ALL the way from Texas, Twycross Zoo took delivery of 15 animatronic dinosaur sculptures today. 

At 7am the fearsome life-like creatures, some of which tower an incredible 25-30ft tall and weigh 6500lbs, were offloaded from three cargo lorries in a three hour operation which involved more than a dozen pairs of hands and two forklifts.

Neil Satchwell, zoo operations manager, said: "The dinosaurs set sail from the United States almost a month ago, so it's safe to say we have been eagerly anticipating their arrival. When we received the call on Wednesday to say the dinosaurs had docked in the UK, it was all hands on deck at the zoo to ensure the final arrangements had been made to receive this special cargo.

"The offloading of the creatures went very well. All fifteen dinosaurs are now safely in position, and our team will work hard over the next three weeks to ensure Dinosaur Valley comes to life for an unforgettable visitor experience."

The models will be the main feature in the zoo's brand new Dinosaur Valley exhibition which opens on March 28 this year. 

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A conman posed as a Parachute Regiment hero to trick people into sponsoring him to raise cash to fulfil the dying wish of a "terminally- ill" girl, a court heard.

Martin Heaver used a Paras beret and regimental T-shirt he bought on eBay to support his story telling donors he was carrying out a series of parachute jumps to raise enough money to send five-year-old Ellie Simpson to Florida to meet Mickey Mouse.

But Lincoln Crown Court was told the whole story was a fraud as the little girl, whom he claimed lived in Waltham on the Wolds, did not exist.

He collected hundreds of pounds in sponsorship from people and companies, including in the Melton area.

Heaver not only had no intention to carry out the jumps but also had never served in any section of the armed forces. He was a factory worker and was in debt.

Matthew Lowe, prosecuting, said Heaver included the Paras' logo on his sponsorship forms and claimed he was travelling to Aldershot Barracks to carry out seven jumps over a five-hour period.

As the date of the jumps approached, Heaver went live on air on a local radio station, when he posed as the father of Ellie and thanked himself for undertaking the fund-raising event.

Mr Lowe said "It was a web of lies. There was no five-year-old girl who was terminally-ill. Ellie Simpson was fictitious. There were no parachute jumps and the money ended up in his own pocket.

"He raised between £900 and £1,000. Nearly 100 people sponsored him. Some donated £5 or £10, some less and some more. He started handing out sponsorship forms primarily to people he knew and in locations he knew.

"These included Kettleby Foods factory, at Melton Mowbray, Santander Bank and a Chinese takeaway. One of the locations where he had most success in obtaining sponsorship was the factory in Melton, where one suspects those providing donations were not on huge salaries."

Mr Lowe said Heaver's downfall came after he was pictured in his local newspaper.

The photographer became suspicious and, together with a friend, they used a bogus e-mail account to contact Heaver and went on to trap him into confessing he was a fraud.

Heaver (46), of London Road, Grantham, admitted fraud between April 3 and May 26, 2012. He was jailed for six months.

The court heard he received a suspended jail sentence in 2009 after stealing £12,000 from G4S while working for them as a security guard.

Judge Sean Morris told him "What you did was despicable. People were taken in. It has to be an immediate sentence of imprisonment to mark the seriousness of this fraud and to deter others from behaving in such an appalling way."

Some of the most dangerous creatures to ever walk the Earth arrived at Twycross Zoo yesterday for a new prehistoric attraction.

Being constructed among the monkeys, penguins and elephants, Dinosaur Valley will take up about an eighth of the park.

It will be packed with towering replicas of T-rex, brachiosaurus and stegosaurus, and brought to life with thunderous sound effects and animatronics.

Yesterday, 15 creatures arrived from Texas and were assembled to create the discovery trail.

Dinosaur Valley opens on March 28 and includes a T-rex which stands 18ft tall and roars as it raises itself off the ground.

"Everybody loves dinosaurs," said zoo spokeswoman Natalie Gudger.

"It's been designed to be frightening, but not too frightening – we've got smoke machines, sound effects, animatronics and it all adds to the experience.

"We wanted to bring these dinosaurs to life, so they spit water, their tails thrash around and they roar at the visitors."

The models were created by American company Billings Productions, which provides animatronic dinosaurs for theme parks around the world.

As well as the prehistoric wow-factor, the new trail also has an educational purpose.

About 40 per cent of the zoo's 1,000 species are classed as endangered.

They includes bonobo apes and Cao Vit gibbons, of which there are fewer than 150 left in the world.

Natalie said: "The dinosaur experience is a great way to teach youngsters about extinction, so it has educational merit as well.

