08/12/2015 BBC Newsline

The widow of a Tyrone man who drowned in a flood

says she feels like she is in the middle of a bad dream.

The former show band singer Ivan Vaughan, whose stage name was Simon

Scott, had been travelling from Glaslough across the border to his

According to Gardai, the 70-year-old was swept away as he tried to get

It was Ivan Vaughan's understandable decision to abandon this car

after it became trapped in flood water on Sunday night.

That was to have such tragic consequences.

Ivan had played a gig and was on his way home.

The amount of flooding which has clearly taken place here

Fields, fences and crucially the road are all still covered,

one can only imagine the sheer force with which the water must have been

pushing through at the height of the storm on Sunday night.

Alone in the vehicle in the dark, in the pouring rain, it seems Ivan

Ivan was also known by his stage name of Simon Scott.

Yesterday, his wife reported him missing.

his body was found ten metres from his car.

Gardai believe he had been swept away by the sheer force

He wasn't a great swimmer but he could swim.

They found his coat floating on top of the water.

So, he would have had that on, I would say,

when he got out of the car, and took it off because it was hindering him,

I don't know how deep the water was, I would say,

Ivan performed with the Plattermen in the '60s and '70s and more

Today, tributes flew in from the world of entertainment and beyond.

All I can say is the man had great enthusiasm and knowledge for music.

He loved it whether it was old country visit or modern pop music,

A real tragedy, he is in our thoughts and prayers,

For his friends, family and music colleagues,

there is some consolation in the fact Ivan was doing what he loved,

Five people have been rescued by firefighters from two cars trapped

It happened on the Armagh Road in Moy just after 2.30 this afternoon.

Crews from Belfast, Armagh, Portadown and Dungannon were

There've been calls for the Environment Minister to explain

why he's given the go-ahead for a big development on a flood plain.

The company behind it insists it has addressed the concerns

Here's our North-West reporter, Keiron Tourish.

It's called the Three Rivers Project because it's close to where

the Finn, Mourne and Foyle all meet on the Strabane-Lifford border.

But, from these aerial pictures of the weekend flooding,

it's almost impossible to make out the rivers and where you'd normally

It's here where there's a plan to build a ?50 million

business and leisure complex, with the promise of 1,700 jobs.

But the site's on an existing flood plain.

We have employed one of the world's leading consultancy teams.

They studied the area, modelled the flood patterns

and have come up with a solution which will widen the river

and increase capacity so water will convey down the river

and won't be dumped on hundreds of acres of agricultural land.

But the local Strabane Chamber Of Commerce has concerns.

We have concerns over the level of the flood protection.

While the wrangle continues over the development, local businesses

who were forced to close at the weekend, say an adequate

The weather is something that is very unpredictable

The minister says he is fully aware that the development site

He has made it clear to the development company

that they must put in place adequate mitigation measures

Tonight, a BBC Spotlight programme examines the Government's insistence

that secret archives from the Troubles must be withheld

It investigates the potential implications of this for alleged

military killings, where soldiers are accused of shooting civilians.

People will say how did your father died and I will say he is murdered

in the troubles. Was he had policemen? No, they shot him, the

Army. He was an innocent man shot dead by the army. And you can see

them go, oh, really? You can see the kind of debt. -- doubt.

And you can see Spotlight here on BBC One immediately

On the eve of the deadline for nominations for leadership,

Arlene Foster is the only person in the running to succeed

The deputy leader Nigel Dodds pulled out yesterday

She says she is humbled by the level of support.

I have put my name in for leadership of the party.

I have been humbled by the amount of support I have received in a

short space of time and I very much look forward to leading the party

I believe I have the ability and vision to take this party

forward into the next 100 years of Northern Ireland.

A man who is terminally ill says changes to the allocation

of specialist cancer drugs in Northern Ireland will help many

Allister Murphy from Newtownabbey was diagnosed with prostate cancer

in 2008 and was refused drugs which would have been given

The new rules will relax the criteria by which those

decisions are made - but Mr Murphy says he believes the changes have

It's a national health service, it's not a national health service, it's

not original health service and I have taken part in a number of

cancer drug trials which have kept me alive. The ironic bit about those

trials is one in particular was based in Northern Ireland, this is

the world Centre, is not available to men in Northern Ireland, even

though Northern Ireland was the centre for the trial. My condition

needed to be met earlier and in January this year, I would have met

all the conditions for that drug, all the conditions for trial access

and stuff, but I was turned down on the basis of cost, despite the fact

that my current treatment costs more than the drug they turned me down

for, which is crazy. Some outpatient clinics

at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald have been cancelled until Thursday

because of what has been described as unprecedented pressure

on the Emergency Department. Ambulances were diverted

from the department for several hours today and three clinics were

cancelled to free up staff. In a statement, the South Eastern

Health and Social Care Trust appealed for people to consider

other care options while the And Good Morning Ulster tomorrow

will be looking at plans by the Health Minister to ban

smoking in cars carrying children. The latest weather prospects now,

with Geoff Maskell. Good evening. After a chilly start

to the night, we are seeing cloudy start to fill in from the West and

that heralds the arrival of some rain but the wee small hours of

tomorrow. What you will notice is those temperatures starting to

recover as we head towards dawn. This is the first band of rain, it

should be out of the way by the time that most people are heading to work

tomorrow but Wednesday is still wet and windy story. So this is the

picture for your drive to work, rain clearing out to the east and then

for rush-hour, in the main, it should be a reasonably dry picture

but if we take the wider view across the whole of the British Isles, we

see Ireland and Scotland having a very different day to England and

Wales. The one common factor is a strong westerly breeze picking up

through the day. For us, as we go through the afternoon, we have that

band of rain coming in as the cold front sink slowly south. Keep an eye

on the wind gauges, 24, 30 winds and behind it, into some cold air.

Tomorrow, a high of ten or 11 degrees. By the time begetter

Thursday rather different feel to the weather. Still the showers the

showers continue but much more of a wintry element over the higher

ground. The good news is between the showers, there will be brighter

spells. As we had through this week, there is certainly an increasingly

wintry note to our weather. Our next BBC Newsline is at 6.25

in the morning