17/07/2012 BBC News at One

The boss of the security firm G4S is forced to admit the failure to

provide enough Olympic security guards is a humiliating shambles.

Nick Buckles told MPs he was deeply people on the ground in short time

had proved a huge logistical challenge. Mr Buckles, it's a

humiliating shambles, isn't it? It's not where we'd want to be.

That is certain. It is a humiliating shambles for the

company - yes or no? I cannot disagree with you.

With ten days to go, it emerges that 400,000 Olympic tickets

haven't even gone on sale yet. The wet summer helps dampen the

rate of inflation as it falls again by more than expected.

Police investigating the deaths of three children and their father

recover a knife in woodland close to where their bodies were found.

And protecting Royal modesty - Queen Victoria's wooden bathing

machine is unveiled as her private beach on the Isle of Wight is

opened to the public. Later on BBC London: coping with Olympic traffic

- the mayor says so far, so good, but to expect some problems. And

Doreen Lawrence accuses the police watchdog of failing to deal with

Good afternoon, and welcome to the BBC News at 1.00pm. The Chief

Executive of G4S has admitted his company's failure to provide enough

security staff for the Olympics has been a humiliating shambles. Nick

Buckles has told MPs he is deeply sorry and disappointed, but he

insists he is still the right man to lead the company. 3,500 troops

have had to be deployed to cover the shortfall. Police officers are

also being drafted in to fill gaps left after G4S failed to meet its

targets. But the London 2012 chairman Lord Coe insists there'll

be no compromise on security. Our political correspondent Vicki Young

reports. Ten days to go until the London

Games, and it's security that's still making all the headlines.

G4S's failure to provide thousands of staff to guard Olympic venues

has left soldiers and the police making up the shortfall. Today, the

company's Chief Executive came to Parliament to explain what went

wrong. He said he was disappointed, embarrassed and deeply sorry. One

MP went further: Mr Buckles, it's a humiliating shambles, isn't it?

It's not where we'd want to be. That is certain. It's a humiliating

shambles for the company - yes or no? I cannot disagree with you.

Buckles admitted he didn't know about the problems until July the

3rd when he told the Olympic organiser LOCOG and started daily

meetings with the Home Office, police and the military. Day by day,

we started to realise that the pipeline and the people we thought

were going to be able to deliver, we couldn't, so it was almost a

daily. It was a daily evaluation of what was coming through in terms of

what we couldn't deliver. We were sharing that quite openly. The firm

finally admitted it couldn't fulfil its contract on July the 11th.

contracted to provide 10,400 guards. As you speak here, do you know how

many you'll actually provide? a moving target in terms of what we

believe we can do. At the moment, we've got 4,200 people working on

the ground. Our expectation is the minimum that we will deliver is

7,000 on the ground. Ministers are still facing

questions about how effectively they were monitoring the contract

with G4S, given that they didn't find out until last week just how

severe the problems were, but the Government says now is not the time

for a witchhunt and insists that Ministers did their job properly by

having a backup plan, which has now been implemented, and that plan has

seen an extra 3,500 troops brought in to plug a gap in rotas because

the company couldn't find enough staff. Yesterday, 400 extra police

officers had to be deployed to do Olympic security work that should

have been done by G4S. The man in charge of policing for the Games

says there's plenty of flexibility in the system to keep people safe.

We're working very, very hard with our partners to ensure we deliver a

safe and secure Games. We had been planning for this for some

considerable time - many, many years since we first were awarded

the bid. The change that's happening as a result of G4S not

being able to produce all of the staff just means we're putting

different people to manage the plan, different people to do the various

duties, but the plan is exactly the same. After seven years of planning,

everyone involved with the Games hopes that soon it will be the

achievement of athletes making the headlines rather than the failings

of G4S. Robin Brant is in Westminster. --

for us now, and he's still being grilled at the moment, and it

really is quite a grilling that the Chief Executive of G4S is getting.

Yes, we're just over an hour in, and it continues. There's no doubt

this has been a personally humiliating experience for Nick

Buckles, and the irony is that he says G4S took on this contract not

for monetary gain, but for reputational gain, and, of course,

in the end, frankly, it could end up destroying his reputation and

possibly that of G4S, but here's what we know in terms of

definitives. He said G4S will pay for all extra costs incurred by

police who are having to plug the gap at various even use around the

country. He expects them to perhaps meet 70% of requirements. I think

there are still questions about whether the Home Office, the MoD

may need to go further beyond the 3,500 troops currently deployed in

order to plug that gap, also, in terms of accountability - we now

know Nick Buckles knew on the 3rd of July, maybe even a couple of

days before - about how bad this was. A very senior Home Office

official, a man called Charles Faur was many meetings and he knew, but

the Home Office wasn't told. There was a weeklong gap there when she

didn't know, and she couldn't act. Thank you very much.

