An injured motorist was trapped in his car for 12 hours in freezing temperatures after his vehicle left the road and ended up in a ditch.

The fire service said the crash happened in Copt Oak Road, Markfield, at about 8pm on Friday and is believed to have involved one vehicle.

A spokesman said the car had come to rest behind a hedge and was not easily visible from the road.

The man remained trapped in the driver's seat overnight until an off-duty police officer spotted the car at about 8am on Saturday and called the police.

Firefighters cut the injured man free while police cordoned off the scene.

National Grid engineers were also called to shut off power to a nearby electricity pylon which was hampering the firefighters' attempts to release the man.

He was eventually airlifted to Queen's Medical Centre, in Nottingham, by Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Rutland Air Ambulance.

A police spokesman said he was in a "serious" condition in hospital.

Leicester City boss Nigel Pearson hailed goal-machine Chris Wood as the missing piece he had been looking for to add to his promotion challengers.

Wood took his tally to six goals in his first three appearances since joining from West Brom with a first-half hat-trick which pushed City to within two points of the automatic promotion places.

It also saw the Robins slip to the foot of the Championship and led to the sacking of manager Derek McInnes.

Including the three he scored in his last two appearances for Millwall before Albion recalled him to sell him to City, Wood has now scored nine goals in five games.

"I think Chris has shown what we have been missing," said Pearson.

"He is a big factor in our form. We have continued to create a lot chances but we are putting them away at the minute.

"He is doing what we hoped he would do. Things are falling for him and he is taking his opportunities.

"The most important thing is that we win games as a team and he is playing his part in that. It is great for him to get the hat-trick.

"We needed something different in attack and he gives us that. He has respect for his peers and works very hard.

"For a young man, he shows a lot of humility."

A key deadline has been missed in a campaign to try to force a referendum on whether Leicester's elected mayor post should be scrapped.

A petition launched by city businessman Callum McKeefery in November aimed to trigger a vote on whether to abolish Sir Peter Soulsby's position.

If 12,000 names – five per cent of the city electorate – had been submitted it would have secured the vote at the earliest opportunity, in May.

Leicester City Council has said no petition has been handed in to date.

Mr McKeefery has not responded to attempts by the Mercury in the past few weeks to find out how his campaign has progressed. It has led to speculation among councillors that he may have abandoned it.

Mr McKeefery, the owner of a bar and nightclub in the city centre, launched the campaign because of his opposition to Sir Peter's plans to turn St Nicholas Place into a £4 million public plaza, Jubilee Square.

Colin Copus, professor of local politics at De Montfort University, said: "The campaign has missed the boat in terms of getting a referendum at the first possible date.

"That is not to say the petition may not be doing well, but if it was proving popular I think we would have heard about it.

"Perhaps there has not been the support anticipated.

"Any petition that is to be successful in getting signatures needs activity and publicity.

"There has not been much sign of that and people will start to draw their own conclusions about what that means."

Elections are normally held on the first Thursday of May.

A city council spokesman said: "For a referendum to be held on May 2, the deadline for the receipt of a valid petition was January 3.

"No such petition has been received by the council.

"Should the council receive a valid petition in the future, the likely date for a referendum would be six months after the receipt of that petition."

Most cities that have held a referendum on whether to have their council run by an elected mayor have rejected the idea.

In Leicester, the system was introduced by the majority of Labour councillors and implemented in May 2010 without voters being offered a referendum.

Sir Peter, however, said he was confident he would win such a vote.

He said: "I would welcome it. I can't imagine people will want to return to the old, undemocratic system where an anonymous council leader and his colleagues run things.

"People may disagree with me on some things but at least they know who to blame if they don't like what happens. They will be able to decide whether to keep me or not at the next election."

Even if the petition secured a referendum and people voted against the mayoral system, under current legislation Sir Peter would see out his term as mayor, which lasts until May 2015.

Council bosses are hunting prolific graffiti vandals who have daubed 2,500 tags across the city, costing thousands of pounds to clean up.

The authority has spent almost £30,000 scrubbing away the tags – Kase and SO 12 – from its buildings in the past few months.

It fears the bill could run to more than £200,000 by August.

