23/12/2013 BBC News at Six

Heavy rain and galeforce winds hit much of the UK, causing widespread

disruption and threatening chaos for Christmas travel. Thousands of homes

are without power, and as the rain sweeps in, many flood warnings are

in place. Roads and train services are affected with cancellations and

speed restrictions on some lines. We have to make it up as we go along,

we just have to leave it until the afternoon, and we might get stuck

and we don't want to get stuck in the wrong place. They talk about 70

mph, but I think these gusts are more than that. Well, it is better

than snow. We'll have the latest on the weather prospects for tonight

and tomorrow. Also in the programme: The former Labour MP and minister

Denis MacShane has been jailed for six months for fiddling his

expenses. Freed from prison. Two members of

the Russian band, Pussy Riot, jailed for protesting in a church, are

given an amnesty. And the vaccine that offers a

potential treatment for brain cancer. We speak to its first

recipient. And coming up in the sport on BBC

News: Cardiff boss Malky Mackay says he expected to be sacked at the

weekend, before the club's owner Vincent Tan changed his mind about

his ultimatum. Good evening. Much of the UK has

been been hit by a fierce storm with heavy rain and winds threatening

chaos for thousands of people preparing for Christmas travel. In

Cumbria, a man has died after falling into a fast-moving river and

a woman has died in a swollen river in Snowdonia. Winds of up to 87 mph

have caused widespread disruption, with thousands of homes without

power in Berkshire and the West Country. High winds and torrential

rain have also affected travel. Roads have been closed, train

operators are warning of delays, disruptions and cancellations and

cross-channel ferries have been affected as well. Jon Kay reports on

the day's events. Merry Christmas. This was Devon as

the storm hit land after speeding across the Atlantic overnight. It's

been like this since the first thing this morning in the south-west of

England. Torrential rain, nonstop, driving winds. Not exactly a festive

start to Christmas week. Santer won't be going down this chimney. On

Dartmoor, properties were left damaged by winds of 70 mph. It

happened at 8:30am this morning when the chimney got taken off. As the

storm made its way across the South of England, thousands of homes were

left without power, from lands end to the outskirts of London. There

were similar scenes in West Wales, where roads were blocked and flood

warnings were issued, as river levels rose quickly. The timing

could not have been much worse. This was always going to be one of the

busiest days for Christmas travel, but the QE2 bridge between Kent and

Essex has been closed until tomorrow morning, and in Somerset, the M5

provided frightening conditions the motorist. It was quite buffeting.

When you overtake the trucks, you have to be prepared. It is very

blowy. It has been horrendous from Swindon through Redding and Exeter.

This is a prolonged period it's not looking great for tomorrow. And on

Boxing Day, we could be having more the same. Pretty awful Christmas

period, I think. For those relying on the railways, getting to the

station was just the first battle. Passengers then faced delays, speed

restrictions and cancellations in many parts of the UK. We just

completely make it up as we go along because we don't know which service

will be running. We know if we leave it till the afternoon, we'll be

stuck on we don't want to get stuck in the wrong place over Christmas.

They talk about 70 mph, but I think it's more than that. But it's better

than snow. There are more than 20 blockages at the moment, and wherein

the first few hours of something that will probably last 24 hours.