With just ten days to go before the Olympics, it's emerged that there

are at least 400,000 tickets that have yet to be put on sale. It's

another potential embarrassment for the organisers, who have faced

criticism from people who wanted to buy tickets and couldn't get them.

Our correspondent James Pearce is at the Olympic Park.

James, we're not just talking about football tickets here, are we?

you name it. You could almost choose your event you want to go

and watch. They're still online now. Tickets to the Opening and Closing

Ceremony, admittedly, the top pricing categories. On an almost

daily basis, more tickets are released for athletes, hockey and

beach volleyball in particular. We have also found out as well as

those tickets still to go on sale the organisers have realised

tickets haven't been sells fast enough at some of the football

venues, so Hampden Park in Scotland, the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff -

hosting the first match on the 5th of July, the women's Team GB match

- they have both had their capacity significantly reduced, down to

40,000 at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. In the last few minutes I

have been talking to Lord Coe about these ticket issues. I mean, we had

millions of tickets. I mean, we have done extraordinarily well here,

but some of those tickets that are going to be released are because,

as you know, we have a beach volleyball venue we're still

building. We have Excel. We have five venues in there that are still

being constructed. We have always been very clear - we have never,

ever wanted to sell a ticket that we haven't been pretty sure we've

got a seat for. The message really from London 2012 over the past year

or so has been these Games are a sell-out. It's absolutely clear

they're not a sell-out. There won't perhaps be vast swathes of empty

seats, but there does seem a good chance there will be some empty

seats for these Games. One other issue that has been raised again by

Lord Coe and that's weather. He says a couple of the venues have

water logging issues - that's the rowing venue at Greenwich Park. The

LOCOG message to spectators today going to those venues, bring your

wellies. Thank you very much. Talking of the weather, the wet

summer has led to a bigger-than- expected fall in the rate of

inflation after the rain forced shops to bring forward their summer

sales. The main measure, the Consumer Price Index, fell to 2.4%

in June, down from 2.8% the month before. It's now at its lowest

level since November 2009. Simon Gompertz reports.

On average, prices are still up, but terrible weather has hit the

High Street and brought forward the sales. Some food, including meat,

is sharply down, and fuel's dropped a bit from its highs. The 2.4%

overall rise is much lower than expected.

For once, you don't have to look hard to find the gainers. If you

use oil to heat the home, for instance, like Jenny from Berkshire

- last Christmas she couldn't afford to fill her oil tank. Now

the price she's paying is back down to the level of two years ago.

a massive relief that the prices have dropped to a sensible level,

yeah. It does mean that we can fill the tank up going into the winter.

We don't have to be as conservative now with the heating. We can put it

on without having to worry about there's not going to be any oil

left and we're not going to be able to fill the tank up again. On top

of oil, what drove the bigger ever drop of inflation between May and

June was desperation to offload stock after shoppers stayed away in

the rain, though the sales won't last forever. The fall that we saw

in inflation this month is possibly not going to see a uniform fall

going further forwards. In fact we'd expect some of the sharp fall

in clothes prices we saw in June to mean that there is less discounting

in July - basically, these sales were brought forward, and inflation

may rise a little bit over the next month. There were hefty discounts

last year, but this time they're even bigger, and they've come

earlier, and it means that the rate that prices are rising has halved

since the autumn. There's still a squeeze on because people's incomes

aren't keeping pace with price rises, but the pressure is easing.

The weather can work both ways. There are warnings that drought in

the United States will create grain shortages and raise the cost of

basic foods, and here, rain and flooded fields have pushed up some

vegetable prices, but inflation looks a much smaller threat than a

few months back. The Governor of the Bank of England,

Sir Mervyn King, has said he knew nothing about the fixing of the

interbank lending rate until three weeks ago when Barclays was fined

nearly �300 million. Giving evidence to the Commons Treasury

Select Committee, Sir Mervyn also insisted that he couldn't, and

didn't, force the company's Chief Executive Bob Diamond to resign.

John Moylan reports. It's the scandal that sullyed the

reputation of Barclays and caused heads to roll. It's embroiled the

City regulator and has led to questions in Parliament. Today for

the first time, the Governor of the Bank of England gave his version of

events. Bob Diamond resigned from the scandal the day after Mervyn

King met with Barclays's chairman. The committee wanted to know had Mr

King forced the Chief Executive out? This is about handing someone

a revolver and telling him to go off and shoot his Chief Executive.

