21/02/2017 Points West

Welcome to BBC Points West, with Liz Beacon and Sabet Choudhury.

Searching the former home of a murderer.

Police in Wiltshire continue their excavation work at a house

The Alloway here is ) second day as specialist police officers search

gardens and dig at the home of -- at the former home of Christopher

Halliwell. Tens of millions of pounds

to save and jobs on the line. Two of our biggest councils meet

to set their budgets. We take a rare peek below water

at a Gloucesterhshire reservoir. And throwing and pinning

her way to the top. The ten-year-old who's already

touted as a judo star. Police searches at a former home

of convicted murderer Christopher Halliwell have

continued for a second day. Officers have been digging

at the back of two terraced houses They say they're acting on specific

intelligence they've received. Our Wiltshire reporter Will Glennon

has been there throughout Good evening. The alleyway here on

Broad Street is closed for a second day as the Major Crime Team

investigation continues. There has been a lot of activity here today.

Officers have been coming and going and it has been very busy behind

that lack tarpaulin. What police have not told us today is what it is

about that specific intelligence that brought them here in the first

place. What is becoming clear is that whatever they are searching

for, they are being very determined. Police searches have continued

on Broad Street throughout the day. As specialist officers combed

garages and gardens, the sound of concrete drilling

echoed down the alley. Neighbours say that they found

all the activity quite surreal. As a community, we felt

quite freaked out about It is a bit too close

for comfort, isn't it? But there's not much

we can do about that. Christopher Halliwell was convicted

last September of his second A taxi driver in Swindon,

he killed Sian O'Callaghan in 2011. But Becky Godden disappeared in 2003

and Halliwell was found Police have kept the family

informed, and for Becky's dad, John, I am really upset.

I am really upset with it all. As a father, that is all I ask.

It is upset for all the families. It all should have been

done six years ago. With eight years separating the two

killings, many people believe that Former Wiltshire Police detective

Steve Fulcher was in charge In September last year, he told

the BBC that there must be more. I mean, I spent a lot of time

with Christopher Halliwell. He was contrite, fully contrite,

crying on my shoulder And there is no question,

from all the information that I gathered when I was running this

enquiry in 2011, that he has Wiltshire Police have not officially

linked any other crimes to Halliwell but they have appealed to him

to tell them anything you knows. There might yet be more victims

lying undisturbed, and the search There has been much better late on

about how many other victims there could be unjust to these people are.

There are a number of missing women across the West and beyond whose

bodies have never been found. Christopher Halliwell's job as a

taxi driver took him across the country but he also had other jobs,

too. Wiltshire Police say that the investigation and search here could

last for another five days yet. Thank you very much. One to other

news. A postmortem examination has

revealed that a man who was tackled outside a shopping centre

by a security guard died Kieran Zac Church, who was 30

and of no fixed address, was confirmed dead outside

the Shires Shopping Centre It's thought he was concealing glass

bottles which shattered A 20-year-old security guard

was arrested on suspicion of A body has been found in Thailand,

after a Gloucestershire Andrew Apperley was last seen

on the popular tourist The 37-year-old, who has a young

daughter, told family he was going to a full moon party

on a nearby island last Sunday Gloucestershire Police say

formal identification has The West's two biggest councils

are setting their budgets today, needing to save tens

of millions of pounds. Wiltshire plans to shed

a hundred jobs in order to balance its books,

but Bristol needs This evening, councillors

are discussing how to cut ?100 million over

the next few years. Let's join our political editor

Paul Barltrop, who's at City Hall. These are difficult days in local

Government. Wiltshire Council met this morning after several hours of

discussion. They voted through the budget, 100 jobs will go. Year at

Bristol, a meeting began this afternoon and it will go on a lot

longer. It is much more controversial. The cuts are much

bigger. Many millions of pounds in next four years and there have been

protests. In the council chamber earlier, there was heckling from the

gallery. The destruction was such that they suspended the meeting and

rejected those causing difficulties. -- the disruption. In the run-up to

this council meeting, there were protests about possible targets for

cuts. This swimming pool in the south of the city so people gathered

outside at the weekend, upset that I could lose some of the subsidy and

beef or -- and be forced to close. People explained why it is

important. It is an important committee resource. If it goes, it

would be a real problem for lots of young people and old people. It does

not make sense to me. It seems like such a busy swimming pool. The

traffic in and out of year is quite high.