Cross-channel ferry services have been disrupted. It was a deserted

departure lounge in Portsmouth after a number of cancellations. For

last-minute Christmas shoppers, a case of dodging the weather rather

than the crowds. Southampton's festive market was more drizzle than

glitter. And in London's Hyde Park, this winter wonderland attraction

was forced to close. Leaving Santa Claus hanging around waiting for

things to improve. Well, let's hear how the bad weather

is affecting current road and rail travel. In a moment, we'll hear from

Richard Westcott who's at Euston Station, which has been badly

affected by power supply problems. First though, Sian Lloyd, who's with

the Highways Agency in Birmingham. Sian. Yes, here at the National

traffic operations Centre the staff are monitoring some 4000 cameras

across the motorway network in England. They are also taking calls

from members of the public, getting the very latest situation from

people reporting accidents as they happen. They are really taking a

close, close look at what is happening across the country, then

taking important strategic decisions, such as reducing the

speed limits on the motorways. That is happening an awful lot this

evening. People who are out there travelling today will be aware of

that. The important message from here is for drivers to slow down. If

we take a look at the bank of monitors they are looking at at the

moment, we can see they are focusing very much on the M25. Traffic there

is literally bumper-to-bumper tonight. This is traditionally one

of the busiest days of the year for travelling, and with the appalling

weather conditions we've been having, these high winds and heavy

rain, it's been very difficult for people who are out on the road

tonight. To give you the latest on the hotspots, the QE2 and Dartford

Crossing will remain closed tonight. They are going to look at that

potentially reopening at 4am tomorrow morning. Also in Kent, the

Sheppey Bridge, which is closed, they are looking at taking a

decision on that at about midnight. In Cambridgeshire, the Orwell bridge

is closed to high sided vehicles. Many, many local incidence and

surface water remaining a big problem -- incidentals. And it's

likely to be in the morning as well. But staff have been telling me it's

not as bad as it could have been, because for them it is great when

Christmas falls on Wednesday because people stagger their journey. They

have begun their getaway from Friday, so the message here is that

it's not as bad as it could have been with not so many people on the

road. And Richard Westcott at Euston Station. Where, Richard, there have

been problems due to a loss of power elsewhere? Yes, you heard how bad

the roads were, I can tell you the railways are not a lot more fun. You

probably can't see the big row of cancelled services there. Power

problems further up the line. Engineers are physically talking the

train through the broken signals. Funnily enough, they are not sure it

is storm related, but there are problems across many rail networks

at the moment. Lots of speed restrictions. It is a safety

measure, and for obvious reasons, they have cleared 60 trees from the

lines and they're also mudslides. The trains are running slower, and

it takes longer to get there, but it's a lot safer. What we have seen

today is the tactic, and we saw injuring the Olympics when it was

successful, a pre-emptive strike. They know the problems are coming,

so you get the highway agencies and network rail going on the television

and the Internet saying to people that there will be disruption, so go

earlier. It does seem to have got through, that message. Lots of train

companies letting people use their tickets earlier. Some success there.

But it does look like the storm will keep going through the night and

possibly cause problems in the morning. Richard, thank you for

joining us from Euston, and Sian, from Birmingham. For updates on the

weather and the latest road and rail travel information, you can visit

our website, bbc.co.uk/news. The former Labour MP and government

minister, Denis MacShane, has been jailed for six months for fiddling

his expenses. He'd used fake receipts to claim almost ?13,000.

MacShane is the fifth MP, all from the Labour Party, to be jailed since

the beginning of the scandal over their expenses. Two Conservative

peers have also been sent to prison. Our Political Correspondent, Ben

Wright reports. Just to warn you, there is flash photography in the

report. With his solicitor carrying the

suitcase, Demi -- Denis MacShane was prepared for prison. Last of the

former Labour minister pleaded guilty to filing 19 bogus expense

claims amounting to nearly ?13,000 between 2005 and 2008. He submitted

fake invoices for research work and trips carried out for a think tank

he ran. Mr MacShane was recouping the costs of genuine expenses, but

doing so fraudulently. He stood, looking dejected in the dock, as

Justice Sweeney delivered his sentence.

It is hugely damaging. Three or four years on from the expenses scandal,

we see yet another MP going to prison. Justice has been done, but

the public will ask when it will end. Denis MacShane entered the

Commons in 1994, a passionate pro-European, Tony Blair made him a

minister, but he is the third MP to be imprisoned for fiddling expenses.

The old system has been scrapped, but the scandal stunned voters and

battered their trust in politics. The judge said the case of Denis

MacShane was different to other former MPs convicted of fraud

because he was not motivated by greed. He did not seek to make a

profit and line his own pockets. However, the judge said he had

damaged parliament and democracy. As he was led from the dock, the former

European minister was heard to mutter, wearily, Quelle Surprise. He

will be released after three months of his six-month sentence, but it is

the latest political career to be cut down because of expenses claims.

The entertainer Rolf Harris has been charged with three more counts of

sexual assault, including one allegation against a girl aged seven

or eight. Harris, who's 83, has already been charged with 13

offences. The Crown Prosecution Service said the allegations related

to one existing complainant and two new ones. He's due to face trial in

April. South Africa's Civil Aviation

Authority says a British Airways plane which struck an office

building at Johannesburg Airport had taken the wrong taxiway. Four people

in the building were hurt when the Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet, en route for

Heathrow, apparently took a runway that was too narrow for the

aircraft. The 185 passengers and crew on the plane were unhurt.

Talks to resolve some of the most contentious issues in Northern

Ireland are due to take place this evening. The former US diplomat

Richard Haas has been trying to help political parties there reach a deal

about flags, parades and other issues. Let's go now to our Ireland

Correspondent, Chris Buckler, who is in Belfast.

Richard Haass has now delivered his fourth draft proposals to try to

deal with these huge issues. However the politicians have not started to

discuss them yet. The talks were scheduled for this morning but have

been delayed, delayed again and are now not due to begin until 8:30pm.