There is no suggestion - I don't like these firearms analogies, and

they're false. The question was left absolutely with them. I made

it very clear. I finished the meeting by saying, "I would like

you to make clear to the board that the regulators have expressed these

concerns, and the board as a whole needs to know that they're very

concerned and have lost confidence in the executive management." I did

not know what the outcome of that meeting would be. MPs questioned

whether Mr King had overstepped the mark. It's not the Bank of

England's role to regulate banks, but Mr King said that under

Government plans, that rule was returning and that the history of

tension between Barclays and the regulator had raised questions over

Mr Diamond's leadership. I think all of us have built up a genuine

concern that it is possible to sail close to the wind once. You can

sail close to the wind twice, maybe even three times, but when it gets

to four or five times, it becomes a regular pattern of behaviour. You

do have to ask questions about the navigational skills of the captain

on the bridge. Last month Barclays was fined almost �thrie 300 million

for attempting to rig a key international interest rate known

as LIBOR, but authorities had concerns about the LIBOR market

back in 2008, so why had the Bank of England not acted earlier, and

when was Mr King aware of wrongdoing? The first I knew of any

alleged wrongdoing was when the reports came out two weeks ago, and

perhaps I could take you back to the document... Do, but I just want

to be clear, but no suspicion until two weeks ago anything had been

going wrong in the LIBOR? No, we have been through all of our

records. There is no evidence of wrongdoing or reporting of

wrongdoing to the bank. A separate parliamentary inquiry is due to

report on the LIBOR scandal by the end of the year, and with seven

more banks under investigation by City regulators, there is likely to

be repercussions far beyond Barclays.

Detectives investigating the deaths of three young children and their

father in woodland in Shropshire say they have found a knife at the

scene. Officers are not looking for anyone else in connection with the

deaths of 35-year-old Ceri Fuller, his 12-year-old son Sam, and

daughters Becka and Charlie, aged eight and seven. Ben Ando is at

Pontesbury Hill in Shropshire. What more are police saying? Certainly,

the discovery of the knife is a majorly significant event in the

investigation. That's been sent off, we understand, for forensic tests,

as you'd expect. Also gone is the car that was parked here, his Land

Rover Freelander. That too has been taken off for an investigation. A

postmortem examination will be carried out on the bodies of the

father and three children this afternoon and possibly running into

tomorrow morning. Where search officers are is a hundred metres

into the woods - it's at the shape of a horseshoe. The cliffs at one

end are about a hundred feet. It's at the bottom of there the father's

body was found. The children were found a short distance away, and

the knife a short distance away from their bodies. It looks like

detectives are now piecing together how these four people died, but of

course the big question is why? Detectives have been sent, a

separate team of them, down to Gloucestershire to the home of the

father to talk to friends, to neighbours, to talk to people he

knew and of course members of his family to try to establish exactly

why it was that this father decided to come up here, a relatively

secluded area, and do what police now suspect he did.

Ben Ando, thank you very much. In America, the British bank HSBC

has been accused of allowing Mexican drug cartels to launder

billions of dollars. A US Senate watchdog says lax procedures were

to blame. Executives from the bank are expected to apologise for the

problems at a Senate hearing later today. Michelle joins us now from

New York. Explain what they think Polluted that's the language that

the chairman has used to describe HSBC's behaviour. After a year long

investigation, the conclusion they came to was that HSBC's US

operations had laundered money for Mexican cartels worth billions of

dollars over seven years. They say that through affiliates they were

able to by-pass US sanctions against Iran and they said that

HSBC worked with lenders in Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh ignoring

their ties to terrorist groups, including Al-Qaeda.

Bank executives will take the opportunity to apologise and to

talk about what steps they are taking to fix the problem. They

have admitted their controls should have been stronger and more

effective. The US Justice department is conducting an

investigation. Many investors believe that HSBC will get through

this, but it comes at a time when the standing of banks in general

couldn't be much lower. Our top story this lunchtime:

The boss of the security firm G4S is forced to admit the failure to

provide enough Olympic security guards is a humiliating shambles.

Coming up: Cue the sunshine, we'll have the

latest on whether the jet stream is finally about to move just in time

I will have the sport on the BBC Heavy fighting is continuing in the

Syrian capital, Damascus, with witnesses reporting machinegun fire

and military deployments. It comes on the day that the Foreign

Secretary, William Hague, has been visiting Syrian refugees in Jordan.

Our correspondent Rupert Wingfield- Hayes has been travelling with Mr

Hague and sent this report. They are getting used to seeing things

like this around here. William Hague is just the latest

international dignitary to make the pilgrimage to this refugee camp.

To witness for himself the stream of refugees now coming over the

hills from Syria every day. And to hear their pleas for help.