Businesses have also paid thousands of pounds to clean them up since the tags first started appearing last summer.

The council has now taken the unprecedented step of offering a reward of £500 to anyone who can help secure convictions.

Assistant mayor Councillor Sarah Russell said: "These two tags are becoming so prolific it is becoming difficult for us and for businesses to bear the cost of constantly removing them.

"In the past, we have shied away from offering rewards for information. But given the scale and cost of this problem, we feel we have to try something new to encourage people to come forward with information.

"Hopefully, it will work and we will get the information we need to secure convictions.

"These tags should not be seen as an inevitable part of the city, they are ugly."

The council, which has mounted a number of unsuccessful surveillance operations to try to catch the taggers in the act, believes two gangs, rather than individuals, could be responsible.

The designs were both spotted for the first time in Saffron Lane in August, but have since cropped up throughout the city.

Adrian Russell, council director of environmental and enforcement services, said: "We've never had such prolific tagging before.

"We have had days where we've come in to work and overnight there have been anything between 60 and 100 reports of these tags appearing.

"It is very difficult to catch the people responsible.

"We really need help from the public if we are going to find these people and put them in front of the courts.

"Someone must know who they are and we want to hear from them."

London Road was hit in November. Manoj Keshavji, chairman of London Road Business Association, described it as an "onslaught".

Mr Keshavji said: "They appeared in a very short space of time.

"London Road is the gateway to the city and there are a lot of fine, historic buildings here.

"But these people have no respect for that and they need to be caught."

Mr Keshavji and other traders worked with the city council's wardens to remove the SO 12 tag. It has not reappeared.

A Saffron Lane shopkeeper, who asked not to be named, said: "These things are ugly and expensive and difficult to remove.

"The people who are doing it need to be caught. If I had my way the courts would get them to remove them one by one and then put them in prison."

Anyone with information about the people responsible for either of the tags should contact Leicester City Council's city wardens team on 0116 252 6430.

All calls can be treated as confidential.

Names and other details can also be e-mailed to:

city.wardens@leicester.gov.uk

Say it quietly, even whisper it, Leicester City look like genuine automatic promotion candidates.

Nigel Pearson's men are the side on the move. On a day when nearly all their promotion rivals dropped points, City stepped up a gear to embarrass Bristol City on their own patch to move into third and just two points off the top two.

Before Christmas, City were a side that had performed well on the majority of occasions but had not taken the points those performances had deserved.

If David Nugent did not score, City had struggled to consistently turn performances into points.

The arrival of striker Chris Wood has been the difference. City fans would have to scour the record books to see if there has ever been a player who has made such an immediate impact.

The New Zealander grabbed the second hat-trick of his career to take his goal tally to five in his first two Championship games for City and six in his first three appearances in all competitions.

The £2million deal that brought the 21-year-old from West Brom is a superb piece of business by City.

Credit where credit is due. Under Sven-Goran Eriksson, it was hard to argue City got a lot of value for money.

But Wood is looking like an absolute bargain, and there must be some people at Albion looking at his impact at City and wondering if their valuation was a little on the low side.

In fact, the fact that Albion have let him go after spending several years farming him out on loan to gain experience and develop is a head-scratcher, especially as they are not blessed with a lot of strikers.

Surely given time, Wood would have been challenging for a place in their side because, on current form, he is good enough for the Premier League.

Albion's loss is City's gain, because that quality makes him a good fit for Leicester, as Pearson's side look like they are now ready to make the step up.

Everything about this City side feels good. They are defensively resolute, as their 11th clean sheet of the campaign proves, and the central midfield of Danny Drinkwater and Matty James is providing a sound platform for the team's attacking talent to strut their stuff.

And strut is exactly what they have been doing lately, having scored 10 goals in their last two Championship games.

Anthony Knockaert is a match-winner, and his early departure on Saturday after picking up a knock was the only sour note to the afternoon, while Ben Marshall is also returning to better form.

The strike pair of David Nugent and Wood have struck up an immediate understanding, while City also have the likes of Martyn Waghorn, who is also in good form, to go on off the bench and make an impact.

But above all, this City side play as a team. They work incredibly hard for each other, are developing with every game and can only get stronger as the season wears on.

