THE FATHER of tragic toddler Levi Bleasdale has become something of a local celebrity in the last 12 months for all the wrong reasons.

Lee Bleasdale has been in and out of trouble with the law and has battled a heroin addiction.

By all accounts these aren't new problems.

But since the death of three-year-old Levi, who was knocked down by a hit-and-run driver in a stolen car, Mr Bleasdale's actions have become newsworthy.

This week we learnt he is facing prison for stealing a car while being banned from driving.

He said when he was ordered off the road by Blackburn justices in March he had not been paying much attention because of the tragedy which claimed the life of his little girl.

I don't doubt this for one minute.

I don't doubt that Lee Bleasdale sometimes wonders what the point of going on is.

I don't doubt he feels numb to whatever punishment magistrates could hand him the worst has already happened.

But as father of little Levi he should have known better than to take a car without consent and drive it uninsured.

Levi's family have been campaigning hard for stiffer penalities for uninsured drivers after Mohammed Hussain the uninsured and unlicensed driver who struck Levi was jailed for just 12 weeks for failing to stop or report the crash.

They have chanelled their grief into something positive trying to make sure no other family have to go through what they have.

For the sake of his future and that of his one-year-old daughter Brogan, Lee Bleasdale must do the same.

In other news this week, penny-pinching bosses at East Lancashire Hospitals Trust have decided in their infinite wisdom that the key to saving the £11.6million they need to haul themselves out of a financial black hole is serving patients sandwiches.

Fresh from the ingenious idea of taking out lightbulbs to reduce energy costs, the Chuckle Brothers sorry, I mean hospital bosses are giving patients a soup and a sandwich for lunch and just one hot meal a day for tea.

If Jamie Oliver can rustle up hot, nutritious and delicious meals for school children for as little as 37p surely the hospital can do better than an egg and cress sandwich.

What's needed to save the cash is a little imagination not this apparent determination to see patients suffer for managerial incompetence.