18/10/2016 BBC News at Six

Teenage killers - a 15 year old girl is found guilty of murdering

Elizabeth Edwards and 13 year old Katie were killed in their beds -

the teenager and her boyfriend had planned the murder in detail.

These two were 14 years of age when they planned and committed

these callous senseless and unprovoked attacks

Both killers are too young to be named.

The controversial and long awaited decision on airport

Ministers will choose next week - but a final decision

The rising cost of fuel and clothing pushes inflation up to its highest

There were challenges. We were kept at a distance and the panel had

concerns about the qualities of leadership.

New revelations about the troubled inquiry into child sex abuse -

Melania Trump is standing by her man - she says his comments

Remembering the victims of the Aberfan disaster 50 years ago -

a special report on how a mining community was let down

Leicester City look to take a giant step towards qualification

for the knock out stages of the Champions League by securing

Good evening and welcome to the BBC News at Six.

A 15 year old girl has been found guilty of murdering a mother

and daughter as they slept at their home in Spalding

The trial in Nottingham heard how the teenager and her boyfriend -

both 14 at the time - planned to kill Elizabeth and Katie

The boyfriend pleaded guilty to murder before the trial began

but the girl claimed that mental illness diminished her

They are thought to be the youngest couple found guilty

At 1230 this afternoon in court two the 15-year-old girl was told to

stand to listen to the verdicts and she showed no emotion as she was

unanimously found guilty of murder. Relatives of the victims in court

cried out and sobbed at the end of this harrowing case.

Liz Edwards and her daughter Katie were found murdered in their home

They were both well liked and adored each other.

This crime is exceptional, though, because they were killed

by two children, a boyfriend and girlfriend drawn together

She was today found guilty of murder, and has never

What makes this case even more shocking is that these two were 14

years of age when they planned, committed these callous,

senseless and unprovoked attacks on Elizabeth and Katie.

This case has left a number of lifes in ruins, not only Elizabeth

and Katie's families but also the two juveniles who committed

Liz Edwards, 49 years old, and enjoying Christmas with the man

Friends say she was happy and content.

I did notice a change in her, she was a lot happier in herself,

she met somebody she could trust who loved her kids as much

as she did which I thought was really sweet.

Jane Blanford also knew Liz Edwards and said

And she has strong views on the two 14-year-olds who sat down to watch

teen romance vampire films after they killed.

I hope he gets locked up and they throw the key away,

She could have had a bright future ahead of her.

If this didn't happen, he could have had a bright future.

They have thrown everything all the way.

And they didn't just throw everything away on a whim,

the two teenagers planned these murders in detail and they sat

And on the night of the killings the boy walked along

this river in the dark to rendezvous with the girl,

carrying kitchen knives to kill their victims.

What happened next was described in court as cold, calculated,

The girl told police she'd felt like murdering for quite a while.

And that a gun would have been easier, the knife

The murder weapon was shown to the jury who were asked

to consider if the girl was mentally ill.

The personal possessions of the victims have now gone

from an end terrace in a Lincolnshire cul-de-sac.

Many people will be left wondering how an intense teenage romance got

to the point where killing this well liked mum and daughter

The two 15-year-olds will be sentenced next month and they have

to remain anonymous because of their age, although a judge could lift

that order when it comes to sentencing, so in a few weeks we

could be publicly -- they could be publicly identified. Thanks for

joining us. The timetable for the long awaited

decision on expanding Britain's airport capacity has

become clearer tonight. Ministers will decide next week

whether Heathrow or Gatwick should be expanded but a final vote

in parliament will only take place at the the end of next

year - at the earliest. The controversial decision has

been repeatedly delayed. Let's talk to our deputy political

editor John Penaar. The crucial choice of where and how

to expend Britain's airport capacity has hung in the air for over a

quarter of a century and today it has drawn closer, there will be a

government recommendation next week, Heathrow or Gatwick, but

Parliament's you won't be heard for years. He throws the controversial

and most likely candidate, Demos have run for years, split parties

and now the Cabinet -- Heathrow is. John McDonnell was holding the

placard, and of course Boris Johnson, now Foreign Secretary, who

offered protesters this pledge the moment he was re-elected as MP. I

will lie down in front of those bulldozers and stop the building.