"they're killing us "this man tells him "if you don't want to do it,

give us the the weapons and we will fight Assad ourselves. "a month ago,

there were 200 Syrians arriving here every day. Now, there are 700.

The Foreign Secretary told me it is prove if any were needed the world

must take action against the Assad regime.

It underlines the need to act at the United Nations Security Council.

We are negotiating there at the moment for the chapter seven

resolution, and threatening consequences for non compliance. I

think it strengthens the need to do Visits to places like this by the

Foreign Secretary could be dismissed as publicity stunts. He

was here for only 45 minutes, but he came here to make an important

political point - that unless the UN Security Council and

particularly the Russians get on board with tougher action against

the Assad regime now, the situation in places like this is going to get

much worse. These are the latest unverified

pictures from Damascus. They appear to show fighting along Baghdad

Street in the heart of the Syrian capital. Activists told the BBC

there were tanks in the middle of the city.

The Red Cross declared Syria in a state of civil war.

Whatever William Hague may hope for, the chances the outside world can

force a political solution may Scotland could become the first

part of the UK to allow gay marriage. Ministers are meeting

this afternoon to consider changing the law. The SNP Government is in

favour of the change, but it faces strong opposition from the Church

of Scotland and the Catholic Church, whose most senior cleric called it

a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right".

Our Scotland correspondent, James Cook, is in Edinburgh. A lot of

divided opinion on this one? That's right, Sophie. Opinion is

very much divided. This is the First Minister's official residence

where the Cabinet will meet shortly to discuss this issue. It is an

issue which caused divisions within the Scottish National Party. It

seems likely that the Scottish Government will press ahead with

the proposals. Campaigners in favour of same-sex marriage admit

there is little legal difference between the civil partnerships and

marriage. They say it is about symbolism and about the possibility

of marrying in a church. The Scottish Government when it began a

consultation on this issue which got a huge number of responses,

made it clear that it would not force any faith groups which did

not want to to conduct same-sex marriages, but the churches

particularly the Catholic Church and the Church of Scotland are

concerned that that would happen because they could be challenged

under Human Rights legislation in terms of equality legislation and

they could be forced to hold same- sex marriages or the marriages they

carry out would not be regarded as being valid by the State. So they

say that this is a defining issue for them. That marriage should be

between a man and a woman so as you suggest, Sophie, a divisive issue

indeed and one which the the Scottish Cabinet will have to pick

its way through in much the same way as the Government in England

and Wales will have to. David Cameron hinted he is in favour, but

he said he is in favour of it, but he is facing opposition from within

his own party. James, thank you very much.

A man had nis his 70s and a woman in her 60s have been found in a

tunnel in Dorset. The couple hadn't been seen since Saturday, 7th July.

The tunnel has been closed for over a week after a landslide caused

damage. Dorset Police say the families of the missing people are

being supported by specialist liaison officers.

A prison in Northamptonshire is to close. Kenneth Clarke says the jail

was outdated. He said closing the category C prison will save �10

million a year. Tomorrow is Nelson Mandela's 94th

birthday. People in South Africa and all over the world will be

marking it by giving 67 minutes of their time to do voluntary work to

commemorate the 67 years that Mr Mandela spent as a political

activist in the fight against apartheid. Nowadays he is retired

and spends his time surrounded by his family. One of the people who

know him best is his granddaughter, Ndileka Mandela. Our reporter

Milton Nkosi caught up with her at an exhibition of photographs of her

grandfather in Johannesburg. Isn't this a fantastic tribute that the

trade union named this room after him? It is a fantastic tribute. I

mean, I think that I need to take pictures and show him. I am going

to see him tomorrow and tell him that they have named a room after

you. It is such an honour. How do you feel when you see that?

It is a beautiful picture, but for me, it is more like, you know, he

is my grandfather. It is hard to see him as a statesman.

Yes. I see him, I would go to him and

say "hi handsome." I always tease him all the time.

He has an amazing sense of humour? He has an amazing sense of humour.

He told me once, he said when he came to Johannesburg, he said it

was the first time that he saw a black typist and he said this woman

was typing away and not looking at the keyboard. He said he was just

like, "This country boy that couldn't even hold a knife and

fork.". You seem to have taken a bit after him with your sense of

humour? I suppose it does. I suppose it does, yeah. Look at that

picture, he looks so - that one, in a suit. Most times you see him in

his shirts. This is a nice picture with him in a suit and tie.

It is rare. It is rare. He looks so debonair. He is so smart. When it

comes to himself and the way he is, he sits in a chair and puts his

feet up. If his hands are creased a bit, he will say please, "Come and

straighten my pants." The vanity - I have to straighten your pants.

