04/06/2014 North West Tonight


04/06/2014

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in advance of the general election. That is all

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Welcome to North West Tonight with Roger Johnson and Annabel Tiffin.

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The murder of Rania Alayed was an organised honour killing.

:00:14.:00:17.

Today a judge jailed her husband for at least 20 years.

:00:18.:00:19.

Ahmed didn't like that and he wanted to control her every

:00:20.:00:24.

In an exclusive interview, Rania's family in the Middle East tell us

:00:25.:00:34.

their regret about encouraging her to stay with her violent husband.

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TRANSLATION: I did not try to reconcile her with him.

:00:38.:00:40.

I wish I had pushed her to divorce him long ago.

:00:41.:01:03.

Also tonight Backing for fracking in the Queen's Speech.

:01:04.:01:05.

A lawyer says a Rabbi who was killed by a speeding

:01:06.:01:10.

driver should share the blame for not wearing reflective clothing.

:01:11.:01:12.

How the Mersey ferries played a key role in an audacious

:01:13.:01:17.

Rania Alayed wanted a life away from her abusive husband.

:01:18.:01:21.

Instead, the mother of three young children was murdered

:01:22.:01:25.

Police have tonight described it as an orchestrated honour killing.

:01:26.:01:30.

Rania's husband, Ahmed Al Khatib, has been jailed

:01:31.:01:32.

for life with a recommendation he serve at least 20 years.

:01:33.:01:37.

After killing Rania in a Salford flat, he stuffed her corpse

:01:38.:01:42.

in a suitcase and dumped it on a roadside nearly 90 miles away.

:01:43.:01:46.

Abbie Jones joins us now from the tower block in Salford

:01:47.:01:50.

Rania wanted what most of us took for granted, to go to college, to

:01:51.:02:03.

wear the clothes she wanted but this drove her abusive husband Ahmed Al

:02:04.:02:09.

Khatib crazy with jealousy and anger. Last June he murdered her at

:02:10.:02:13.

a flat in a tower block behind me before dragging her body down in a

:02:14.:02:17.

suitcase to the road below here. Police said today they have no doubt

:02:18.:02:19.

her murder was an honour killing. Ahmed didn't like that

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and he wanted to control her every After she was killed here, her

:02:24.:02:37.

husband understood the help of his two brothers, to dispose of her

:02:38.:02:43.

body. They were both jailed for four years and three years respectively.

:02:44.:02:48.

Mohammed was cleared of her murder. After they buried her body, Ahmed Al

:02:49.:02:53.

Khatib staged an elaborate deception to cover his tracks.

:02:54.:02:59.

Rania Alayed married Ahmed Al Khatib aged just 15 in Syria for love.

:03:00.:03:04.

But her husband was jealous, violent and controlling.

:03:05.:03:06.

When she eventually walked out, he lured her and their children to

:03:07.:03:09.

a Salford flat and then killed her while they were inside.

:03:10.:03:13.

I told Rania's eldest son his mother was in heaven with God.

:03:14.:03:17.

He asked me for a large pair of binoculars because he believed

:03:18.:03:22.

he would be able to see his mother between the stars.

:03:23.:03:27.

Her son also wanted someone to wear a mask of his mother's face so

:03:28.:03:31.

Rania complained of years of domestic abuse living

:03:32.:03:37.

in the north`east when she first came to the UK.

:03:38.:03:39.

She asked for help from police and a solicitor.

:03:40.:03:42.

When she moved to Manchester last year, she started attending college

:03:43.:03:45.

to learn English, making female and male friends.

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She was asked to come here to her brother`in`law's Salford

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Although her husband did all he could to pretend otherwise.

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CCTV shows Ahmed Al Khatib leaving the flat wearing a headscarf to

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He messaged Rania's friends and family trying to convince them

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But instead of going to the police, he and his brother, Mohammed

:04:09.:04:15.

Mahmoud Al Khatib, drove Rania's body north to Yorkshire, burying her

:04:16.:04:18.

She was to have no funeral, no dignity.

:04:19.:04:22.

How far up there are we going to take this?

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Police from two forces have been searching for the mother of three

:04:25.:04:28.

for months using helicopters, sniffer dogs but so far, no trace.

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I've had some sleepless nights about this.

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It may sound silly, I've had dreams, dreams, far`fetched.

:04:37.:04:39.

But the ghost of Rania is telling me.

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It sounds stupid but that's where it gets into your psyche.