And they can grab an automatic promotion spot.

Leicestershire is being warned to expect more snow later today after last night's light snowfall settled in most parts of the county. The Met Office has issued a "be prepared" warning for snow disruption in the East Midlands and forecasters are predicting the rest of the week will be bitterly cold.

Temperatures are expected to sink to -2C tomorrow night and winds could reach speeds of up to 25mph this week.

Leicestershire County Council said its gritters were ready to treat key routes when the temperature dropped.

It is a contrast to 12 months ago when the county was basking in above-normal temperatures and one of the sunniest Januarys since records began.

The Met Office has said Leicestershire can expect between five to 10cm of snow by tomorrow morning. It has scaled down its warning for the East Midlands from amber to yellow - which means people should be aware of disruptions to travel. Meteorologists said a band of snow is currently moving over the city and county throughout the day but will die out during the evening. Cold temperatures overnight could lead to icy stretches of road, the Met Office said. Area Traffic Control said it was not aware of any reports of problems on Leicestershire's roads yet. City and county council gritters have been out on the roads since last night spreading tonnes of salt on the main highways. More updates to follow.

Leicestershire is being warned to expect more snow later today after last night's light snowfall settled in most parts of the county. Related article: More snow and freezing temperatures for Leicestershire The Highways Agency is advising drivers to be aware of disruption to travel due to the icy conditions and to plan for their journey before they set out. See the Highways Agency website for more traffic and travel updates: www.highways.gov.uk/traffic-information See Leicestershire County Council's advice on winter weather: www.leics.gov.uk/winterweather See the five-day forecast for Leicester and Leicestershire at: www.thisisleicestershire.co.uk/weather Send us your pictures by emailing newsdesk@leicestermercury.co.uk upload them straight to our picture galleries or tweet us @thisisleics Updates and images from around Leicester and Leicestershire...

A thug pushed a mum to the ground and tried to grab money she had just withdrawn from a bank cash machine.

The 34-year-old woman, who was with her young child, was attacked at a cash machine at Morrisons supermarket in Sage Cross Street, Melton.

A man waited until she had withdrawn cash from the machine and then pounced by pushing her over and trying to snatch the money from her hand.

However, he ran away empty-handed.

The incident happened at around 5.30pm on Saturday, January 5. Police released details and appealed for witnesses today.

Detective Constable Emmy Thresh said: "Unfortunately the victim was not able to get much of a description of the suspect, other than he was white.

"The supermarket is always busy at this time of the day so we are hoping that there is someone who may have witnessed the incident or saw the route this man took after.

"Please get in touch with any information as even the smallest of details could help."

Contact Det Con Thresh on 101 or Crimestoppers, which is anonymous, on 0800 555 111.

Businesses which have been targeted by prolific graffiti vandals have backed a campaign to track down the culprits by offering a reward for information.

The tags – Kase and SO 12 – have appeared at more than 2,500 locations in the past few months and removing them has cost Leicester City Council and businesses tens of thousands of pounds.

Businesses and groups who have been targeted by the vandals urged "public spirited" people to pass on the vandals' names.

The council is offering a reward of £500 for information which leads to the taggers' arrest and conviction.

Atin Patel, owner of Howitts pharmacy in Saffron Lane, said: "We are moving to a location in Saffron Lane and we've had both Kase and SO 12 sprayed on to the security shutters at the new shop.

"The shutters cost us £10,000 to £15,000 and the graffiti appeared as soon as we put them in. It was very annoying and inconvenient.

"I told the police and the city council about it and they came and did a demonstration with a graffiti removal kit and that got rid of them.

"We've had no more problems in the past few weeks.

"But these people will do it again if they are not caught."

Age UK had to take one of its minibuses off the road for two weeks in November after the Kase tag was sprayed on to the vehicle while it was parked in Yeoman Street, in the city centre.

Adrian Wilkinson, transport manager for the charity, said: "It is a good idea for the council to offer a reward – hopefully public spirited people will respond.

"The minibus was off the road for two weeks and we had to bring in a replacement. The vehicles are used to pick people up and take them to our day centres, so it was very inconvenient.