Stop the construction of that third runway. Theresa May has said those

with strong views could stick to them but not campaign actively, and

there will be no resignations, for now, but plenty of debate. Very

important to get the decision and to get it right, we have been waiting

for a long time for airport expansion in the UK and we need it,

and after Brexit if we're going to be an open trading nation and

looking at a new alliance around the world, we will need airport

capacity. And you change your mind on Heathrow expansion? There is more

at stake on Cabinet unity, but that is at stake and Theresa May is

keeping her top team intact, at least until the final reckoning,

until then, one of the most reduced debates in post Brexit Britain

continues -- one of the most controversial debate. There might be

no final political decision until deep into 2018 and even then there

is every chance of a legal challenge, led by Greenpeace and a

line-up of local authorities including one in Theresa May's own

backyard. After 25 years of wrangling, those who have been

pressing for this decision may just have to wait. STUDIO: Thanks, John.

Inflation's on the rise - up nearly half a percentage point

At 1%, it's at the highest rate for nearly two years.

Rising prices for clothes and petrol are behind the rise.

Here's our Economics Editor Kamal Ahmed.

How much we spend on a meal out. How much we pay to fill up with fuel.

How much we pay for what we wear. All have increased in price as

inflation starts to march upward. And it is just the start. I think it

is fair to say that the trajectory for inflation from here is likely to

be up and that really is largely as the falls in the currency feed

through to higher import prices, we have only just started seeing signs

of that. What is behind the inflation spike? Clothing prices

were 6% higher last month as shops slowed aggressive discounting,

restaurant and hotel prices were also up by 0.7% summer bargains

ended. And if you're crept up a little. To 100 and 11p per litre

compared with 100 10p last year, a small increase with larger rises

over the next year. There is a double whammy at the moment, the

main factor is the pound is so much weaker against the dollar, we buy

fuel in dollars and that affects us, and Opec and Russia are talking

about cutting back on production and that puts up the price of crude.

Higher prices for fuel and high prices for food are difficult to pay

especially if they are on lower incomes and also difficult

politically. Theresa May knows there is one key equation in politics, if

inflation is rising faster than incomes, people feel worse off, and

that way lies political risk. That personal risk could crystallise as

early as next year, with predictions inflation could rise above 3%. And

with the government also freezing benefits for people in work, the

just managing classes could be hit hardest. Theresa May has made it

clear she would like to help those families who are just about managing

or struggling to get by but actually that is the kind of group of

families that this freeze in work in benefits affects, not just out of

work families, but in workouts was, things like housing benefit and tax

benefits, and if prices rise they will find it harder to afford them

is like food and fuel over the next few years. There are already

warnings, the head of Tesco in the UK said that food inflation was

lethal for poorer people. Little inflation might be good for the

economy but too much and the consumer will soon start to feel it

in their pocket. Dame Lowell Goddard,

the former head of the inquiry into child sexual abuse,

kept panel members at a distance and would rather have worked

alone, MPs have heard. Dame Lowell Goddard,

the inquiry's third chairwoman, Today the Home Affairs Select

Committee heard evidence from the current chair,

and panel members - our Home Affairs Correspondent Tom

Symonds was watching. They are the panel of experts trying

to deliver a massive public inquiry into the abuse of children. At least

they didn't have to queue for the hearing which would grill them

today, on its troubles. Including the breakdown in relations between

them and their former chair Dame Lowell Goddard. Followed by her

resignation. It was clear from the beginning that Dame Lowell Goddard

would have preferred to have sat on her own without the assistance of

the panel. They were challenges, however. Very all-encompassing word.