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The jury accepted Rania's brother`in`law Mohammed had nothing

:04:53.:04:55.

to do with her murder but it didn't believe Ahmed Al Khatib when he said

:04:56.:05:00.

he was mentally ill when his killed his wife, seeing her as a spirit.

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TRANSLATION: He is a murderous monster.

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He picks and chooses when he wants to be sane.

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All her family want now is to bury her body.

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Rania's murder has been particularly hard for her family still

:05:22.:05:35.

Her parents have been desperately trying to get visas to come to

:05:36.:05:40.

Manchester to see their grandchildren but have been refused.

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Her family say they're also full of regret at encouraging Rania to work

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through her marriage, little knowing she'd pay for that with her life.

:05:47.:05:49.

They spoke exclusively to North West Tonight.

:05:50.:05:51.

Thousands of miles from Manchester, in Lebanon, Rania's family is still

:05:52.:06:00.

They've had to follow her murder, the search for her body

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At least if we had found the body and given her a burial,

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Rania grew up in Syria in a refugee camp.

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It was there she met her husband to be, a blacksmith.

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Her brother remembers Ahmed Al Khatib was violent even then.

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It used to sometimes happen in front of me.

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My sister would tell me, "It's OK, tomorrow he will change.

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If I hadn't memorised my homework he used to beat me up with his belt.

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Once he beat me up until my body was blue.

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Rania and her family hoped her husband would change, that a move to

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England would mean a safer happier life, but by the time she was in

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Manchester, he was haranguing her brother on Facebook, complaining

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about Rania wanting to live life away from her in`laws.

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Chillingly, he wrote, "I swear, if she doesn't come back to her

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senses, I swear on my daughter that we will all be sorry."

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We'd tell her to be patient in the hopes that he'd change

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We would tell her he is still your husband and the father

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I wish I did not try to reconcile her with him.

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I wish I had pushed her to divorce him long ago.

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Now all the family want is to take care of Rania's children.

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We want to help them close and raise them so they wouldn't make

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This isn't the end of Rania Alayed's murder.

:07:55.:08:08.

Greater Manchester Police are currently being investigated by

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the police watchdog over how they handled her domestic abuse case.

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And of course her body is still out there somewhere.

:08:18.:08:20.

The police have promised they will keep searching for Rania Alayed.

:08:21.:08:35.

An engineer has given evidence that there was serious overcrowding

:08:36.:08:38.

at Hillsborough seven months after the tragedy which caused

:08:39.:08:40.

The new inquests heard that the overcrowding happened during

:08:41.:08:44.

a derby match between Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United.

:08:45.:08:46.

Stadium engineer John Strange said efforts had been made to re`assess

:08:47.:08:49.

the capacity of each pen, but the calculations had been based

:08:50.:08:52.

The man set to become Rochdale Council's new leader says he'll

:08:53.:09:00.

press ahead with an independent inquiry into an alleged cover`up of

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Richard Farnell, who's due to be confirmed

:09:04.:09:06.

as leader tonight, says he never saw reports highlighting abuse at Knowle

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View School when he previously led the Council in the early 1990s.

:09:11.:09:15.

The family of a woman from Blackpool who died after falling 30 feet

:09:16.:09:19.

from a wall in Menorca are raising money to bring her body home.

:09:20.:09:22.

Kay Flitcroft, who was 30, was on holiday with her husband when she

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Her relatives say she didn't have travel insurance.

:09:27.:09:39.

If you thought fracking couldn't get any more controversial,

:09:40.:09:42.

In today's Queen's Speech, the coalition Government outlined

:09:43.:09:45.

its plans to make it easier to frack under people's homes.

:09:46.:09:48.

A proposed infrastructure bill will change trespass laws,

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so shale gas companies don't need permission from homeowners to drill

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Opponents of fracking say today was about pomp and circumnavigation,

:09:55.:10:01.

allowing shale gas companies to sidestep trespass laws.

:10:02.:10:09.

The bill will enhance the United Kingdom's energy independence and

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security by opening up access to shale gas and other sites. It came

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as no surprise at all for that we knew they had moved the goalposts.

:10:23.:10:29.

They tried bribing communities. As a resident of Singleton, I'm not

:10:30.:10:31.

interested in that. We don't want it.

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If passed, the new infrastructure bill would remove a huge stumbling

:10:38.:10:40.