"I'm not sure of the exact cost of removing it but it was a substantial sum.

"The people who did this to our vehicle had no thought for the ramifications of what they did and I hope the council's appeal is successful."

Jennifer Chase, owner of Hair and Booty salon in Market Place, Leicester city centre, said the Kase tag was sprayed on her business a few weeks ago.

She said: "It was on one of our windows which we had to replace anyway, but when I saw it I was so upset.

"We are in a five-storey listed building which is about 500 years old but they didn't respect that and sprayed this thing on anyway."

By yesterday afternoon, four people had contacted the council with information.

Launching the appeal yesterday, assistant city mayor, Councillor Sarah Russell said: "In the past, we have shied away from offering rewards for information.

"But given the scale and cost of this problem we feel we have to try something new to encourage people to come forward with information.

"Hopefully, it will work and we will get the information we need to secure convictions."

Anyone with information about the people responsible for either of the two tags should contact Leicester City Council's city wardens team on 0116 252 6430.

All calls can be treated as confidential.

Names and other details can also be e-mailed to:

city.warden@leicester.gov.uk

Leicester Riders hero Drew Sullivan has dedicated his side's BBL Cup victory to coach Rob Paternostro.

The Great Britain captain was an integral part of Riders' 85-80 victory over defending champions Newcastle Eagles on Sunday that saw them lift their first piece of silverware in 12 years.

"It means everything for the club," said Sullivan. "Rob has been toiling year, after year, after year, to put together a team that can do this.

"We came so close last year (in the play-off final when Riders lost 71-62 to Eagles) and I know how much it hurt him. I spoke to him all through the summer and he just couldn't put it behind him.

"To get back here at the first time of asking, we were just desperate to win it for him and for the club.

"When you play against Newcastle, you are never out of the woods. We were expecting them to come at some point and for 35 minutes we got what we wanted and they didn't put up too much of a resistance.

"But then, in the last five minutes, they hit some great shots and started playing different. Fair dos to them but we were the better team."

Sullivan was the one who got Riders off to a good start, sinking two three-pointers in the first five minutes, and he also saved the day in the dying seconds when he pulled off a crucial block to deny Eagles from drawing level.

But the 6ft 5in forward played down his last-minute heroics.

"To be honest, we all know how many players go on in a basketball game," he said. "To say that was the play that won us the game would be really disrespectful for all the hard work that everyone put in over the 40 minutes."

Sullivan, who led the Team GB side during London 2012, said he hopes his Olympic experience was a factor.

"In practice I am a bit of a jerk," he said. "I get on to guys constantly about playing hard, never letting up, and making it hard for the opposition.

"When you get to play in competitions like that you do build up a certain level of toughness and experience. Hopefully, I am able to pass that on to some of the guys and I hope that it had something to do with us being resilient in that last quarter."

Sullivan said this hopefully will be the springboard for Riders.

"Last time I won a trophy with a club for the first time (with Eagles), they went on to be the most successful club in the country," he said. "It's not about winning one trophy, it's about winning them year in, year out."

A thief has been jailed for 34 months for stealing copper electrical cable from a farm in Leicestershire.

Ion Preda was part of a group involved in stealing 15 rolls of copper cable, about 1,000 metres with a scrap metal value of about £3,000, Leicester Crown Court was told.

The cable was stolen from a farm in North Kilworth on March 9 last year, but belonged to Western Power and cost £8,000 to replace.

Prosecutor Alan Murphy said two abandoned cars containing bolt cutters and boot crampons were found near the farm and hand-prints with green powder from the cable were on both vehicles.

Preda (20) was found nearby and discovered to have both sets of keys to the cars.

Mr Murphy said: "He gave a nonsensical account of why he had been in the Leicestershire countryside at such a time and why he had the keys to vehicles containing items to be used in theft."

Preda, of High Street, Lye, Stourbridge, admitted theft, failing to attend a magistrates' court hearing and going equipped for theft.

He was sentenced to 34 months in prison – 28 months for the theft and a further six months for the other two offences.

Recorder Keith Raynor told Preda he had operated as part of a professional, well-planned enterprise to steal cable and had targeted the farm.

After his release, Preda faces deportation back to Romania.