And very all-encompassing challenges, as well, but what I will

say, the chair was not always present in the United Kingdom for

that period. The panel had concerns about the qualities of leadership

that were being evidenced through the course of the inquiry. Was she a

nightmare to work with? I would not use that language. What would you

say? That they were challenges. Dame Lowell Goddard was appointed in

feathery 2015 but the Home Office which set up the inquiry said it

only became aware of problems on the 29th of July this year. Dame Lowell

Goddard resigned six days later, so did the Home Office really not know

earlier? Enter most senior civil servant. The answer is a categorical

no, I wasn't aware and there is nothing in the Home Office records

to suggest any of my staff dealing with the inquiry were aware until it

was brought to my attention on the 29th of July. Apart from months

earlier a Home Office director-general was tipped off by

the inquiry, but agreed not to say anything. One problem for the Home

Office, is that the inquiry is independent of the government, there

are victims groups which are deeply concerned at the number of Home

Office staff working on the inquiry and some of them are strong

supporters of Dame Lowell Goddard. If the government had intervened it

might have been accused of interfering, a new argument, and the

inquiry has had plenty of them. Maybe that is why the Home Secretary

gave this reason for Dame Lowell Goddard's departure. She found it

too lonely, she was a long way away from home. When giving evidence to

MPs in September, without mentioning the tension behind the scenes, and

today one member of the committee said they had been misled. Tom

Symons, BBC News. President Obama has described

the start of the military operation to take back the Iraqi city of Mosul

- from so-called Islamic State - The city has been under

the extremists since the summer of 2014 and dislodging them

is expected to take many weeks. From the South,

Iraqi Security Forces - backed by coalition air strikes -

have captured a string of villages. From the east, Kurdish

Peshmerga Forces have also Our Correspondent Orla Guerin

is travelling with them In the distance, Mosul, a city in

waiting for deliverance from a brutal regime. It is the last

bastion of IS in Iraq, but for how much longer? On the rise in today,

black smoke from burning oil. -- horizon. Extremists trying to thwart

attacks on the air, but as the net closes on so-called Islamic State

read the risks are increasing for those trapped down below in a Mosul,

there is the danger of coalition air strikes, IS could try to use the

local population as human shields, and if and when Iraqi forces make it

inside the city there could be caught in the crossfire -- Bay. This

is what IS want you to see from inside Mosul, its latest propaganda

video paints a picture of normality. The message is, all is well, anyone

daring to say otherwise could be beheaded.

, "thank you God Everything Eventually is fine. It's peaceful

here, the TV channels really lying. Lying, lying, lying." Victory over

IS can look like this. A year ago they were driven from this area by

air strikes and troops from Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, the

Peshmerga. But this area is cleared? Yes. They took us to see what IS may

have in store when the battle comes to Mosul. Here, a homemade chemical

weapon. Chlorine gas attached to an improvised mortar. Crude, but

potentially lethal. The fuses have already been removed. How many of

these did you find? 24. Just in this village? Just in this village. As

the Peshmerga advance deeper into IS territory, new insights below

ground. This hidden lair was uncovered yesterday. They built a

bedroom to rest, he says, there were blankets. The extremists had the

basics for survival hidden from view. The authorities here hope they

will run out of hiding places in the coming weeks and months. Orla

Guerin, BBC News, east of Mosul. The time is a little after 6. 15pm.

The mother and daughter murdered by teenage killers,

a 15-year-old girl and her boyfriend are found guilty.

An invitation to the Palace for Britain's Olympic

Tour de France winner, Chris Froome, says questions still remain over

Sir Bradley Wiggins seeking permission to use a banned

This week, the people of Aberfan in South Wales are having to relive

the terrible events of half a century ago when a mountain

of coal waste collapsed onto the village school,

claiming the lives of 116 children and 28 adults.

The scale of the disaster made headlines around the world

and people gave generously to support the shattered community.