As it currently stands, we would have to negotiate with each

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individual landowner. It's quite different for utility companies,

:10:55.:11:00.

Telecom or coal miners, which don't have to do that. It will bring it

:11:01.:11:06.

into line with mining and telecom companies.

:11:07.:11:08.

Fylde coast resident Karen Ditchfield is one

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of thousands who last October joined a Greenpeace campaign to block

:11:11.:11:13.

shale gas drilling beneath their properties by using trespass laws.

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Today's new proposals she says need challenging.

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I am talking about educating yourself. Writing to your MP.

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Writing to all the politicians, informing people. Getting

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communities back together again so that they can say, no, this is not

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what we want. There will still be the established system for planning

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consensus, permits to drill. Environmental assessments. All that

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will remain in place to provide protections which of course we

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understand from the local community. Greenpeace said 74% of the British

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public were opposed to these changes in the trespass laws. Greenpeace

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says it will do all it can to block the proposals.

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An elderly man killed by a speeding driver should share

:12:05.:12:07.

That's the controversial claim made by a

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lawyer who defended the motorist who received a suspended jail sentence.

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He admitted his careless driving caused the death of Hyman Steinberg,

:12:15.:12:17.

According to the lawyer, Mr Steinberg's orthodox Jewish

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And he would have been safer if he had worn something reflective.

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Rabbi Steinberg was dressed as a traditional Orthodox Jew,

:12:28.:12:34.

all in black, when he was knocked down and killed.

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Simon Martins says he didn't see Mr Steinberg until it was too late.

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Rabbi Steinberg was crossing this road on his way to the synagogue

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when the accident happened. The driver was travelling at 42 mph in a

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30 zone and had sent a text message at all `` a short time earlier

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pleaded guilty. driving. The text message was no

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part of it. Is it not a bit insensitive to shift the blame onto

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the man who died? Possibly, some people may view that but we say it's

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We've had two deaths at the Isle of in everybody's

:13:57.:15:13.

We've had two deaths at the Isle of Man TT which is pondered some strong

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words from a pretty well`known rider who was taken part.

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Yes, Scott Redding, a Moto GP rider, says he won't be taking part

:15:23.:15:25.

Karl Harris died in a crash on Tuesday

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after Bob Price had been killed in an accident the day before.

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Scott tweeted this after the second death.

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All the riders that finish are relieved to finish in one piece

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He was a particularly good friend of Bob's who was a mentor to him

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and has since explained he won't be there on Friday, not because he says

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I have anything against the Isle of Man TT, but because I prefer to

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mourn Bob in the places where I knew him best. Not the place

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The organisers of the event have stressed they do try to make

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the races as safe as possible but concede there will always be a risk.

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I've heard people say the TT is too dangerous. These bikes are getting

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faster. Each year, we carry out a full risk assessment with the riders

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themselves so this is carried out on an annual basis. And we improve it

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throughout the year. On a much more positive note,

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Morecambe's John McGuiness has won He's now just five wins short

:16:26.:16:28.

of Joey Dunlop's all`time record. John has been riding with

:16:29.:16:36.

a wrist injury and says it was probably his best chance to notch up

:16:37.:16:39.

a victory this week. Lancashire's cricketers had

:16:40.:16:42.

the weather to thank after their County Championship

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match against Somerset ended The Red Rose, who were following on,

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needed another 122 to make But rain prevented any play

:16:47.:16:51.

on the final day. An international football tournament

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is already under way and The Isle of Man's team,

:16:58.:17:01.

Ellan Vannin, are in the quarterfinals of their

:17:02.:17:04.

first Conifa World Football Cup. The team were outsiders

:17:05.:17:08.

for the tournament but have caused a big surprise by winning both

:17:09.:17:10.

of their opening games in Sweden. Ostersunds in Sweden doesn't scream

:17:11.:17:14.

international sporting venue at you, but it is currently home to a World

:17:15.:17:22.

