09/03/2017 South East Today

Welcome to South East Today, I'm Natalie Graham.

And I'm Rob Smith Tonight's top stories.

Closure at last for the family of a kent woman murdered 20 years ago -

after a body found in a welsh reservoir is identified.

which is what she deserves more than anything.

Another migrant camp doubles in size just 40 miles from Calais,

where the authorities have banned charities from distributing food.

We'll be live in Steenvord near the Belgian border.

The race to stop bird flu spreading to Kent and Sussex.

We meet the scientists working on a vaccine.

The biggest slow zone in Kent is set to be launched -

but do 20mph limits actually make our roads safer?

And from Sheerness to Dungeness - we meet the Kent artist who enjoys

wandering with his watercolours through the county.

The words of a grieving daughter this evening,

after police confirmed that human remains found in a Welsh reservoir

Sandie Bowen, originally from Folkestone,

Her husband was later found guilty of her murder and jailed.

But Michael Bowen never revealed what he had done with her body.

Tonight, speaking exclusively to this programme, Sandie's

daughter Anita Giles, who lives in Cheriton,

says while its comforting to now have some certainty -

she believes the man who killed her should still be in jail.

A mix of wanting to know what happened to her mum

and a tiny fraction of hope that without a body she might not be gone

Obviously I never knew what had happened, only what had

been surmised by the court case that the probability was that she was

murdered, she was dumped, disposed of,

never knowing where, and that is

Her mother Sandie was running a B in Folkestone

when she met Michael Bowen, working on the channel

His third wife, she went back to live with him in Wales,

but in a jealous rage she killed her.

He was convicted of her murder a year later

and then jailed but would not say where her body was.

Last month, remains were found at a reservoir in Wales.

Now, DNA tests have confirmed they were Sandie's.

Police had spent years trying to find her.

What we need is just that little bit more

information to take us to where he's put Sandie's body.

That will enable us to close the investigation and

will enable the family then to come to terms with their sad loss.

Now her daughter is planning a private

ceremony to finally say goodbye to her mother.

She will bring her ashes home to be scattered in Kent.

Normal people lose somebody, they're able to bury

It never goes away, and you never get over losing somebody

so close to you, but to have that constantly...

All the time, in the forefront of your mind.

Not a day goes by when I didn't

Michael Bowen was released on licence twoyears ago.

His victim's daughter says he should have had to

give up his dark secret before that was allowed to happen.

Sara Smith is live in Cheriton at the Church which was the scene

of a memorial service for Sandie Bowen some years ago.

Her daughter is supporting a new law to try and help

families like hers? Yes, it is called Helen's law and it is what

killers will be refused parole if they refuse to reveal the location

of the victims. It is the named after a found remains after Helen,

her murderer saying that he would refuse to tell where she was. In the

autumn it was voted through by MPs but it does need have a second

reading before it becomes law. While police maintain

a zero tolerance approach to migrants in Calais -

another camp seems to be developing 40 miles away at the town

of Steenvord on the Belgian border. It's doubled in size in recent

months, becoming a magnet for people trying get to Kent via the Channel,

after the so called Jungle 120 migrants are now

being turned away from Calais each day,

and the authorities have brought in a ban on food being handed out

by charities in some areas. Our reporter Peter Whittlesea

is in Steenvord now, Peter. All the security measures don't seem

to be putting off the most Well, this would seem an unlikely

location for migrants to live but they have decided to have a better

bet of jumping on a lorry bound for Britain here at a truckstop rather

Calais that has been turned into a fortress, and that is why they are

setting up camps in and around this area.

On the edge of the motorway this wood is home to around 100 migrants.

The camp has been closed twice in the last six months, but when the

police leave the many migrants return. Those living he told us to

get out. The land owner said the French authorities are failing to

act. TRANSLATION: I could no longer use

the word, I can't let my children in there, I bought land in the

countryside so my children could enjoy it. The authorities do what

they can but the migrants coming just as quickly. One local charity

in says since the Calais Jungle has closed, the number of migrants in

area has doubled, and with no official hostels migrants camp where

they can. In the daytime they the increased security in the manner

of care that the mayor of Calais's decision to stop charities issuing

food, it is to encourage people from staying away from Calais but doesn't

address the problem that migrants are determined to get to Britain.

