10/01/2014 BBC News at Ten

he admits he wasn't telling the truth. Mr Mitchell says it is

worrying that a serving officer behaved in this way, a comment

echoed by fellow MPs. For a serving police officer to admit to

fabricating evidence to bring down a Cabinet minister is about as serious

as it gets. We'll be looking at how damaging

this has been at the end of difficult week for the police.

Also tonight, Fears of more bloodshed on the streets of the

Central African Republic, as the President resigns. The rain may have

stopped but the flood waters are still rising.

The French President threatens legal action after a magazine prints

details about an alleged affair. Where will you be when the world

comes to Scotland? Why Jessica Ennis-Hill won't be at

the Commonwealth Games. In Sportsday, British sailors say

they risk illness every time they compete in Rio's polluted waters

ahead of the 2016 Olympics. Good evening.

A police officer has admitted lying about witnessing the row in the

so-called plebgate affair which led to the resignation of a Cabinet

minister. PC Keith Wallis originally said he had seen the argument

between police officers at the gates of Downing Street and the

Conservative Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell in September last year. Mr

Mitchell was accused of swearing and using the word "pleb". Today PC

Wallis has pleaded guilty to misconduct in public office and

offered to resign. The head of the Metropolitan Police has apologised

to Mr Mitchell. Our Home Editor, Mark Easton, has the story.

It was an encounter that lasted less than a minute, but the alleged use

of the word pleb by a government minister to a police officer has

cost the taxpayer hundreds of thousands of pounds, the minister

his Cabinet post, at least one police officer his career and quite

possibly his liberty, too. PC Keith Wallis claimed in an e-mail that he

had witnessed the then Cabinet Minister Andrew Mitchell shouting

obscenities at police officers here at the gates to Downing Street. In

fact, he was nowhere near. Today, PC Wallis pleaded guilty to misconduct

in a public office. The judge granted him bail but warned that all

sentencing options remained open to the court. The maximum penalty is

life imprisonment. Andrew Mitchell has issued a statement saying he is

pleased justice has been done but that many questions remain

unanswered. For a serving police officer to admit to fabricating

evidence to bring down a Cabinet minister is about as serious as it

gets, and it really does beg the question, if it can happen to

Cabinet ministers and politicians, then it can happen to anybody. The

Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, has sent a

personal apology to Mr Mitchell. In a statement he said, to lie about

witnessing something and provide a false account falls way below the

standards that I and PC Wallis's colleagues expect of police

officers. His actions have also negatively impacted upon public

trust and confidence in the integrity of police officers.

Despite recent scandals, public confidence levels in the police have

actually remained relatively consistent, but trust is a fragile

commodity. I think most of the police officers in this country are

quite upstanding. They uphold the law for the rest of the country, so

it is quite surprising that he told a lie. We're supposed to trust the

police and that just makes me think to myself, I can't trust the police

because they're lying. 48 hours after the relief of being exonerated

by the Duggan inquest jury, Scotland Yard finds itself having to respond

to a scandal about the integrity and honesty of one of its officers, and

it is not over yet. Several other Met officers face possible

misconduct disciplinary cases following the plebgate affair. There

is a police complaints commission investigation and a possible libel

case. I think what we now need to do is learn the lessons of what has

happened. We need to make sure that police officers understand the

nature of what has occurred. I have met many police officers over the

course of the year who are very embarrassed I what has happened. The

affair has pitched police against all editions with suggestions that

the episode actually has its roots in the fierce argument over reform

of police pay and conditions in England and Wales. This has been

another difficult and dark day for the Metropolitan Police.

Mark is at New Scotland Yard. Mark, it's been a week where trust in the

police has been under intense scrutiny. Today's news is a blow to

their reputation. I do think this is a very difficult moment, actually,

for Scotland Yard, because normally when you have these kind of scandals

you will have politicians lining up to support the boys and girls in

blue, to make the point that the vast majority of officers do a

difficult and dangerous job, often with great integrity and indeed a

very. That kind of support is there not on the ground this time, of

course, because actually the victim is one of their own. And there will

be more days like this one. This story has not wished. I think for

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Commissioner here at Scotland Yard,

he is going to need to show real sure-footedness over the next weeks

and months to ensure that what is currently a major embarrassment for

Scotland Yard does not become a major crisis.

There has been shooting on the streets of the capital of the

Central African Republic tonight after the President suddenly

resigned, leaving the country with a dangerous power vacuum. President

Michel Djotodia seized power in a coup last year with the aid of a

mainly Muslim rebel movement called the Seleka. There has been bitter

sectarian violence since, with fighting against rival Christian

militia. Nearly a million people have fled their homes. And despite

the presence of African peacekeepers and French troops, over 1000 people

have died in the fighting since December. Paul Wood and cameraman

Fred Scott report from the capital, Bangui.