Each of the subject, flags, parades, the past, are incredibly

important in terms of and politics in Northern Ireland. Images of

instability resulting from decades of division. They are the pictures

all too often associated with Northern Ireland. Trouble blamed on

problems linked to flags, parades and the past. And issues like

contentious parades and protests often stir strong emotions. At a

Loyalist rally at the weekend, the American diplomat leading the talks,

Richard Haass, was told in one -- by one politician to go away in no

uncertain terms. I really think you should go home. Michael Copeland of

the Ulster Unionist party has since apologised, but it's in areas like

this part of north Belfast that need to find a better way of Dalian with

parades -- dealing with. I think it could be resolved, but there needs

to be a wheel from the Republicans and loyalists to sit down and talk

to each other. -- a will. All of these are rooted in the past. There

are families who hope that any agreement will in some way benefit

victims. This exhibition he is their stories. It was funded by European

peace money and put together by a former IRA hunger striker. It is

amazing what we did come out of, so if we are talking about these

issues, I think it means we are moving forward. But so far the

politicians cannot agree any deal on the issue of flags. It is a year

since violence followed a decision to only fly the union flag above

Belfast City Hall on designated days, rather than everyday. It

prompted a huge amount of division and debate. Amongst those attending

a public discussion at the Queens University in the city was the

Northern Ireland Secretary. The process does provide an opportunity

to make progress on the most divisive issues in our society, and

I hope that that opportunity will be grasped by the participants. In

Northern Ireland they still talk of two communities. Bringing people

together means overcoming old animosities. A deal was never going

to be easy. Richard Haass has set a strict deadline of Christmas Day in

trying to work out whether this process will work. It is now late on

the 23rd of December, and still the politicians have not got around the

table. Everyone in this process is making clear that they believe that

this evening 's talks will be crucial in working out whether the

talks are a success or failure. our main story this evening: Gale

force winds and heavy rain cause cancellations on the row ways and

threaten the Christmas getaway on the roads. -- the railways. England

try to revive the Ashes fortunes for the fourth test.

Coming up in Sportsday: Chelsea look to continue their winning record

against Arsenal this evening. A trial has begun of a vaccine to

treat brain cancer. The first patient in Europe has received the

treatment at Kings College Hospital in London. The vaccine is designed

to train the body's immune system to recognise and destroy tumour cells.

Each year, 9000 people are diagnosed with some form of a brain tumour.

Almost 5000 people a year die from the condition.

Robert is a veteran stage and screen actor but six months ago, he started

having seizures. He was part of the acclaimed National Theatre

production of Othello and was worried in case he collapsed on

stage. I had an understudy and I said to him, if I get ill on stage,

just take over the lines, but it never happened. His career, which

included TV shows like Doctor who came to an abrupt halt when a brain

tumour was diagnosed. Then he was offered the chance to be the first

patient in Europe to have a personalised vaccine created to

treat their brain cancer. First, soldier surgeons removed and

destroyed his June. They took specialist cells. The aim is to

teach the cells to recognise, seek out and destroy the cancer.

Immunotherapy is emerging as an increasingly important area of

cancer research. This is a trial involving personalised cancer

vaccines, training the person's own immune system to fight the disease.

This was the moment when Robert received one of the course of

injections of his own tailor-made vaccine. London's Kings College

Hospital is one of more than 50 centres, the rest are in the US,

which are part of a landmark trial which will decide whether this

personalised medicine gets approval. Even if a tumour seems the same in

two patients, the genetics of it are very varied. One size fits all

treatment is probably not optimal. There is a need to base the

treatment on a patient's own cancer type. Early trials in the US were

promising, Dublin life expectancy from 18 months to three years.

Robert, whose tumour was near the part of the brain dealing with

language, is having speech therapy and hopes to eventually return to

the stage. The remaining jailed members of the

Russian punk band Pussy Riot have been released. They have been freed

as part of amnesty which they described as a public relations

stunt ahead of the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February. The three

women group were jailed for performing a protest song in the

Cathedral 18 months ago. This report contains flash photography.

The best-known face of the famous Russian protest group Pussy Riot.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova walked free long after nightfall in Siberia.

After one year nine months and 20 days behind bars, she claimed she

had only been released because of the Winter Olympics. I am calling

for a boycott of the Olympics because the amnesty is not enough.

It is just cosmetic. To release us just before the end of our sentence

is just ridiculous. Far more people should be freed. 2000 miles to the

west, her fellow band member Maria Alyokhina had been released earlier.

TRANSLATION: We will be more organised in the future but we are

going to use the same sort of methods. It was this dance routine

in balaclavas and bright tights in Moscow's main cathedral which landed

them in prison. The song is a prior to the Virgin Mary to rid Russia

Vladimir Putin. They were jailed the two years, as part of a crackdown on

opposition activists. Russia's most famous and long serving political

listener, Mikhail Khordokovsky, was also freed three days ago, but today

he told the BBC that he didn't think President Putin had changed.