Outside of these zone in the city, we can distribute food but as

numbers increase it will become visible button and that is will

happen when that critical mass appear back in Calais. How will we

see those people? Where are we going to feed those people? But back in

Britain there is zero tolerance approach to migrants living in

Calais his been backed by Dover MP. They need to make sure that the

honourable gentleman doesn't reform but that they stop these migrants

getting into Calais before they missed the opportunity to get your

reception centres far from Calais. 102 that 120 migrants are being

arrested in Calais each day, but the solution is not to move it further

into France. The authorities decided to close the

truckstop at night, the theory being that if there are no truck said

there will be no migrants and we are all hearing reports that migrants

are moving their camps now into Belgium where there are more

truckstops. In a moment: Concerns

over the future of one of our largest hospitals -

as the quality of training for junior doctors

comes under scrutiny. The jury in the trial of a man

accused of murdering his ex girlfriend at her home in Brighton

have been played a recorded telephone conversation

between the two, in which he told her "I'm sorry, I'm just

not right in the head." Shana Grice and Michael Lane

were talking after Lane had taken a key from her home,

let himself into her house and gone into her bedroom

while she was asleep. Shana was found dead at her home

just over a month later. Today Lewes Crown Court heard

from two of her housemates, who said that Lane had repeatedly

stalked her in the weeks Michael Lane had had a relationship

with work colleague Shana Grice, but when that came to an end

the jury at Lewes Crown Court heard that he repeatedly

stalked the 19-year-old. Housemates who lived with Shana

said today that he'd repeatedly texted her,

followed her to the chops and to work, and prosecutors said

he'd even put a tracker on her car. On one occasion, Lane stole a key

from Shana's house and used it to let himself into her bedroom

in the early hours. The court heard she was so scared

she hid under the duvet, The following day, the two discussed

the incident in a recorded telephone Shana said to Michael Lane,

the question that's bugging me is why did you take the key

in the first place? Lane said, I wanted to see

you as to talk to you. Shana replied, you could have

flipped at any point. You could have done anything not

while I'm sleeping, is just weird. Lane went on to say I'm sorry,

I'm just not right in the head. If I was, I would not

have done that. Lane was arrested and cautioned

by police around six weeks later though in August the prosecution say

Lane got into her house again, killing Shana, then setting fire

to her bedroom. Prosecutors claimi he refused

to except the break-up Michael Lane denies murder,

the case continues. Piers is live at Lewes Crown Court,

Piers what else has Well, Rob, the bulk of evidence came

today from Temple Micro's housemates, one of them, Emma King,

told the court how after Michael Lane had let itself into their homes

and had gone into double macro's edging, they hadn't bolstered

security -- had bolstered, installing a new garden gate and

changing locks and housemates even sat down with tabernacle and made

suggestions about how she should deal with Michael Lane. They

recommended that she sees communication with him, altogether.

Expecting to hear from three more positives and witnesses tomorrow,

and eventually also the pathologist. As the authorities look

for ways to tackle speeding in our town centres,

the largest twenty mile an hour zone in Kent will be launched

in Tunbridge Wells tomorrow. The controversial speed limits have

already been introduced in other parts of the South East including

Brighton and Ashford. But the jury is out

on whether they are effective enough to justify the cost -

one council in the North of England is currently

reviewing its own schemes, after a study suggested the average

speed of drivers had only gone down This is the road where residents

finally put their foot down. A driver was caught

racing along at 85 mph. The limit is 30.

