home to our local authorities with very great force after hearing of what occured last week.
A fire broke out at a farm in the parish of Addlethorpe, and a messenger was despatched to Wainfleet for the fir engine which is kept in that town.
It appears that the brigade and engine were ready but no horses could be obtained to take the latter to the scene of the conflagration, and the farm buildings were consequently left to the mercy of the devouring elements.
Had the wind veered round from the direction it was then blowing it is very probable that the dwelling-house as well as the out-buildings etc would have been totally destroyed.
Our townspeople may picture to themselves the unpleasant position they would have been in had a fire occured in Lumley Road, and had they not been able to secure the services of a fire engine for want of horses to draw it hither.
This condition of things will, however, soon be remedied, and at the Easter vestry it is expected that it will be definitely decided to purchase an engine for the protection of this town.