Cup and this one is a bit different. This is the World Cup for peoples

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and regions outside FIFA and We're only 80,000 people yet we are

:17:27.:17:29.

getting the opportunity to play against possibly Kurdistan,

:17:30.:17:40.

population of 25, 30 million. We don't know but it's putting

:17:41.:17:49.

the Isle of Man out there. In doing so, they help the team

:17:50.:17:54.

of refugees get here too. The Manxmen fundraised so

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Darfur United could fly in The first match

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against Nagorno`Karabakh, and for these players,

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a step into the sporting unknown. After some warming up,

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time for some teeing up. We want to show people all

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around the world that we can play. The Nagorno`Karabakhans, from a

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disputed area in the former Soviet Union were odds`on favourite to

:18:14.:18:15.

win and it soon became clear why. 2`0 up in little more than half

:18:16.:18:20.

an hour but, watched by their Darfuri friends,

:18:21.:18:23.

the Manxmen got one back before the break, equalised late on, and even

:18:24.:18:26.

later on secured a bit of history. Frank Jones's winner made

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waves back to the Irish Sea. They went on to win their group

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for the game against the odds. Next up, the champions Kurdistan

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in the the Well, that quarterfinal between

:18:41.:18:45.

Ellan Vannin and Kurdistan It is 1`0. Thanks very much. The

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real World Cup is not far away now. Very good. Thank you.

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The First World War saw millions of ordinary people pitched into

:19:20.:19:22.

As we continue our commemorations of the centenary of the start of

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the Great War, tonight we tell the story of two little ships and their

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In the latest in our series looking at the war's impact on the home

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front here in the North West, I went along to find out more about

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The Mersey Ferry is as much a part of Liverpool is football,

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They've been shuttling passengers across the water for hundreds

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But long before Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Mersey ferries

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had another spectacular moment of fame when the Iris and the Daffodil

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gave up the mundane commuter routine to become warriors.

:20:03.:20:07.

One night in April 1918, they quietly sailed out of

:20:08.:20:11.

These two little ships, along with many of their regular crew,

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had been drafted in to take centre stage in one of the most audacious

:20:20.:20:22.

The plan was to block Zeebrugge Harbour.

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An important U`boat base by deliberately sinking three

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Now if the ships were to get through,

:20:36.:20:40.

the German guns along the mile`long stone jetty had to be taken on.

:20:41.:20:45.

The Iris's and the Daffodil's job was to land

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They were tubby little ferry boats that could glide over the German

:20:48.:20:55.

minefields that had been laid outside Zeebrugge Harbour.

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And they were sub`divided into so many different compartments,

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And, as you can see on this modern ferry,

:21:03.:21:07.

which almost replicates what they were like, they were a high`density

:21:08.:21:17.

passenger` carrying ship so you could cram lots or soldiers

:21:18.:21:19.

on board. The idea was to put up smokescreen to get

:21:20.:21:27.

the Royal Marines off to attack the

:21:28.:21:30.

U`boat base. The wind blew in the

:21:31.:21:33.

opposite direction so they were

:21:34.:21:34.

terribly exposed and unfortunately, the

:21:35.:21:36.

Iris was shelled and a bomb went through

:21:37.:21:38.

her deck and killed something like 49 of

:21:39.:21:40.

the 56 Marines that were there. Terrible

:21:41.:21:42.

carnage. The Daffodil suffered

:21:43.:21:43.

two shells going through the engine

:21:44.:21:45.

room, so they suffered very badly.

:21:46.:21:46.

The battered ferries limped back across

:21:47.:21:48.

the Channel and, a few weeks later,

:21:49.:21:50.

Pathe newsreel cameras recorded

:21:51.:21:51.

their triumphant return to the

:21:52.:21:52.

Mersey. Civic dignitaries queued

:21:53.:21:54.

up to view the bullet holes and

:21:55.:21:57.

shrapnel damage. When these two

:21:58.:22:01.

little ships, which I suppose you could

:22:02.:22:03.

see them as the Davids against the

:22:04.:22:05.

Goliaths of the German Imperial

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Navy, went over and did their bit in

:22:08.:22:08.

Zeebrugge, they were welcomed like

:22:09.:22:11.

nothing before. So they were put on

:22:12.:22:15.

display in Canning Dock. They were open

:22:16.:22:17.

to the public. The two boats were in a

:22:18.:22:20.

terrible state when they came back but

:22:21.:22:22.

they were restored and then put back

:22:23.:22:24.

into public service. The two ships were

:22:25.:22:27.

scrapped in the 1920s. Their

:22:28.:22:29.

glorious past couldn't save them

:22:30.:22:30.

from the breaker's yard. But their

:22:31.:22:32.

exploits earned them the prefix Royal.

:22:33.:22:35.