"Forty per cent of our species are endangered, so what we're intending to do is use the dinosaurs to explain how animals die out."

The trail also includes a model of citipati, a feathered dinosaur which will be used to teach visitors about evolution.

Natalie said: "We're going to use citipati to teach people about how birds evolved from these giant creatures.

"Our experts will answer questions and give facts about all the dinosaurs on show."

Dinosaurs became extinct about 66 million years ago after ruling the Earth for more than 160 million years.

It is believed 75 per cent of all animals and plants were wiped out by a giant asteroid which smashed into the Mexican desert, causing the 110-mile-wide Chicxulub crater.

The zoo is looking for two full-time dinosaur professors – experts who will take visitors on tours and give information about the attraction.

Martin Traynor, managing director of Leicestershire Chamber of Commerce, said: said: "Leisure and tourism are worth £1.4 billion to the Leicestershire economy and key attractions such as Twycross Zoo are an important part of that mix.

"However, when planning a visitor attraction it is vital to keep it refreshed and renewed.

"The dinosaur trail will help drive up visitor numbers."

A man was taken to hospital with serious injuries after a road accident in the city.

The driver of a white van was treated by paramedics at the junction of Uppingham Road and St Barnabas Road at about 10.15am yesterday after his vehicle collided with traffic lights at a pedestrian crossing.

Police have described his injuries as serious.

The man is believed to be in his early 20s.

He was taken to the Queen's Medical Centre, in Nottingham. No other vehicles were involved.

Firefighters were also called after the Transit van began leaking fuel and the engine started to smoke. They made the vehicle safe and left the scene at about 11am.

County-bound traffic was diverted along St Barnabas Road while recovery crews cleared the debris from the scene.

A school which was badly damaged by fire looks set to be rebuilt on its existing site, at a cost of £3.6 million.

Youngsters at Catherine Junior School are working from temporary buildings on a playing field at Abbey Primary, in Belgrave, Leicester, less than a mile from their old site in Brandon Street.

Officers at the city council have recommended the Catherine buildings are stripped back to the original frame and rebuilt, using £2.4 million from the council's insurance settlement and the rest from its Basic Need Fund.

Councillor Vi Dempster, assistant mayor for schools, said: "The mayor and I visited the school site last week to see it for ourselves and discuss the possible options with the head teacher.

"I will be taking the formal decision on March 11 and would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff, parents and governors of both Catherine Junior and Abbey Primary for making the best of a difficult situation."

Other options being considered by the council include removing damaged cladding and refurbishing the building.

The cost of this would be covered solely by the insurance settlement.

Another option is rebuilding Catherine Junior on a larger scale and developing it into a primary school to incorporate the infants and juniors.

This would involve extending it beyond its current site, at a cost of between £6.2 million and £9.2 million to the council.

If the recommendation to rebuild at a cost of £3.6 million goes ahead, work would start shortly, with the aim to finish it by April 2014 at the latest.

The temporary buildings at Abbey Primary are rented and will only be paid for by the insurers until February next year.

Each additional week beyond that would cost the council £15,000.

Councillors on the children and young people's scrutiny committee were told this week that the school's mobile classrooms would be retained.

However, they urged Coun Dempster to reconsider this.

Committee chairman Ross Willmott said the option to rebuild the school seemed sensible but he would like there to be enough classroom space to enable the mobile classrooms to be disposed of.

He said: "I can see no reason why this can't be done."

Councillor Dempster assured councillors she would take this on board ahead of her decision.

Joy Denning, head teacher of Catherine Junior School, was unavailable to comment on the proposals.

The fire, in October, was caused accidentally by workers fixing the school's roof.

It destroyed the gym and left the rest of the building smoke logged.

Harmful asbestos was also released into the air when the blaze took hold.

A man took indecent photos of his three-year-old granddaughter and passed them on to a paedophile friend.

The 63-year-old was entrusted by the child's mother to look after the youngster.

When the photographs came to light, the mother was "devastated" by his betrayal, Leicester Crown Court was told.

He was jailed for nine months.

He initially owned up to the police, but then denied any involvement.

One picture showed a man's hand resting on the child's leg.

Anthropologist Professor Sue Black studied the image of the hand and concluded it was the defendant's.

It was only when faced with expert evidence the defendant admitted guilt.

The married man, from Leicester, pleaded guilty to taking 13 indecent pictures and a video of a child under 13, in April, 2011.

He admitted distributing some of the pictures, as well as other images of naked children from the internet, between April and June 2011.

All of the images were categorised as level one, the least serious category.

The defendant is not being named to protect the identity of his grandchild.