But, as Huw Edwards reports, the families of Aberfan had to fight

for decades for justice, a fight that started on that Friday

NEWS REEL: We are now returning to the newsroom.

Disaster struck suddenly this morning at the small Welsh

coalmining village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil.

At 9.15am, on the last morning of lessons before half-term,

Pantglas Junior School was buried underneath a mountain of coal waste.

The scale of the loss, 116 children and 28 adults,

is still difficult to comprehend, half a century later.

What happened at Aberfan was one of the greatest disasters

in the modern history of Wales, indeed the modern history

of the United Kingdom, and it's important to get one thing clear,

It was a man made disaster, it was entirely foreseeable and it

of negligence, arrogance and incompetence.

One of those who survived the disaster, her life

still overshadowed by the events of 50 years ago, is Gaynor Madgwick.

She was eight at the time and lost her brother Carl and sister

Marylyn on that day, she's since written a book

We met in the memorial garden on the site of

The ceiling of the school had come in and it landed on half

the children and I had a radiator, that had come off the wall,

I just remember looking at another friend of ours, who had literally

tried to climb up through the roof, which was on top of the children,

and she said, "I'm going to get help, I'm going

I was whisked away in the ambulance to St Tydfil's Hospital

and I remained there, isolated I feel, for over three months.

And it was then, in the evening time, that I was told

that my brother and my sister had died and all my friends had

Within weeks of the disaster, an official tribunal was set

up, under the Welsh, Judge Edmund Davies,

ARCHIVE: Well, I should hate to think that anybody

would connect me with any whitewashing exercise.

But getting straight answers from the National Coal Board,

the public body which owned the mines, proved a very

The Chairman of the National Coal Board was Lord Robens and he denied

any responsibility for the disaster and kept on insisting that it

ARCHIVE: We have our normal procedures for ensuring that pits

are safe, but I'm bound to say that we have no proceedure that

tells us that there is a spring deep down under a mountain.

This is the site of the old Merthyr Vale Colliery, this is where

the coal waste was put in trams and then sent across the valley

and piled high on the mountains opposite and those tips used

There was plenty of evidence, based on previous incidents,

that piling this waste on wet mountain sides was an exceptionally

risky and dangerous thing to do, and yet those warnings were ignored.

By the time the report was published, the National Coal Board

had been forced to admit that the disaster was foreseeable.

It was blamed, unequivocally, for what had happened,

but no-one was disciplined or sacked.

I only wish that Lord Robens was here today.

They should have been sent to jail, lost their jobs.

But the battle was far from over, there was still coal tips

above Aberfan and people, quite naturally, wanted them gone,

but no-one was ready to pay - not the Government, not the Coal

The families lobbied the Welsh Office in Cardiff

demanding help, what they got instead from the Welsh Secretary,

He wanted the local community to use their charity fund

ARCHIVE: Of course they will pay what they can afford,

but the scheme will depend on what they pay.

It took 30 years for the people of Aberfan to regain

the money they'd lost, it was finally repaid

by the Welsh Government and today the gardens and memorials

of the village have been restored giving the families the sense

Collectively, we've been able to 50 years get through it as a family.

I've always said Aberfan is a family.

We've shared our thoughts and feelings, so many good things

have come out of Aberfan and have you to think like that.

You know, they are courageous, courageous people.

That was Gaynor Madgwick, a survivor of the Aberfan disaster,

speaking to Huw Edwards in this week of the 50th anniversary.

Tonight, at 10.45pm on BBC One, Huw will be telling the story

In the United States, Melania Trump has insisted

that her husband, Donald Trump, is a "gentleman" and that women

who've alleged that he sexually assaulted them are lying.

She also said that lewd comments he made about women that were caught

on videotape did not represent the man she knows.

Women are under attack, what do we do?

A protest this morning outside the Trump headquarters in Philadelphia.

There's ongoing outrage here over the billionaire's obscene remarks

that were caught on tape and the allegations that he

We're sick of him, we're sick of his comments.