When it comes to his looks, he will charm bees out of their beehive!

Queen Victoria's private beach on the Isle of Wight is opening to the

public for the first time. Visitors will be able to see where the

Queen's nine children learnt to swim and they'll get a close look

at the original wooden bathing machine which was used to preserve

the Queen's modesty. From Osborne Osbourne House may look grand, but

Queen Victoria and her husband Albert, built it for a young,

lively and growing family. There is a painting of the couple with five

of an eventual nine children above the dining table. On the top floor,

there is a nursery, almost a baby factory and half a mile way a,

through the trees, there is a beach. Osbourne was a private family home.

It was a place of escape for the Royal Family. Somewhere they could

lead a degree of normal family life and I think the beach down here

particularly gave the family and particularly the children an

enormous sense of freedom and enjoyment.

The family sketched. The Queen herself painted this. They

collected sea shells and they swam. Prince Albert designed a floating

swimming pool moored in the bay, only this model survives. In it,

Victoria's children and her grandchildren could learn to swim

in safety. It is a lovely spot. It is tranquil and secluded and you

can see why Albert and Victoria liked it so much. Albert used to

say that the views across the Solent towards Portsmouth reminded

him of the Bay of Naples in Italy. Though not, it has to be said, on a

day like today. Despite the weather, they are hard

at work preparing to open the beach for the public and in pride of

place this - Queen Victoria's bathing machine.

It is a changing room on wheels really and the Queen would enter

the bathing machine from the back with her bathing attendant and

change into her bathing costume and the whole thing would have been

wenched down into the sea along the stone tracks. Once the bathing

machine was in the water, up to the level of the axles, I suspect, the

Queen emerged from this front door down the steps, in her bathing

costume and starts swimming. The first time she used it, the

first time she swam in the sea, Victoria wrote, "I thought it

delightful, until I put my head underwater when I thought I should

be stifled." It is thought she used the machine which had a lavatory

plumbed in until she was in her 60s, a place Osbourne, where she loved,

where she spent some of her Now the weather with Laura Tobin

and there are high hopes that the jet stream that has been bringing

us all this bad weather. Now the weather. The jet stream could be

weather. The jet stream could be about to shift. Is this true?

The finger of blame has been pointing at the jet stream so far

for the terrible summer many of us have been experiencing. The jet jet

stream is a fast moving ribbon of air. This year, this summer, it has

been further south than normal, bringing succession of wet and

windy weather across the UK UK. That's why we had the wettest June

on record. And a wet start to July. There are signs the jet stream will

move north, taking the weather fronts across the north of Scotland

where they need it, further south, bringing drier and brighter weather.

Today, in the south, it is dry for many people and where the sun is

breaking through, temperatures are climbing to 23 Celsius. That is

what we should be experiencing for July. The best of any brightness is

in the east. In the West, there is a lot of cloud and here it remains

damp, quite drizzly and fairly cool as well. The unsettled weather with

us for today and and for a few days yet.

For Northern Ireland, for the rest of the afternoon, overcast skies

and outbreaks of rain and drizzle, Western Scotland staying gri. The -

- grey. The north-east sticks with the brightness for the longest.

Into the north-west of England, cool, grey skies. Temperatures

struggling to 15 Celsius or 16 Celsius. But you have to come

further south to find the sunshine. A gentle south-westerly wind today.

Lighter than we saw yesterday with the sunshine, is giving rise to

these temperatures of 21, 22, 23 Celsius. However, still around

Cornish coasts and around Pembrokeshire, the south-westerly

wind feeding in low cloud, mist and fog. Grey across the hills of Wales,

but iland we start to see the sunshine breaking through. A fine

evening across England and Wales, but overnight the rain sets in

again. It pushes through Northern Ireland into Southern Scotland,

stretching back through the West of England and Wales. A mild night to

come tonight. A wet looking day on Wednesday. Persistent rain through

southern areas of Scotland and into Northern Ireland. An inch or two

with saturated ground could lead to localised flooding and showers

follow on behind. They will be heavy, but as we head towards the

end of the week for the Open which starts on starts, there after the

outlook is dry and bright. The risk of a few showers. This is how the

outlook is for Thursday and Friday. Thursday, still heavy, thundery,

slow moving showers. By Friday, they are fewer and further between.

This is what has happened towards the end of the week as high

pressure pressure builds, our jet stream moves. As we head into the

week, we get to see more sunshine. Good news at last!

A reminder of our top story: The boss of the security firm G4S

is forced to admit the failure to provide enough Olympic security

guards is a humiliating shambles. Still to come on the BBC News