It comes at a time of falling central Government fund for

councils, which the Mayor of Bristol says means cuts are inevitable, if

regrettable. Again, in the case of assuming pool, that is the, but we

could say, what about other services? If you are elected, you

want a leader. Only does help people navigate difficult decisions. What

we have is a whole bunch of difficult decisions. If you do not

have the appetite for that, maybe you should think about whether you

should have been elected. One thing it has been referred to

repeatedly in the council meeting today as the financial mess in which

Bristol finds itself. A recent report carried out by a former head

of the commission concluded officers had the Robert -- had deliberately

misled councils about the programme savings in the last two years. It

means Bristol finds itself a long way behind other councils. In

comparison to Swindon just down the road, it has half the population

almost. In terms of libraries, Bristol runs 23. In a matter of

months, Swindon will have five. There is a reflection in council

tax. If you are a band Dee Holder in the areas...

Council taxes at the centre of all this. It will be going up in Swindon

and it will be certainly going up in Bristol. We will find out more after

the results of the council meeting later this evening.

For the moment, thank you. We'll know later where the axe

will fall, but one organisation is warning that planned cuts to HIV

support services will fuel the growing cases

of the disease in Bristol. The Brigstowe charity is waiting

to hear whether it'll If that decision is taken today, it

says it's likely to have to close. Our health correspondent

Matthew Hill reports. If somebody tells you that

you have a disease that can kill There's a lot of people

that don't know I've got This is the first time Nelson Walker

has spoken publically It's a sign of how strongly he feels

about the closure of a charity that It was something I enjoy

doing and I got paid Jodie helped me find the benefit

funding that I was entitled to. My mortgage, I was losing that,

because it was getting to the stage Brigstowe are a Bristol-based HIV

support organisation who have been offering advice and support

to people living or affected by HIV in the south-west

for the past 21 years. The City Council, which is

responsible for public health, is proposing cutting the ?86,000

lifeline that keeps Yes, black minority ethnic groups

are disproportionately The prevalence is higher in those

groups and in addition, the stigma is higher in those

groups as well. So, we come in, as well

as to support people, to work to break down that

stigma as well. And Terence Higgins,

the only other charity in Bristol to offer support,

is about to close its doors. At best, it will only have one

support worker instead of four. Two weeks ago, Points West revealed

how HIV infection rates in Bristol are now over two cases for every

thousand people tested, but despite this, we are not

offering recommended tests to everyone registering

with their GP. It is not just support that is been

cut, but sexual health treatment, One consultant in sexual

health here has told me that the combination of cuts

for both support and treatments Faced with national austerity

cuts of ?170 million over the past six years,

the City Council will today decide on how much it is prepared to spend

on charities like Brigstow. Well, Paul is still

outside City Hall for us. Paul, has there been any news

on funding for Brigstowe yet? One possibly positive bit of news

today from the council meeting is that whilst the ?86,000 is

officially still a proposal to cut from that project, they have now got

another funding stream which they say they will look at and examine

and hopefully find some money for the important work which the project

undertakes. One other thing from inside the meeting this afternoon.

The Mayor of Bristol announced a new father investigation into the

financial mismanagement that went on here over the last few years. Just

look at the finances. This will look at the behaviour of senior managers

within the organisation, some of whom are subsequently left. It will

then take a decision as to whether they should be disciplinary action

taken against some of those who were involved.

Thank you very much for breaking that awful weather out there. More

to come from Paul later after ten p.m..

A parish council in South Glouestershire will hold

a special meeting tonight to publicly complain

Philip Winter was accused last week of posting a racist comment

It led to Almondsbury Parish Council receiving complaints

Mr Winter says his account was hacked, but this

evening his fellow councillors will officially distance

It's Seb and Liz with you this evening.

Yes, and we've got lots more still to come before seven, including...

The schoolgirl scaring her friends with her super strength.