Victoria Rose, prosecuting, said the defendant's associate, who received the images, was arrested on suspicion of sexual assault.

The charge was dropped, but during the inquiry his computer was examined and indecent images – including some of the defendant's granddaughter –were found.

This resulted in the associate being prosecuted for possessing the images. He received a community order.

The defendant was also arrested during the inquiry.

It was not suggested in court he had sexually touched his granddaughter and she is not thought to have been aware of any wrongdoing when the photos were taken.

Mr Murphy said the girl's mother now distrusted people.

She described herself as "paranoid", even taking her daughter off a bus recently when a male passenger smiled at the child.

Justine Robinson, mitigating, said: "He has no previous convictions and lived a blameless life hitherto.

"He's deeply ashamed and regrets the distress caused.

"He has had no contact with any of his grandchildren since these allegations have been made."

Judge Robert Brown said: "This little girl's mother left her child in your care and you abused that trust by taking indecent photographs of her, including a short video, for the specific purpose of sexual gratification and intending to supply them to another person."

The defendant will have to enlist on a sex offender register for 10 years.

A University of Leicester space scientist has described a proposal to send two people on a 501-day round trip to Mars as "dangerous, but important".

Scientist Dr John Bridges was commenting on American multi-millionaire Dennis Tito's plans, unveiled on Wednesday, to send the first manned rocket to Mars in January, 2018.

The independent project, called Inspiration Mars, would cost up to $2 billion (£1.32 billion), does not have funding yet. Mr Tito is searching for a middle-aged couple to be the first tourists to flyby the Red Planet.

He said the likelihood of radiation poisoning was high and the psychological effects of spending 16 months locked in a small capsule with someone meant a married, older couple would be preferential.

Dr Bridges, who is part of the Nasa mission currently exploring Mars using the Curiosity rover, said the ambitious plan was dangerous but important for stimulating independent space exploration.

"We have never returned a spacecraft from a Mars flyby or orbit, so it would be a dangerous to start that with a manned spacecraft," said Dr Bridges. It's certainly extremely challenging and expensive.

"For instance, to protect astronauts in the spacecraft from radiation would probably require extra mass, which would make the launch vehicle more expensive.

"To give an idea of cost, the Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity) unmanned mission has cost $2.5 billion and took more than 10 years to develop."

The Inspiration Mars mission would have to be ready in just six years.

Dr Bridges said: "I think it is good that entrepreneurs like Dennis Tito are getting involved in space exploration. In the long run, that will stimulate a lot of new activity, even if it doesn't result in a manned mission to Mars by 2018."

The mission has been scheduled for January 5, 2018, to take advantage of an alignment in the planets that occurs once every 15 years.

During that brief window, Mars would be close enough to be able to complete the mission in 501 days and then use the planet's gravitational force to slingshot the spacecraft back to Earth without the need for any course adjustments.

The chosen couple would spend the entire journey in a tiny capsule. They would have about a tonne of dehydrated food and 28kg of toilet paper.

"It's like being locked inside a car without being able to get out," said Josh Barker, from the Space Communication Team at Leicester's National Space Centre. In that space you've got to eat, exercise, wash and go to the toilet, and if you need some time alone there's nowhere to go. It'll be physically and mentally tough.

"The first week after blasting off would be okay, because you'd be able to see Earth and it would be nice and exciting, but after that it would just be black nothingness – a void – until you reached Mars. Then it would be the same thing on the way home.''

Leicester City's players have been warned not to think Ipswich will be a pushover at Portman Road today.

City hammered Ipswich 6-0 at the King Power Stadium in November, but assistant manager Craig ShakespeareShakespeare said they must not think it will be another cakewalk in Suffolk.

Since that defeat, Ipswich manager Mick McCarthy has turned the Tractor Boys into a more resilient side.

However, they are still embroiled in a fight for their Championship survival, and that makes them even more dangerous, according to Shakespeare.

He said: "You have to be careful and mindful that you don't get carried away thinking about the previous game.

"Ipswich are a typical Championship team that have had indifferent results, as we all have.

"People said the same about Huddersfield after we beat them comfortably and played them again. We didn't win.

"No two games are the same. Our message to the players is make sure you are focused on getting the three points at Ipswich, but also make sure you know it is not going to be an easy game.

"I like Mick as a manager. He is very uncompromising and says what he sees. He has great experience. He has been there and done it.

"One thing about Mick's teams are they are very workmanlike. He makes sure he gets them organised, disciplined and hard to beat."