Tomorrow it will be 20. Because we have a large

concentration of residential streets we have two primary schools,

and it's a main rat run as people try to miss

the rain roads going into Tunbridge Wells in the mornings

or going out in the evenings, we really do need to help

the residents and support the residents, make the roads safer

for them and their children. One road led to another, and now 50

streets are involved in the scheme. I don't know anyone

who is happy the speed of some of the cars

at the moment. I don't know how they are

going to police this. At night they just go

speeding and you can't stop them. There's a school here and equipped

elderly people They have a different

approach in Ashford. The shared space scheme

which included a 20 mph zone gave drivers and pedestrians equal

priority, and as being in place In Brighton, the 20 mph zone

was introduced on most roads And a 20 mph speed limit

what was brought in for more than 1000 roads in Greater

Manchester is currently being reviewed after council bosses found

the number of accidents had not A number of surveys

we have done show that 20 mile hour zones don't

make much difference. Often the local people find that

they're actually quite irritating for their daily business,

and in actual fact they don't make much difference to casualties,

and they don't reduce speeds. They're not actually

working very well anywhere across

the whole of England. Whatever the limit.

on drivers reducing their speeds, Claudia is live in the St John's

area of Tunbridge Wells where the scheme is being

rolled out tomorrow. Claudia, similar schemes have

already been rolled out in other parts of the South East,

is everyone on board there? Well, it's very difficult to know,

really. In Brighton, they only have data for the first year of the

scheme, and that showed speed had reduced by just one mile per hour.

It's even worse in Manchester, their data shows its only 017 mph, which

is ready why they are considering looking at other options. And I

myself was on these roads earlier, and it wasn't the speed so much as

congestion the bubble. We were brought to a standstill by people

using it as a short cut, but nevertheless the signs are up, and

if you are on the roads tomorrow morning, you must drive at 20.

We've already received lots of comments about this story...

Bruce Yorke says they've had the limits in Lewes for some time,

he says 'These limits are totally ineffectual ...

To my knowledge they are not enforced'

John Walker agrees saying in Bexhill on sea the 20mph zone

along the seafront by the town centre does not work saying 'traffic

laws seem to be put in place as a money making tool to bump up

Similarly Nix Cuthall from Hove says cars trying

to avoid a long wait at the traffic lights use our streets as a rat run

Keep sending us your views to [email protected]

A teenage girl has been arrested in connection

with the death of a newborn baby on the Isle of Sheppey.

The infant's remains were discovered in Sheerness on Saturday.

Officers made the arrest yesterday afternoon.

They say they're ensuring the teenager is getting support

and her welfare is being taken care of.

Four men have been charged in connection with the murder

The Head Teachers of primary and secondary schools in East

and West Sussex have written to parents and MPs as part

of their campaign for more school funding.

They've joined together with colleagues in Essex and Cornwall -

and say they will have to increase class sizes and offer fewer exam

option if they don't get more money in their basic budget.

The government says school funding has been protected.

There are fears for the future of one of the South East's

Campaigners in East Kent say NHS bosses want to downgrade and move

services from the Kent and Canterbury Hospital, a move

which runs the QEQM in Margate, the William Harvey Hospital

in Ashford and the Canterbury site are adamant ANY possible changes

to the care they offer are for patient safety

Here is our Health correspondent Mark Norman.

Ida's husband is a patient here at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital.

She says the care he received here saved his life.

So when staff told her the ward he was on was going to

So the idea of this ward closing is...

But that is actually how it feels, it is terrifying.