I'm just not going to go near her, I think. Is probably a pretty safe

option. And the knitted guests who've taken

up residence in a West abbey. A coroner has found that failures

in communication at a Bristol hospital meant a vulnerable woman

was allowed to walk around by herself, despite doctors ruling

she should be accompanied 67-year-old Carolyn Brock told staff

at Southmead Hospital that she was going out for a breath

of fresh air, she walked out Carolyn Brock, a 67-year-old

grandmother from Bristol who'd In August last year,

she became a voluntary patient at Southmead's Oakwood Ward,

which treats people But on a Sunday morning in August,

she walked out the ward Carolyn Brock was in

the hospital suffering from anxiety stemming

from her previous Now, because she said she had had

previous suicidal thoughts and had tried to take her own life

in the past, she was supposed to be But that message had not been passed

on correctly and she was able She had been seen by doctors

while in the ward after saying After that meeting, they decided

that she should not be allowed to leave the ward unaccompanied,

but that instruction was not communicated to the people looking

after her that Sunday morning. The trust accept that not

all information relating to Mrs Brock's leave arrangements

and increased risk was handed over, As the coroner acknowledged,

following our own internal investigation, we have made

significant changes to the way information

is shared within the team. Our nurses make difficult

decisions every day, balancing the clinical needs

to detain informal patients The investigation into

Carolyn Brock's death said her care plan had not

been sufficiently robust. Changes have since been made

to try to make sure that every decision is passed on to everyone

who needs to know. It's a marvel of Victorian

engineering that's usually The Hewletts underground reservoir

supplies all the water Now it's being drained

for maintenance - giving our cameras and environment correspondent

David Gregory-Kumar a rare 170 years ago, when Cheltenham

was running out of water, this was the solution the Victorians

came up with - Hewletts Reservoir. And today, we have a rare

chance to look around. This is one of our service

reservoirs, where we keep water before we deliver it

to our customers. We've got it off service

at the moment for part of its routine inspection,

to give it a checkup, because we're looking after these

old Victorian assets and we want to look

after them in the long term. When full, this tank

can supply Cheltenham 45 million litres of clean water,

it is absolutely enormous. So, it is quite hard to get a sense

of just how big it is down here. What we have asked Duncan to do

is to carry on working that way, down to the far end of the tank,

to try and give you an idea It took Duncan a good few

minutes to walk to the far I bet there is a really

long echo in here. It may be huge down here,

but it's also hidden from sight. Most people have no idea

the reservoir exists. As you can see, where we're

standing at the moment, it just looks like a bit

of a green field. People just have no clue

at all about what's This is one of our biggest

reservoirs where we store clean water and we have got about 500

of these across the region. And they range anything

from something kind of the size of your bedroom to this one,

which is absolutely huge. The good news is everything looks

in pretty good shape. So we had it inspected

by the engineer last week All the concrete has been

here for tens of years and we're going to look after it for tens

of years into the future as well. Soon, this vast space will be

refilled, which will take about two weeks, and then Hewletts Reservoir

will continue to quietly supply water to Cheltenham just as it has

done for the last 170 years. Amazing. We really would not know

that was under all those green fields. Let's move on to sport.

Bristol Rugby have brought in experienced coach Alan Solomons

as a consultant in a last ditch attempt to stay in the Premiership.

Following heavy defeats to Harlequins and Leicester,

they are six points adrift at the bottom of the table.

Solomons, who spent three years at Edinburgh before

leaving them in September, will stay with Bristol

I have known Alan for a number of years. I worked with him in 2001 in

Ulster. And Chris and myself had a discussion about it. We thought it

would be a good idea to bring his experience to the club, to help the

coaching setup. Alan arrived yesterday, we had good meetings. It

was our first aid training today and everything has gone very well so

far. -- it was our first day training today.

Bristol take on local rivals Bath on Sunday looking for their first

The favourite for this year's Cheltenham Gold Cup will miss

Thistle-crack, trained by Colin Tizzard

in Somerset, has been ruled out for the rest of the season.

It's not all doom and gloom at the yard as Colin does

still have the second and third favourites, Native

The West has an up and coming judo star

and much of her success is down to her coach.

Only in Charlie Whitfield's case, the coach is her dad.

Gavin Whitfield introduced his daughter

to Judo four years ago and she's already won gold two years

Today, the duo had a family showdown in front of her classmates.

Charlie can, but only because he taught her all his best

She must be really strong because her dad must be really

heavy, and I don't know how she flips him over.

Like, I was pretty scared of her already, but now

I will just not go near her, I think.

Charlie has lost count of the medals she has won in just four years,

including two consecutive golds at the Western area

With dad for a coach, she never stops learning.

We can always muck about in the house or down the street.

We can always do something when we are both together.

Besides her dad, Charlie has another hero.

Sally Conway, also from South Gloucestershire,

The Olympics. Really?

Do you think that is going to happen?

I think if I keep putting the effort in, I will get there.

She is talking Olympic standard, which is quite a high standard

to sort of pitch at such a young age.