There was joy in Christian areas even before the President's

resignation was confirmed. Go, just go, he screams, what happened to us

will happen to you. They are singing, today we kill Muslims.

French troops watched as more and more Christians came out. Muslims

stayed at home. This was the moment the Christians heard Michelle

Djotodia had stepped down. We think he is mocking the former

President's wife. The bow and arrow belonged to a fighter with the

anti-Balaka, the Christian militia. Their arms are crude, the rifles

home made. Magic amulets stop alerts from the enemy's machine guns. My

amulets made it easy to kill Muslim soldiers, he says. They helped force

a president to resign. Today's events are their victory, they

believe. There is quite a mood of triumphalism among the Christian

vigilantes, the anti-Balaka. The question now is whether the

President's resignation will spur them on to try to seek revenge. The

Seleka slaughtered our people like animals, says the commander here. We

have to kill them to make them afraid of us. But, he goes on, there

has been enough killing. It should stop now. Some aren't listening.

This afternoon the mask was attacked. They demolished it, brick

by brick. -- a mosque was attacked. Some Christians can't forget what

happened to them. In Bangui's main hospital we found victims of the

Seleka militia. This man had gone to a local market and was kidnapped off

the street. His hands were tied, his brother tells me, and then they cut

his throat. Some 900,000 people, Christians and Muslims, have fled

such violence. These people are hiding in the grounds of a half

finished church. They just want to go back to the way things were. But

on the streets of Bangui, a toxic mix of hysteria and hatred. So much

blood has flowed here already. The wild men may determine what happens

next in the Central African Republic.

The French President, Francois Hollande, is threatening legal

action against a magazine after it published details of an alleged

affair. Closer magazine printed seven pages of pictures of the

President with a French actress. Mr Hollande has not denied the story

but called it a deplorable invasion of privacy. It comes at a difficult

time for the French President, with the economy struggling and his own

approval rating at just 22%. Tonight, Closer said it will remove

the story from its website. Our Europe Editor, Gavin Hewitt, is in

Paris for us tonight. Gavin, unusual for the French press to delve into

the private life of a President in this way. It is. In the past, many

French leaders had complicated personal lives, but the public

rarely got to hear the details at the time. At this morning France

awoke to a magazine publishing photos and details of comings and

goings which, the magazine says, reveals the reality of a

President's life after hours. This is a story about the French

president, scooter rides, and an actress. This was the president

today and his entourage, crossing the street near the palace. But a

French magazine alleges that President Hollande made similar

short journeys to this apartment, just 200 metres from his office, but

on the back of a scooter and disguised by a helmet. He was said

to be meeting Julie Gayet, a film actress and one of his dominant

supporters. Jury the election campaign, she had described him as

humble and a good listener. -- during. The magazine says, this was

the secret love of the President. Over the revelations about this

apartment, the President's office said Francois Hollande greatly

deplores the invasion of his privacy, to which he has a right

along with any other French citizen. What they did not do was to deny the

story. I think that politicians have the right to have a private life.

The president is just a human being, as everyone, and he has the right to

have a private life, including a sexual life. The President's partner

is Valerie try Weiler, lives at the Palace. Today, the magazine

attempted to justify revealing new personal allegations.