We don't want a sexual assaulter as our president.

I think he has zero respect for women.

In the midst of this storm, a serene Melania Trump, a wife,

turned character witness, prepared to forgive her husband.

Those words, they were offensive to me and they were inappropriate

and he apologised to me, and I accept his apology.

It's in the American suburbs that this election will be decided

and here female voters often have the decisive say.

Andrea is still voting Trump and thinks Bill Clinton

I think Bill Clinton is the epitome, the epitome,

And for Hillary to tolerate that, she's just as bad.

But a new poll, in the Philadelphia suburbs, found that Donald Trump

trails Hillary Clinton by a staggering 43% amongst female

voters, the kind of numbers that spell disaster for his campaign.

Nick Bryant, BBC News, Philadelphia.

It's not every day you get to visit Buckingham Palace,

but for Team GB's Olympic and Paralympic athletes

After yesterday's parade in Manchester, the teams

will receive a Royal welcome and that comes after a day

Natalie Pirks was there and sent this report.

Your Team GB and Paralympics GB athletes.

Day Two of the nations' thank you to its Olympic and Paralympic

athletes started here in Trafalgar Square.

I'm not really into sport, but I've been glued to this.

It's incredible, it's been incredible.

If Brazil has samba, London has the Queen's Grenadier

London, in October, isn't exactly the hottest spot north of Havana,

but the sun made a welcome change from the downpour in

Consequently, fans and athletes' families were here in their

thousands to greet Britain's stars, they even got to see a re-enactment

For the athletes though the pleasure was in seeing the public so inspired

I grew up in Penzance, in Cornwall, and I was very far away

The first Olympic medal I'd seen and held was my own,

and I do think that there's something really special and unique

in being able to see that and being able to be really close

It ended with a performance by The Vamps and a whole

Well, all 214 medallists will now swap out of their tracksuits

and into their glad rags because they've got a date

at the Palace, just down the road, but one of them is ready to break

I really want a selfie with her, but I'm not sure I'm going to get

A selfie might be a stretch too far, but at least they all stuck

to the dress code as they arrived here tonight to receive a formal

All of the medallists are in the down stairs State room behind me

meeting the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and the Duke and Duchess

of Cambridge and Prince Harry. There is plenty of room for all of them.

For many of the athletes it will be their first visit to the Palace. For

many others it won't be their last, they are expected to feature heavily

in the new year's honours list. Now the weather with Matt Taylor.

Showers today will continue overnight. Showers across from

Liverpool, Manchester north North Wales into the Midlands. A few down

the eastern coasts as well and northern and western Scotland. In

between all those most of you will stay dry, largely clear. Moon lit

skies, a little on the cool side, seven to nine degrees in towns and

cities. Close to freezing for one or two. The breeze stops temperatures

dropping too much for most. The most will start the day dry an Sunday.

There may be a few showers in the morning drifting to the south-west.

Showers to Scotland, most will fade away. Bulk of the showers throughout

south-east Scotland and ooen eastern counties of England. It will feel

warmer than it has done today. The winds will be strong and gusty along

eastern coasts. The showers will keep going, heavier into the

afternoon and evening, maybe the odd rumble of thunder as well. For the

rest of the week we have this split of high pressure to the west and low

pressure towards the east. The low pressure means we will continue to

see showers feeding in, eastern England in particular. The showers

will be lighter. The rest of the UK largely dry with chilly and misty

mornings. One or two showers to the west on Thursday. Most will stay

dry. Good sunny spells. Lighter winds. Feeling a touch warmer after

that cool start. Down the eastern counties of England a threat of

further showers, East Anglia and the south-east especially. Temperatures

will hold up into Thursday night. Northern and western areas a greater

risk of frost and fog into Friday morning. Dry and bright weather

around central western areas. More cloud in Northern Ireland and

western Scotland. That's all from the BBC News at Six,

so it's goodbye from me, and on BBC One we now join the BBC's

news teams where you are.