Since 1999 campaigners fought battles to save the

hospital. 15,000 people took to the streets

a decade ago to do just that. But repeated stories like Ida's,

and changes laid out in a document called the sustainability

and transformation plan means they feel the threat is more real now

than it's ever been. In there it says

a possibility of a closure of They also say that there

is a possibility of what they want to do is to reduce

acute beds by 300. That is to us going back campaigning

20 years means it could be the deathknell of one of our

three acute hospitals, and we think that's going to be

the Kent and Canterbury. A year ago, the trust had

to downgrade the A here to an urgent care centre after NHS

bosses says junior doctor were being left to cope with potentially

seriously ill patients. That same team were back

in Canterbury this They told us patient

safety as their primary concern and there is possibility is

for the welfare of junior doctors. And they had and we will not

hesitate to act if we feel that doctors in training are not

being supervised properly. But the trust itself says

campaigners are wrong, there are no long-term plans

to close the site and any short-term changes to services will be

for patients' safety reasons, So, there are no plans to close any

of our hospital sites. What we need to look at is how

we use all of our site and to maintain patient safety

and ensure that they receive excellence and the best

quality health care that they do Which is a view that the trust

will no doubt be expressing again at a public meeting

being held in the city. It's 15 minutes to seven,

this is our top story tonight: Police have confirmed that human

remains found in a Welsh reservoir ARE those of Sandie Bowen,

a woman from Folkestone Inspired by Turner -

the artist who's captured the Kent scenery while wandering

through the county And it's been a beautiful day, lots

of spring sunshine and temperatures just as high as 17 degrees but is

that whether going to last? Find out with me shortly.

If you have a story you think we should be covering

Scientists in the South East are developing a vaccine for bird

flu after a new strain of the virus was recently found in the UK.

The Government has identified several high risk areas

where poultry keepers must house their hens in

sheds or netted runs - away from wild birds.

They include marshland in north Kent which is an important area

Also Dungeness - where there's an RSPB reserve -

and inland areas like East Grinstead, near to reservoirs.

But the vaccine could take more than a year to get to farmers.

Our environment correspondent Yvette Austin has

The breakthrough came when scientists at the Pirbright

Institute successfully used genetic engineering

to develop a vaccine for

an entirely different disease in poultry to bird flu.

But it was realised the method unlock the

potential to protect against a range of viruses which included bird flu

We use cells to grow stocks of the vaccine.

Dr Holly Shelton is leading the influenza group at the

date, which says the bird flu viruses are a major threat to human

health, food security, and the economy worldwide.

We are using a novel gene editing technique whereby

we can rapidly extract pieces of DNA from that vaccine and replace them

with pieces of DNA that encode for the proteins

of the virus that we want to protect chickens against.

The most deadly strain of avian flu is H5N1 which can be fatal

But mutations occur in the virus, the latest strain, H5N8,

has crossed Europe and arrived in the UK in December.

This strain is considered to be of low risk to

humans but it can be spread rapidly within

flocks via bird droppings and saliva.

Which is why egg farmer Susie McMillan is worried.

In Ditchling, she's not in a high-risk zone and so has

let her birds out so their eggs can keep their free range status.

It's a big risk to our farm and our livelihood,

and if avian flu came in

with actually finish our business off.

Many farmers are keen on the idea of a vaccine.

It is a worry going forward what's going to happen, so

if there was a vaccine in the pipeline I'm sure that many

people within our industry would be delighted to hear that and will be

sitting and waiting to see what the next moves are.

The institute says progress is being made but many

tests would have to be carried out before it's manufactured.

Nick Kelly from Whitstable is an artist and a journalist,

who enjoys wandering in the wilds of Kent, as he puts it.

While on his wanders he carries a set of watercolours,

Nick's collection of Kent paintings are now going on display in London.

They follow a journey from the Isle of Sheppey down to Dungeness -

and are inspired by the work of another artist associated

with the county - the great JMW Turner.

On a day like today, this is a journey

and a mission you wouldn't want to end.

I did this walk from sheerness to Dungeness.

That was the idea, all round the coast, the Kent coast.

I've tried to capture the mood, you see,

each painting is like a postcard. A little memory, I find.

A final stop, a final work in progress, and a chance to

catch up with Nick Kelly, the long-distance artist.

I started off looking, sketching, and I love all

these byres and things in Dungeness, it's so lovely here.

Then when I get back I'll sort of, I won't look so much, I'll get

absorbed into the painting and really sort of let the mind go mad.

He's a voice in the dark to millions around the globe as a freelance

newsreader on the BBC's World Service.

But behind the voice, his passion is painting.

So this is totally different from being a newsreader.