Today's Iris and Royal Daffodil still

:22:36.:22:37.

bear that royal title. A living

:22:38.:22:39.

memorial to the two little ships and

:22:40.:22:41.

their crews who, for a few terrifying

:22:42.:22:43.

hours off the coast of Belgium, swapped

:22:44.:22:45.

the humdrum for the I had no idea Mersey ferries were

:22:46.:23:11.

involved. You picked a drizzly day to film it. , yes, we did,

:23:12.:23:14.

unfortunately. The Dutch painter Mondrian was one

:23:15.:23:20.

of the most important abstract You might recognise

:23:21.:23:23.

his most famous works by their Now the largest ever British

:23:24.:23:26.

exhibition of his neo`plastic paintings is being

:23:27.:23:30.

assembled at the Tate Liverpool. It includes some never seen

:23:31.:23:32.

in this country But the exhibition's curator

:23:33.:23:34.

Francesco Manacorda has given us Mondrian played

:23:35.:23:38.

an incredible role in setting up He was one

:23:39.:23:45.

of the pioneers who invented how canvas and painting could be used to

:23:46.:23:50.

invent a new reality. Here we are inside the

:23:51.:23:57.

reconstruction of the studio that Mondrian had in Paris in the 20s and

:23:58.:24:00.

30s which has been put here inside Tate Liverpool as a starting point

:24:01.:24:06.

of an exhibition which looks at how the painter used this place

:24:07.:24:10.

and which works he produced in There are two quite important

:24:11.:24:15.

connections between Mondrian The first one has to do with these

:24:16.:24:22.

two paintings that we put side`by`side because they were here

:24:23.:24:28.

in 1936 at an exhibition, which created an audience

:24:29.:24:33.

for Mondrian in this country. Which also was one of the reasons

:24:34.:24:38.

why he decided to migrate to London The second reason, most importantly,

:24:39.:24:42.

is in this. We can see the list of passengers

:24:43.:24:48.

of the Cunard ship that left from Liverpool, from that very pier we

:24:49.:24:53.

can see from this window and in this Essentially, the connection

:24:54.:24:57.

between Liverpool and Mondrian is a very important one because he

:24:58.:25:03.

left Europe, not just this country, but this country and moved to

:25:04.:25:10.

the US from that very pier. He had an incredible influence

:25:11.:25:13.

on architects and fashion designers and his legacy is incredible still

:25:14.:25:16.

today with people referencing his ability to create quite

:25:17.:25:19.

remarkable and dynamic compositions We are incredibly proud here

:25:20.:25:22.

in Liverpool to have an exhibition that gathers the highest number

:25:23.:25:32.

of abstract works that has never Interesting. You turned into a

:25:33.:25:51.

snake. Anaconda. There was a time when weather forecasters didn't have

:25:52.:25:56.

computer`generated graphics. They had things on the back of the screen

:25:57.:26:04.

to stick on. How I long for that because I've worked all day on it

:26:05.:26:06.

and in the last five minutes, the whole thing is disappeared.

:26:07.:26:13.

Everything you do is reversed on the chart. Somebody else made an error.

:26:14.:26:24.

The F slipped down the chart and you may find it offensive. Some

:26:25.:26:28.

significant changes. This has been the picture for us today. It has

:26:29.:26:34.

been grey, overcast and at times, fairly wet. The West has been best

:26:35.:26:37.

today. The worst of the rain away from the coast. What we are

:26:38.:26:41.

expecting to happen for the next couple of days is a much warmer

:26:42.:26:44.

conditions to move in from the south. As they bump into a line of

:26:45.:26:48.

weather on Saturday, the Met Office 's warning potentially we could have

:26:49.:26:52.

some very, very thundery downpours so we're looking ahead to that.

:26:53.:26:57.

There will be spots of rain through the night school, 9`12. Tomorrow,

:26:58.:27:09.

not the best of starts. It doesn't last for long. It will clear very,

:27:10.:27:13.

very quickly and it on improving picture for tomorrow. Writer skies

:27:14.:27:20.

through the afternoon. 16 Celsius. 20 by Friday. My age.

:27:21.:27:32.

Thank you. We believe that there. Hopefully it's working again at

:27:33.:27:40.

10:30 p.m.. At night. `` good night. When the first travellers crossed

:27:41.:27:54.

America, they were faced with this - The very nature of

:27:55.:27:57.

the American personality was defined. Ray Mears explores

:27:58.:28:13.

the land behind the Hollywood legend and discovers the wild

:28:14.:28:15.

that made the West.

:28:16.:28:19.

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