Help removing sub-page from vertical menu

I have a website that I am building and about to launch at

https://www.tyndale-archers.co.uk

The template was built in Artisteer (I am a teacher by trade, not a website builder!) but I now want to remove the “latest news” page under the “News” section of the site. (Note – we still want the News and other subpages attached to it, just not the lates news page).

I tried putting the (suggested when googling) ‘exclude’ code within the below code but managed to lock myself out the site and had to go into the FTP files via my host to get it back!

I think (thought?!) the correct place to place the exclude code was within this bit of code below:

/* pages */

function theme_get_list_pages($args = array()) {
global $wp_query;
$pages = &get_pages($args);
if (empty($pages))
return ”;

i.e.

/* pages */

function theme_get_list_pages($args = array()) {
global $wp_query;
$pages = &get_pages($args, ‘exclude = 849);
if (empty($pages))
return ”;

849 being the page name for the latest news page.
However this didn’t work as descibed above!

I’ve tried changing the template in Artisteer and then uploading along with content transfer (which means I have to re type/paste/edit all the content as this effectively wipes existing uploaded/created content) but with no success. I am loathed to move on with typing up all the content until this is fixed however for fear of loosing it for the 4th time!

HELP!

Many thanks