In mitigation, Thomas Gaskell said Preda had moved from Romania to the UK to find work but had to return to his homeland as his mother was sick, which caused him to miss the earlier hearing.

De Montfort University is a firm believer in supporting young people on their journey through education, both inside and away from the classroom.

The university has extended that philosophy to backing the 2012 Leicester Mercury Sports Awards, in which they are sponsors of the Under 19 / School Team of the Year trophy.

The winners of all 14 categories in the awards will be announced on Thursday night at Welford Road.

"The annual awards have become an important date in the Leicestershire sporting calendar over the years and are a wonderful way to honour all that is great about sport in the county today," said De Montfort University vice-chancellor Professor Dominic Shellard.

"We believe sport is a major contributor to a student's university experience, not just for those who play, but for the thousands of spectators who cheer them on. It is also why our £8 million leisure centre has proved to be so popular.

"Sport is good for your physical and mental health and a great way of learning to work as a team, strive for success and deal with defeat – important things to learn when you head out into the workplace. So the university is pleased to be sponsoring the Under 19 / School Team of the Year at the Mercury Sports Awards."

Last year was crammed with sporting highlights for Professor Shellard.

"It was an incredible year for sporting success," he said.

"Watching us win the varsity rugby and the men and women's varsity football was compulsive viewing.

"The atmosphere at Welford Road and the King Power Stadium was electric.

"Taking university staff and students to the dress rehearsal of the London 2012 opening ceremony was a great day.

"It was then we all realised the Olympics were going to be something special."

The university also has strong links with both Leicester Tigers and Leicestershire County Cricket Club, having signed new partnerships with each last year.

"There is much we can achieve by working together to further our sporting and academic ambitions," Professor Shellard said.

As the new year gathers pace there are numerous major events for the university students and staff to focus on. In 2013, I am looking forward to Prince Edward officially opening the university's new leisure centre on January 23," Professor Shellard said.

"I will be taking my seat for the rematch in the varsity between De Montfort and the University of Leicester.

"I hope to see Tigers win the Heineken Cup, watch Leicestershire do well in the cricket and, in August, I hope to see Leicester City playing QPR – where I am a season-ticket holder – in the Premiership."

For coverage of Thursday's Leicester Mercury Sports Awards ceremony, see Friday's paper. There will also be a special sports awards supplement the following Tuesday.

Martin Crowson looks back at five key points from the weekend's rugby action.

1 Do not even bother to start trying to work out the various ramifications of a Leicester Tigers win, or defeat, or draw, or losing bonus point etc, when Toulouse arrive for Sunday's huge Heineken Cup clash at what will be a sold-out Welford Road. As it stands, Leicester could make the quarter-finals or they could be out of the competition. They could have an unlikely home draw, or they could have an away draw. They might qualify for the Amlin Cup, they might not. At this stage, it is as clear as mud.

2 So the quarter-finals of the Heineken Cup will have no Welsh, Scottish or Italian clubs in it. Scottish and Italian sides amassed just three match points between them from 20 combined pool games. And the Ospreys are apparently so short of money that coach Steve Tandy made an impassioned plea for "help" from the Welsh Rugby Union after the game against Leicester for funds to bolster their struggling regions' fortunes. Interesting times.

3 It has been a fantastic month for Tigers in terms of attracting current players to extend their stay at the club. Do not underestimate how hard it is in the current climate to keep world-class players like the Youngs brothers, Steve Mafi, Julian Salvi and their latest re-sign, Geoff Parling. All four of them, along with the likes of Graham Kitchener and Niall Morris, would have attracted big offers in the open market. Their signatures are a public mandate for what Tigers are doing on and off the pitch.

4For the club that gave us Gavin Henson to have a tanning salon just outside the ground and a hairdressers and nail salon inside the ground, is just too good to be true, right? Wrong. Welcome to the Ospreys' Liberty Stadium. You could not make it up.

5 Far from me to accuse travelling French sides of being traditionally flaky in cold weather but, with the temperatures in Leicester not supposed to get much above freezing point all week and some more snow likely towards the weekend, let's just say that Toulouse's mental strength could be tested to the full.