TRANSLATION: Is the Private life of a President private or public. He

has talked a lot about private matters, describing his wife as the

love of his life. He has the liberally opened up his family and

created interest in them. These revelations, a difficult time for

the president. He has the lowest approval rating of any modern French

president. There have been protests against high taxes, unemployment

remains stubbornly high and the economy hovers near recession. It is

probably not very good for President Hollande to be seen gallivanting and

trekking in the streets of Paris when the economic situation is so

dire. Next week he hosts the first conference of the New Year. Many,

recalling the high hopes of his inauguration, saw this as an

opportunity to relaunch a troubled presidency. Now, he is involved in a

scandal. The French might respect privacy, but on most newspaper

stands, Closer magazine was sold out. A few years ago a magazine

surely would never have carried out surveillance on a serving president,

but there are those here who believe it is wrong for an elite to know

about the personal lives of a president, whilst the public are

kept in the dark. But whether any of this will actually damage President

Hollande, very hard to know, Fiona. Teachers in England would have to be

licensed every few years in order to work in state schools. Under a

Labour government, the BBC has been told. Tristram Hunt, the Shadow

Education Secretary, says that the licensing teachers would allow the

worst ones to be sacked and help others to receive more training and

professional development. Stop carrying out experiments with

schools and start focusing on the quality of teaching. That is what

the man who wants to be the next Labour Education Secretary says the

government should now be doing. Any questions? No. Tristram Hunt says

that teachers in future should be licensed, and their skills assessed

every few years to see if they are fit to see working in schools, a

sort of classroom MOT. This is about believing that teachers have this

enormous importance and, just like lawyers and doctors, they should

have the same professional standing, which means relicensing

themselves, continual professional development of being the best

possible they can be. Labour argued that what really matters in

classrooms is the quality of teachers. That is why they now say

that every teacher will have to become qualified. That there will be

relicensing of teachers every few years, which means that most

teachers will be helped with more training, but the ones that can't

improve will be sacked. Labour have been listening to a head who was

made a dame for her work in turning around this one is failing school in

north London. She says it is vital to regularly assess teacher

performance, to give more support to teachers who can improve and, yes,

to sack those who can't. At the end of the day, headteachers have to

look at the fact that we are here to provide a good education for the

children. The best way to do that is to help teachers develop well. But

there are occasions where perhaps the individual is not suited to

teaching, and in which case it is then best to move on. Some teaching

unions combined with the Tories to help kill off a very similar

proposal made by the last Labour government. The NUT said then that

five yearly classroom MOTs wherever pointless and unnecessary hurdle for

teachers. Listen to what they say now. The devil will be in the

detail. If this turned out to be a continuation of the Michael Gove

denigration of teachers it would be very negative. But if relicensing

were truly based on a new entitlement to high quality

professional development that was controlled by the teaching

profession, then we could talk about the detail of how to do it. It could

be very positive for education. The key union attitudes is likely to be

whether this makes it easier for heads to wave goodbye to failing

teachers. Labour insist that that is precisely what they intend to do. If

you are not a motivated teacher, passionate about your subject,

passionate about being in the classroom, then you shouldn't really

be in this profession. If you are not willing to engage in relicensing

to upgrade your skills, you really shouldn't be in the classroom. The

Government insist it has already acted to remove poor teachers from

the classroom. In the past, Michael Gove has attacked this sort of idea

as adding to the bureaucracy facing schools. Labour's message with this

announcement as they are interested in teaching, not fiddling around

with school structures. What's more, they want parents to think they are

tough enough to get rid of bad teachers. Three care workers who

abused elderly residents at a nursing home in Lancaster have been

sentenced to between four and eight months in jail. A fourth member of

staff has been ordered to do community service. The four worked

at Hillcroft Nursing Home whether victims, who suffered from dementia,

were bullied and assaulted during a period lasting over a year. They

told fellow staff they were bored and doing it for their own

entertainment. Darren Smith, Katie Cairns, Gemma Pearson and Carol

Moore showed complete disregard for the well-being of the people they

had been entrusted to care for. Further to that, their ill-treatment

was directed at some of the most vulnerable members of our

community. These people couldn't speak out or defend themselves.

Their behaviour was utterly contemptible. The bodies of a woman

in her 30s and two children aged five and seven months have been

discovered at a house in Brent in north-west London. Police say they

are not looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths. Brent

Council have told the BBC the family were known to them. Even though

there is to be a brief respite from the recent rain, floodwaters are

expected to continue rising. The Environment Agency is warning

communities in southern England in particular of the risk of further

flooding from swollen rivers. The River Thames is carrying 400 tonnes

of water through Surrey every second, that's ten times more than

normal for this time of year. There are currently over 90 flood warnings

across England and Wales. Our correspondent has more. From this

light it's hard to see where the Thames ends and begins. A watery

blow for mile after mile, and it still rising. At Marlow in

Buckinghamshire the river spilled over. Whilst at war grave in

Berkshire the flooded house on the right belongs to magician Paul

Daniels. He tweeted he was OK. There's a bridge that takes us from

here to the house. We met Mark Lancia, who's flown in from Belgium,

to resupply his stranded mother. He inched forward into her submerged

garden, knowing the water is going up. Do you think you will still

stay? Yes, of course. We have a basement and I have to keep pumping

the water out of that. If I don't it will be inundated. So I had to stay.