But it is also, again, determination and that drive

So it is great that she is talking of that, but I am sort of doing

Charlie is not just a judo star, she is also

And she has to make sure she's keeping up with the class,

despite training and trips away to judo tournaments.

A lot of them don't want to get on the wrong side of Charlie.

But just watching her and how determined she is, and also,

when she doesn't necessarily win every time, she can come back

That is such a great trait for children to see

A week Friday, Charlie is in Croatia competing.

It is all part of her larger judo journey, and who knows

For sure, Dad will always be by her side.

You would want Charlie as a mate, wouldn't you?

Tewkesbury Abbey has been taken over by nearly a hundred knitted monks.

The woolly figures have been made for the Monks In The Abbey

Exhibition and those behind it are hoping there could

Natasha Turney has been to have a look.

Monks have always been a big part of the history of Tewkesbury Abbey.

Around 20 woolly visitors took up residence here a few years ago,

with the collection growing year-on-year.

I thought that as the abbey used to have a monastery attached,

it would be a good idea to celebrate this fact.

And although the monastery has been pulled down now,

we still have this wonderful abbey, and let's celebrate the fact

They may only be ten centimetres tall, but they are proving

It is really, really nice and unexpected.

I am very impressed with the amount of work people have put into this

And I hope it continues for a long time.

Out of the 91 monks that are here, 85 were hand-knitted

Well, they are on outreach in the community, letting people

And soon there are set to be even more.

Well, the Abbey, in 2021, will be 900 years old since

And we hope to have 900 monks here to celebrate a monk for every

That works out at around 120 extra each year,

and so the church are looking for help from the whole community

So, it is going to mean a lot more organising,

knitting, crocheting, putting together, and we just

hope the community will come and join us.

The monks here will stay on display until the end of February.

After that, it is time to get the knitting needles out and start

Can you make? I think I know the answer but I will ask anyway.

I can't, but I am always impressed with people who can. My mother used

to knit my cricket jumpers and then shrink them in the wash.

Sara Thornton is in the BBC Weather centre.

Can you make? -- knit? No, but I know more about the

weather. It is not very inspiring the pictures. Pretty cloudy for most

of us. Some rain in there as well. Heavy rain in the north-west. You

can notice the strike of cloud behind me. That is a frontal system

that will sink towards us tonight and introduce yet more rainforest. A

lot of it will be knocked out by the Welsh mountains. As we had tonight

into tomorrow morning. But there will be some alone, which leads us

to a quite damp 24 hours ahead for us. Little bits and pieces of rain

coming through the night. You can see it as just some towards us.

Crucially, it doesn't quite get to us with any cold the Arsenal will be

another mild night. At 10 Celsius, 50 in Fahrenheit, above what we

would expect by Dave Lewis time of year. Let alone night. We start the

morning on a mild zero, but it is mild and damp and breezy as well.

The winds will be a feature of the weather tomorrow. Bits and pieces of

rain around. The odd heavy bursts potentially but the rain knocked out

mostly by the Welsh mountains. As I said, it is a breezy day and another

mild one again. Temperatures like today, the low teens, 12, maybe 13

Celsius. If you have any interest in the weather and you have been across

the news, you might be aware there is a storm heading for the UK on

Thursday. Storm Doris, a named storm from the Met Office. We see it as

rain through the morning and then strengthening winds as the rain

pulls away into the early part of the afternoon. I want to talk you

through the weather warnings. We're not really affected by the very

worst of Storm Doris. A lot of it was the north of the UK. This yellow

be aware warning for the strength of the wind is just clips into

Gloucestershire. Further south, we could even see significant wind

gusts. From the cold front, that rain battles through in the morning,

it is gone by mid morning and then the sunshine behind it. Temperatures

fall away goes on and the wind gusts will be significant. Here are the

gusts we are talking about, in excess of 50 mph which could be

disrupted for a time. 10 Celsius before that pulls away. Once the

winds get in, it will then feel chillier. Friday could start with

some ground frost. It is cooler feeling on Friday but lack into

double figures by Saturday. Thank you very much. Storm Doris

sound so calm. It sounds like a sweet person, not a horrible storm!

We are back with you in the Ten O'Clock News. We will have the

details from the council budget meeting that we sought Paul at.

Still there in the rain, no doubt! Hopefully he will be back in from

the rain. We will see you for the Ten O'Clock News. Goodbye.

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A fearless feminist facing a world in turmoil.

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