With top scorer David Nugent struggling to be fit with a neck injury, new loan signing Harry Kane looks set to partner Chris Wood in the City attack.

The 19-year-old Kane has impressed Shakespeare in his first two games since joining from Tottenham Hotspur.

"What has impressed me is that he is 19 years of age but he has a great maturity in the way he conducts himself," said Shakespeare.

"Last Saturday (against Blackpool) he played up front on the left of three attackers, and then on Tuesday (against Blackburn) he played in a front two down the middle. You can see what an intelligent player he is.

"Hopefully, he will not only have a really bright future in the game, but he will have a big influence on us for the rest of the season.

"He has been on loan before and done very well at Millwall and Norwich. You could see they have given him that experience of moving about because, at 19, it can be a big thing."

Anthony Knockaert is loving everything about his new life at Leicester City, except the weather.

The 21-year-old, who hails from Roubaix in northern France, says he feels thoroughly at home at City, and that the only thing that could possibly make him happier, besides warmer weather, is promotion to the Premier League.

The winger has been an instant hit with the Blue Army and the appreciation is reciprocated, but he said failure to clinch promotion this season would sour what has been a great first season for him.

"I am very happy to play for Leicester because there is a very big fan base and we have a very good group of players," he said.

"The town is good but the weather isn't, but you can't have everything. I am very happy. The club is fantastic to me.

"I am enjoying my football and I think the group are enjoying it too.

"But I will enjoy it even more when we get into the Premier League because, for me and for the group, the most important thing is promotion.

"We have some good quality with Chris Wood, Harry Kane and David Nugent, but every player in the squad has good quality.

"We need everyone for the rest of the season because everyone's talent is needed to gain promotion.

"If we don't go up, I will not be happy because we have had a very good season. But, hopefully, we will do it."

Knockaert, whose English is improving all the time, said it was vital City maintained the same level of performance at Ipswich today that they produced in the 3-0 victory against Blackburn on Tuesday night.

"It is important to be consistent now," he said. "We need three points every game now if we want to go to the Premier League."

Tom Croft will mark his 100th starting appearance for Leicester Tigers by captaining the side in today's Aviva Premiership clash against Sale Sharks at Welford Road (3.0)

The England and British & Irish Lions back-row forward has made a successful return from a serious neck injury, sustained just under a year ago, and could prove an influential figure for Tigers' during the final half-dozen games of the regular season.

Mathew Tait returns at full-back against Sale, while Niall Morris is named on the wing. Thomas Waldrom, who was released by England this week, takes the No.8 shirt.

However, alongside the half-dozen Tigers players who remain on England duty, Leicester are still without Anthony Allen, Martin Castrogiovanni, Louis Deacon, Geordan Murphy, Boris Stankovich and Miles Benjamin, who are unavailable due to injury.

Tigers are looking to hit back after defeats against Harlequins and Saracens, which have seen them slip to third place from the top of the table.

"There are still six games remaining so there is a lot of rugby to be played yet, and a lot of points still up for grabs," said director of rugby Richard Cockerill.

"We keep a positive frame of mind and just keep battling away."

A theatre critic has slated Curve's production of Piaf as "over-amplified" and "over-cooked" and compared star Frances Ruffelle to Sybil Fawlty.

The Daily Mail's Quentin Letts criticised the show's sound levels, set and dialogue.

However, theatre-goers rushed to defend the play and leading lady.

Mr Letts wrote in yesterday's Daily Mail: "No need to travel to Leicester to catch Frances Ruffelle's performance as Edith Piaf.

"It is so loud, so madly over-amplified, that you should be able to hear it motoring up the M1."

The show telling how Edith Piaf rose from the streets of Paris to the international stage opened on Friday.

Mr Letts, the Mail's theatre critic since 2004, had very few kind words to say about the production, focusing his scorn on the "ridiculously-high" sound levels.

"This show is being staged in the Curve's studio, a space just about small enough for intimacy, yet everyone is miked," he wrote.

"The decibels are so ear-splitting that several times my spine straightened in a wince, as though electrocuted.

"The performance starts at top volume, proceeds to top volume and ends at top volume. Shading? Pah!

"He and Miss Ruffelle (in an appearance resembling Sybil Fawlty) blast through the thing top-parp-lorry-horn."

He also criticised the "broad, empty stage" and language "so strong an elderly person near me started tutting".

The only saving graces, were Tiffany Graves who "just about survives" as Marlene Dietrich, and Piaf's story, which "like her songs, retains potency".

Curve artistic director Paul Kerryson responded: "I love Piaf, I love our cast and audiences are flocking in from all over Leicestershire and the rest of the country."