Just a bit, yes. Outdoors, sunshine...

And it's a cracking day to finish isn't it?

How perfect, I mean, goodness, what more could you want?

We don't appreciate it, we've got everything here.

I don't think people get out and about enough really.

Too many people listening to the wireless!

And to the news. LAUGHTER

The paintings go on display in April at Margate's Lombard Street Gallery,

to be sold in aid of a cancer charity.

A celebration of Kent's coast, the news man's elegy in paint.

Fans of the veteran BBC Radio presenter Dave Cash,

who died last year at the age of 74, have begun a petition to have a Kent

The former Radio one DJ lived in Hollingbourne -

near the roundabout at junction eight on the M20 -

and often mentioned it during travel bulletins on Radio Kent.

Listeners want to remember him by naming the junction

The petition will be presented to the Maidstone MP Helen Grant.

Back to one of our main stories now and Kent's largest 20 miles-per-hour

zone is about to be introduced in Tunbridge Wells.

The new speed limit, which will apply from tomorrow,

covers 50 residential roads in the town.

It follows a two-year campaign by residents in the area where one

motorist was caught driving at 87 mph.

Plenty of you got in touch. Chris Webb says he totally agrees with it,

as long as that is is vigorously enforced. Excess speeding now seems

to be the norm and suddenly is where I live, needs to be dealt with

severely. Fiona says it does work elsewhere, just depends on the

council and how they are enforcing it. She says Kent has been bad on

taking this up, and hopes they roll it out across all urban areas in the

county. Liz criminality, are not sure if that is her surname or not,

it just creates road rage, from what she says. Paul got in touch on

Twitter, when you drive according to the conditions can at times 20 is

sufficient but when it is quiet you could drive at 30 71 tab flexible

limits like on motorways. Dennis, not convinced at all. Slower

vehicles, more pollution, won't stop accidents.

You can get in touch of course on Facebook. Time for the weather, it

has been a beautiful today, and so beautiful he took his

jumper off and went for a walk. Spring has arrived! We saw it in a

few places, lovely out there with some sunshine, some great pictures

being sent in from across the parts of Kent and Sussex was a glorious

day to have been heading out, blue skies, really a hint of what is to

come over the next couple of months. Unfortunately, we'll see a little

bit of a change for tomorrow, whilst we have managed 17 degrees today, we

will be back down in ten or 11 tomorrow, a lot more cloud around,

and that will really start to affect temperatures. But hold on for the

weekend because I think that spring sunshine will eventually return.

Let's get to the Borg stand and look at what is happening. Through

tonight, we start off with is clear spells, the cloud tending to thick

through the key hours, and dragging in mist around the coast of East

Sussex but across Kent, I think we will stick with clearer skies so

here we could get to 4 degrees, but many places around 6-7. Overcast day

tomorrow, dealing a bit of brightness at first across parts of

east Kent, but eventually the cloud reveals, may be thick enough that

time for the part patch of light rain, or drizzle, and you notice the

difference in temperatures. Under cloud skies, 9-10 degrees. A bit of

brightness further ease then I think we will manage 13-14 degrees. And as

we go through Friday night, it is a weak weather front producing that

cloud, and it clears away eventually. A cold front follows on

behind but it does look like two Saturday we will be stuck in between

those two systems. So I am hopeful of a little bit more sunshine. It

may start off a little bit slow with plenty of cloud around but by the

afternoon that breaks up and we begin to see increasing amounts of

sunshine and temperatures will respond. Foremost, 13-14 degrees,

but like today, Saturday afternoon potentially bring one or two other

16-17 degrees, but it will be likely a little bit of rain to content with

on Sunday. So I need my jumper tomorrow on Sunday. You might even

need your umbrella to! That's it from us, goodbye.

Oh, the dragon. Dylan Thomas.

Richard Burton. Barry Island.

The River Shannon. We invented the submarine.

with a spectacular Friday night encounter...

Let's Sing And Dance exploded onto our screens,