Iconic sequences in Star Wars where the Millennium Falcon jumps to hyperspace have been put to the test by physics students.

On several occasions during the George Lucas sci-fi saga, Han Solo, Chewbacca and Luke Skywalker watch as stars stretch around their ship as they enter hyperspace and accelerate towards the speed of light.

However, using Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, four University of Leicester masters students have calculated that the crew would not have seen starlight stretched to streaks.

Rather, they would have been faced with a central disc of constant bright light as the stars moved out of the visible spectrum and were replaced with cosmic background radiation, the remnant of the Big Bang.

The study was carried out by Riley Connors, Joshua Argyle, Katie Dexter and Cameron Scoular.

Riley, 21, said: "The idea was to do something interesting and original.

"We'd been told in our relativity module that the stars wouldn't streak past you like that as you travelled at the speed of light, but we weren't sure what would happen.

"We did some calculations and found that X-rays would become visible at that speed and create a disc in front of you, no matter which direction you were heading."

They assumed the speed of the spaceship was 186,281.907 miles per second – a fraction off the speed of light.

Riley said: "I think the film assumes they go faster than light speed when they jump to hyperspace.

"However, the theory of relativity tells you that you can't go past the speed of light, so we based our calculations on reaching 99.99995 per cent of that velocity."

Their paper was submitted to the university's Journal of Physics Special Topics. Dr Mervyn Roy, a lecturer in the department of physics and astronomy, said: "A lot of the papers published in the journal are on subjects that are amusing, topical or a bit off-the-wall.

"Our fourth years are nothing if not creative.

"To be a research physicist – in industry or academia – you need to show some imagination, to think outside the box, and this is certainly something the module allows our students to practice."

Over the years, the Star Wars films have been ridiculed by scientists and fans who love pointing out inconsistencies and errors.

Faults include the sound of the Tie fighters through space (originally made by mixing the bellow of an elephant and a car driving on a wet road), which would not be heard as sound does not travel through the vacuum of space.

Lasers are also a bone of contention as they, too, would not glow in space because there are no air particles for them to reflect off.

Riley said: "It's got to be accurate to some degree, but at the end of the day it's a film and it's meant to be fun."

Leicester Tigers' in-form winger Niall Morris says the club will need all the help they can get from an expected sold-out Welford Road when Toulouse arrive in town this weekend.

The Anglo-French Heineken Cup meeting will see the winners top Pool Two and progress to the quarter-finals, while the losers will exit the competition.

Tigers have lost only once at Welford Road in 15 months and are unbeaten in their previous 21 home games in the Heineken Cup, a run that stretches back to October 2006.

But Morris, who scored his fourth try of the season in the 15-15 draw against the Ospreys on Sunday, says Leicester are fully aware that no club has been more successful than Toulouse in landing Europe's holy grail, with four trophies in the bag.

This season's Toulouse squad is full of world-class players who know how to win the really big games.

"Hopefully, the crowd will get behind us and give us that lift on the big occasion," said Morris. "Especially against Toulouse, who are an awesome side, because we will need it.

"We have been away for the last two weeks and we are looking forward to getting home and having a good crack at them. We will need to work really hard.

"We have to really graft in defence and attack, and take any opportunities that come our way to try to put Toulouse under as much pressure as possible.

"Without taking anything for granted, we thought this situation might emerge.

"If we win, we go through. If we lose, we are out."

Morris, 24, has just signed a new deal to extend his stay at the club and is loving life at Welford Road after joining from Leinster in the summer of 2011.

Only Anthony Allen (15) has started more games than Morris (14) this term, and the winger's consistent form has repeatedly earned him the nod from director of rugby Richard Cockerill in the big games.

With another huge contest coming up on Sunday, Morris is hoping he extends his run in the side after scoring the crucial try for Tigers in the draw at the Liberty Stadium.

"I didn't do much with the try," he said. "I just caught the ball and put it down.

"It was a bit tight. I wasn't sure if I was in touch or not. Luckily, it was okay.

"It's great to have the opportunity to play in these big Heineken Cup games.

"I have played four games so far this season in the competition, and I have really enjoyed it. I just want to be on the right side of the scoreboard this weekend."