On Twitter, theater-goers jumped to the defence of the show, which runs until March 16.

joepiriescott said of the review: "Absolute rubbish. The show was fantastic. Who believes what they read in the Mail anyway."

MikefromLFE said: "Piaf was the best show I've seen (London or Leicester) in a very long time – amazing characterisation."

Mercury reviewer Lizz Brain said in her own review of the show: "It is perhaps a flaw of the sometimes disjointed play, rather than Ruffelle's performance, that we don't truly connect with Piaf or empathise with her tragedy. "Kerryson has surrounded her with sterling support too – Stephen Webb's Charles Aznavour, Russell Morton's devoted Theo, Laura Pitt-Pulford as Piaf's best friend Toine all providing distinctive and notable performances." She added: "Ben Harrison's sound design allows us to dip seamlessly between backstage and concert performance." Liz praised Ruffelle for bringing "the Little Sparrow back to life".

What did you think? Have your say at:

www.thisisleicestershire. co.uk

An engineering company has been ordered to pay more than £15,000 after a worker lost a finger when it was crushed in machinery.

Kaby Engineers Ltd admitted breaching health and safety rules at Leicester Magistrates' Court yesterday after the incident at its factory at Sheene Road, Beaumont Leys.

The court was told Benjamin Asare, who had been employed by the company for less than a fortnight, was told to operate a vertical hydraulic press making heavy machinery bearings for large earth-moving equipment on February 2, last year.

Dr David Lefever, for the Health and Safety Executive, said: "As a bearing slipped, he reached out with his right hand and the press crushed his index finger which had to be amputated. He has not been able to return to work."

Dr Lefever said the press, bought from a second-hand machinery company, was installed without guards being fitted and the risk of personal injury had not been assessed.

"It had only been in operation for four or five weeks and it should have been obvious a serious accident was likely to occur," he said.

The court heard that although the company had been told by its insurers that Mr Asare had received between £30,000 and £40,000 compensation, he had not actually received any money.

The company pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety of its employees.

Magistrates fined it £10,000 and ordered it to pay £5,182 costs.

Paul Burnley, representing Kaby Engineers, told the court that at any one time there were 100 machines working in the factory and that 240 people, including a designated health and safety officer, were employed there.

He said when Mr Asare was put to work on the press another employee "talked him through" how to operate the machine and demonstrated the process.

"The operative who had shown him was working on the bench next to him and kept glancing over – he seemed to be doing fine."

He said the press had been removed following the accident.

"The company genuinely believed the machine was safe."

After the hearing, Mr Asare, now aged 32, who lives in Oadby and is jobless, said he had a sense of relief at the outcome. He said: "At least now they have accepted liability and I can start to get my life back together again."

Company director Baljinder Singh Sanghera, who attended court, refused to comment after the hearing.

After the hearing, Dr Lefever said: "This incident was inevitable, yet entirely preventable.

"The firm should have also carried out a risk assessment."

Mat Tait believes his former club Sale Sharks will not die wondering in their Aviva Premiership clash at Welford Road today.

The 26-year-old, who starts at full-back this afternoon, spent three years at Edgeley Park before his move to Leicester in the summer of 2011.

He still keeps in touch with several of his old team-mates from his spell at the league's current bottom club and knows they will turn up desperate for points in their bid to maintain their Premiership status.

In recent years, teams that have arrived at Welford Road propping up the Premiership table have merely shut up shop in a 'damage limitation' exercise. Tait thinks Sale will do nothing of the sort though.

"They have got to have a go I think," he said. "To get the points they need to try to stay up, they need ambition.

"I just can't imagine that they will come here, shut up shop and play for a point.

"From how they played here last year, they threw it around a bit then and they don't have players that play conservatively.

"I hope we beat them but they are improving and I think they will get out of trouble. They have too many good players to go down."

Tigers are still handily-placed with six rounds of Premiership rugby to come.

But not only will they be trying to stop a third defeat on the bounce, they also face consecutive defeats at home for the first time since October 2011.

Tait will make his 16th appearance of the season in a side that will be keen to go into a two-week break on a high.

"The last fortnight has been disappointing losing to Harlequins and Saracens," he said.

"We have played well in parts in both games but we started the second half really poorly last weekend. Saracens lifted the tempo and we missed too many one-on-ones. You can't do that.

"Leading at half-time and not being able to finish both sides off is disappointing.

"Now we need Saracens and Quins to slip up if we are to make the top two but we need to focus on our own game this weekend and, if we win, we have a couple of weeks without a game so we can come back for the run-in with all guns blazing."