Residence here say the next 48 hours will make the difference between

inundation and salvation. What everybody along the Thames is

telling us is, we want up to date information with all this water

continuing to rise. They are being advised to go to the Environment

Agency website and tap in their location. If I put in Wraysbury,

where we are, tap it in and you can see here that a lot of the map is

deep blue, which means a very high risk of flooding. Sorry to keep you

waiting, it's a bit cold out here. The Prime Minister was in

Oxfordshire today, meeting people whose homes were already

underwater. He defended his record on flood protection. We are

increasing on the 2.1 billion spent in the previous period, so spending

on flood defences is going up. The row about building new housing in

flood prone -- areas surfaced again today. Government and developers

simply can't agree whether drainage gardens like this one in Sheffield

are the answer. Capturing water on the surface of this housing

development, the pollution is removed because it goes through

vegetation, it provides biodiversity and landscape benefits for the

community, but it also controls the flow into the stream locally.

Whether its gardens or cars, the risk of being submerged continues

this weekend. There's not much rain, just bucketloads of worry.

Plans for a referendum on Britain's's membership of the EU

have cleared their first hurdle in the Lords today. If the bill becomes

law there will be a vote in 2017. Our political correspondent watched

the debate from Westminster. Britain's relationship with the

European Union is at a critical phase, with heated debate over the

powers of the EU, the rights of its citizens and whether we should

remain a member at all. The Lords have been debating a bill which

would ensure a referendum on our membership of the EU by the end of

2017. We politicians have made a regular mess of it, over decades.

That is why we need to get the people to decide. Labour have not

ruled out a referendum, but say this bill would cause uncertainty which

would damage our economy. The bill is not about changing or improving

the EU. It is indeed stage one in raising impossible demands of the

European Union in order to create a pretext for leaving it. The Lords

will demand changes to the bill, which will require further

consideration, and there's a real danger the bill will run out of time

to become law. David Cameron wants to reclaim a raft of powers from the

EU before we get to the referendum, which has been debated here today.

To achieve this he needs the support of our European partners, but he has

angered some potential allies by suggesting curbs on the freedom of

movement of EU citizens and their rights to claim benefits here. That

has punted a senior member of the EU commission to accuse British

politicians of peddling myths about an invasion of foreigners. I am

mostly frustrated about the political leaders. Because what is

leadership if you are just trying with populist movements and populist

Dick speech to gain votes? You are destroying the future of your

people, actually. Age UK IPP said he was grateful for such comments. For

reminding us that the European project is all about rampant

supranational is, with really a searing disregard for national

sovereignty. So whatever happens to the Referendum Bill, there will be

no letup in the wrangling over our relationship with Europe from now

until the election. The heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill won't compete in

this summer's Commonwealth Games in Glasgow because she's expecting her

first child. The Olympic gold winner said she was excited and overwhelmed

by the news, and that she still plans to bid for a second gold medal

in the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Our sports correspondent sent this

report from Glasgow. It contains flashing images. Jessica Ennis-Hill

is the Olympic champion. It is perfect day for Jessica Ennis!

Overwhelming, unexpected and exciting. Jessica Ennis-Hill a well

have been describing her golden Olympic moment, but instead was

talking about her biggest challenge yet, pregnancy. The 27-year-old, who

married last year, said her plans the 27-year-old, who married last

year, said her plans for 2014 have been completely turned upside down,

but she is 100% set on trying to retain her Olympic title in Rio

wants a baby is born. I think now, taking this period of time might

actually lengthen her career, with the World Championships in London,

the Commonwealth Games will be on the Gold Coast in 2018. There's

always a championship year. Even by the righteously high standards, that

will be tough, according to Denise Lewis, who also fell pregnant

shortly after winning heptathlon gold. It's challenging, let's put it

that way. Not only are you dealing with new evolution or relationships

that you have with your baby, but with the goals you've set for

yourself. Yes, I want to be back competing at the Olympics. Here at

Hampden Park, preparations are well under way for the athletics this

summer. Games organisers have sent congratulations to Jessica

Ennis-Hill. Ticket sales have been excellent, as fans clamour to see

the big stars in action. But that big question now is, just which of

those box office names will they actually get to see? Sir Chris Hoy,

who has had a stadium named after him, has retired but he will remain

an ambassador. Mo Farah says he may not compete, as he is focusing on

this year's London Marathon instead. Usain Bolt may run the 200 metres

but as yet is undecided. I think there will be a lot of new names

coming forward. There's also a large number of current championship and

Olympic medallist that will be there. There are 17 different

sports, something every day. Every time you turn on the television or

go to the stadium there will be a world champion, Olympic champion or

Olympic medallist who will be there, competing with our athletes. So

Glasgow has lost a star and Ennis Hill has missed out on her second

consecutive Commonwealth Games, the one gold medal missing from a

glittering CV. But another major title will be added this summer,

that of mother. That's all from us. Starting on BBC Two in a moment, you

can hear more of Newsnight's interview with the editor of a

magazine responsible for