TRANSLATION: I am convinced that Putin is making these decisions

about political prisoners now for purely cosmetic reasons. It is not a

sign of a change in his politics but change is possible. In a matter of

weeks, Russia's jails have been emptied of all the most

controversial prisoners, Pussy Riot, Mikhail Khordokovsky and the 30

Greenpeace activists. The only rational explanation is February

that Sochi Winter Olympics but it shows how much power in Russia rests

in the hands of just one man, Vladimir Putin.

Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the world's most widely used assault

rifle, the AK-47, has died in Russia and the AK-47, has died in Russia

added of 94. He started to design weapons while serving in the Red

Army in World War II and came up with the iconic AK-47 in 1947. His

pride in his invention was mixed with the pain of seeing it used by

criminals and child soldiers. Graeme Swann has denied taking a

swipe at his former England team-mates. He's attempted to

clarify comments he made about certain players, saying he wasn't

referring to the current England squad. The former spin bowler, whose

shock retirement yesterday, just days before the fourth test, has

come in the middle of what's been called England's worst Ashes tour in

memory. Our chief sports correspondent Dan Roan reports from

Melbourne. Having shocked England by calling

time on his international career mid-tour, Graeme Swann continues to

make headlines. He is now making an impact with his words rather than

wickets. A day after seeing him quit, his former team-mates were

trying to put a brave face on things in Melbourne, but it was what had

been written about them back home which was causing a stir. Graeme

Swann had accused certain players of arrogant saying some had no idea how

far they are up their own backsides. That is being interpreted as a swipe

against England, something he denies. The man who is replacing him

says there is no rift. He knows who he is referring to. We are right

behind him. We loved him to bits. When he played with us, he had great

character, his sense of humour was good. We all back him. But when

Swann's shock retirement has forced England to call on two more

spinners. With three days to go until the fourth test match here in

Melbourne, these England players are trying their best to be good

tourists, but the reality is that this is a tour gone bad. No such

problems for Australia, basking in the glory that is having regained

the Ashes. The hosts are taking it in their stride and are refusing to

get drawn in the chaos. All I can speak for resource. We are all good

mates in our rooms. We are happy with the way things are going.

Australia, you sense, are enjoying this, as they target a whitewash.

The gulf between them and their opponents is growing wider by the

day. Let's return to our main story, the severe weather affecting much of

the country. Gale force winds and heavy rain has

caused widespread disruption across the UK. Robert Hall is in

Southampton. What is the latest from there? This is the port control.

They look after 100 square miles of busy waterway. But it is not so busy

today. These are some pictures we filmed before it got dark. Heavy

rain and waves. Flights at Southampton airport have been

disrupted. Ferry services to and from the Isle of Wight as well. When

you look at the pictures in the control rooms, you can see the

problems ships have. They have to navigate down this channel. We have

ships at anchor unable to come into port. The other issues getting

pilots on and off ships. I spoke to one earlier who had taken a cruise

liner out. He said he was taking his passport in case he could not get

off the ship. And one of the pilot launches, they said the waves down

here, just as you get into the English Channel were up to 30 feet

high. They said they had not seen conditions as bad as that for 16

years. The weather is still forecast to worsen as we go towards midnight.

Let's look at a forecast for all of us. How is it looking for the next

24 hours? Not good. Across the south coast of

England, we have seen reports of waves as high as 30 feet. It is very

rough out there. On land it is a combination of very heavy rain and

wind. A windy evening everywhere. The rain has eased off for a time

now. It is set to return. It will push in quite quickly through this

evening. Another spell of what weather to come. We will see rivers

rising further, lots of water on the roads. At the same time as the heavy

rain pushes in, the totals are rising now. Gusts up to 80 mph

potentially across the south-east coast of England and even inland

through the early hours of the morning. That is enough to cause

some damage and further disruption. Elsewhere across the UK, a windy

night as well. It is across Northern Ireland and western Scotland

tomorrow that we see the worst of the weather. Heavy snow pushing

through as well across the higher ground of Scotland. England and

Wales, at least it gets drier and brighter. Another windy day. As we

head into Christmas, things will finally begin to quieten down. The

isobars are opening up on the chart. That means the winds will start to

ease. There is someone treeless as we go into Christmas day. I would

not rule out the odd flake of snow. That continues into Boxing Day as

well. Boxing Day is the day to get out and about. It is also a little

on the chilly side. It does not last. More rain starting to head Ian

and that is another storm for the end of the week. It looks like it

could be just as intense. The potential for further disruptions.

It is quieter across Christmas itself. Thank you.

That is all from the