09/03/2012 South Today

Hello, I'm Laura Trant. Welcome to South Today. In tonight's

programme: The effects of extreme cyber bullying on young people and

efforts in Brighton to stop it. remember every single day coming

home and crying and crying. I was quite scared it was going to happen

because I didn't know half of the people giving me death threats.

After one of the biggest losses of life in Afghanistan, thousands of

troops leave the south to face the frontline. That was back in 2005.

When I go back now it is a completely different environment so

looking forward to see how much it has changed.

And buffing up old buffet cars. The rail operator rolling back time to

boost capacity on the most overcrowded trains in the country.

You are constantly banging against people. You have to be ruthless and

push people out of the way. It is a Young people increasingly live

their lives online, but what happens when the world of social

media turns nasty? 12-year-old Poppy Freeman received such abuse

and harassment online that she considered taking her own life. Now

her father is setting up a charity from his home in Brighton and

campaigning for a change in the law. Danielle Glavin reports.

It made me feel like death was the only way out, to be honest. I

remember every single day coming home and crying and crying. Poppy

Freeman started being bullied online when she was 11. At first

she kept it a secret but then her attendance at school fell and she

was scared to use a laptop. daughter said at one point she had

over 60 negative feedback us on one update to her Facebook page. It

escalated in she ended up with threats to kill her and people

telling her to kill herself. It got really bad. Facebook says you need

to be 13 to use it side, but many younger than that have accounts.

Poppy's father has joined up with another that his son was bullied on

Facebook. They are launching a charity to support other victims.

Social media is growing. That is part of the younger generation. To

exclude them from it would be, at the bullies would win. Later this

month they are meeting was Sussex police as part of a campaign to

criminalise cyber bullying. Police clearly can't respond fully to

every type of bullying. If they have somewhere to refer victims to

for advice, guidance to help stop it, counselling, then I think that

has to be a good thing. Poppy agrees that the charity would help.

When I was going through it, I felt like I was the only one. A charity

like my dad's, it just shows that there are more people going through

the same thing. Poppy says some of those he bullied her have since

apologised. She forgives them but says forgetting her ordeal will not

be easy. Thousands of troops from across the

south, who are about to deploy to Afghanistan, have been talking

about the dangers and challenges that lie ahead. They've been taking

part in training exercises on Salisbury Plain. The risks have

been brought into sharp focus this week with the deaths of six

soldiers in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday. Steve Humphrey joined the

troops today at Copehill Down near Shrewton.

I can just about see it on their. They are brothers in arms. They are

serving in Tidworth and are about to go to Afghanistan as part of the

Wiltshire-based 12 mechanised Brigade. They learnt of the death

of six soldiers from the third Battalion Yorkshire Regiment while

they were on exercise on Salisbury Plain. Gutted for the regiment on a

whole. It is a tragic loss. We are going to get out there and crack on

and do the best we can. It is a great shame. I am gutted for them

and the families. Does it make you more determined? Definitely. Also

going to Afghanistan are more soldiers. Their colleagues who were

killed this week when members of an advance party. With the casualties

that we have just had, we are always going to be scared. It is

what I signed up to do so I have to do it. I know my mum is prowled and

it is what I want to do so she is backing me. Making sure all of our

training has as focused and able to do the job. Today, the Defence

Secretary met some of the soldiers who lost friends and colleagues in

Tuesday's blast. Today is an opportunity for me to express

directly to the men, my condolences of the terrible events earlier this

week. Also to hear from them how they feel about the mission ahead

of them and crucially how the families are holding up. There is

no underestimating the challenges that the soldiers will face in

Afghanistan, but the brigade commander says he believes his

troops are well trained and well- equipped.

Police in Hampshire are investigating after a man's body

was discovered in Petersfield this morning. A cordon was put in place

near Churcher's College shortly after 6:30am, after a passer-by

raised the alarm. Police say the death is not being treated a

suspicious. Annette Brooke, the MP for Mid-

Dorset and North Poole, is recovering in hospital after

fracturing her hip in a fall outside Westminster. The long-

serving Liberal Democrat tripped over a paving stone on Tuesday. She

was taken to St Thomas's Hospital for an operation after passers-by

stopped to help. The 64-year-old, who also injured her wrist, says

she hopes to return to Dorset on Monday.

Governors of a 100-year-old private school in Berkshire say they're

fighting to keep it open, despite pupil numbers nearly halving in the

last two years. White House Preparatory School has been badly

affected by the economic slowdown and is struggling to survive. Ben

Moore joins us now from our Caversham studio. Ben, what's

happened? This is all to do with numbers.

School fees and bums on seats. If you want to send your child to

White House Preparatory School it will cost �9,000 per year. Believe

it or not, that is the low end of the scale when you are talking

about private schools and Berkshire. Despite this, pupil numbers have

decreased over the last two years from 120 to just 80 pupils. There

is still some hope. The whole school community has come together,

governors, staff and parents said they will work together to ensure

the school stays open. Several parents have been offering to write

cheques to keep the school afloat at least for the next year. One

thing that must be said is that the school is not a victim of poor

standards. White House Preparatory School was actually at the top of a

league carried out by the Sunday Times for preps schools in

Berkshire. This is a worrying time for any parent that as a child at

the school, but they head mistress and governors say their door is

always open. A company which ran a pub in a

Purbeck village, where the kitchen was over-run by mice, has been

fined for breaking food hygiene regulations. An inspector found

mouse droppings on food containers, work surfaces and chopping boards.

He said it was the worst case he'd ever seen. The pub's manageress at

the time has also been fined. Roger Finn reports.

For the last nine months, the sailor's Return has been under new

management and now has a clean bill of health, but in February last

year, when the previous management were in charge, it has a very

different picture. This is what an environmental health officer found

when he made a surprise inspection after an anonymous tip-off. Upon

entering the kitchen I found a massive infestation of mice, mouse

droppings, chewed through food packets and materials used for

nesting. In my experience, it was simply the worst experiences I have

encountered. The holding company pleaded guilty to six counts

including failing to have a cleaning regime or a pest Control

regime. Their directors claimed they had not been told of the

infestation. They came to Bournemouth Crown Court to hear the

sentence. The court was told that the manageress at the time was a

barmaid at the pub who had stepped up as manager on a caretaker basis

just a few days before the incident. The judge said there had been a

massive infestation and that food should have never been prepared in

those conditions. He find the manageress �600, but he also said

there had been an appalling failure to have that system in place to

maintain hygiene standards. He fined the company �6,000 with an

additional �3,000 in costs. The new team say they spent two

months stripping out cleaning the kitchen a bar. They are anxious to

make sure -- made clear that they had nothing to do with the previous

management. If you commute with First Great

Western you'll know that they run the most overcrowded trains in the

country, and you'll understand how hard it is to get a seat in rush

hour. Now the train company is converting 35-year-old, redundant

buffet cars to create more space. Bringing these back into service

will create an extra 4,5000 seats a day to trains in the Thames Valley.

That's an increase of 9% in capacity. But that doesn't mean

everyone will be able to sit down. Our Transport Correspondent Paul

Clifton reports. Here is the problem, all of the 10

most overcrowded trains in the country I'll run by First Great

Western. Passenger groups say it is becoming intolerable.

How often do you get a seat? Since the beginning of the year, four

times. One of those times was at 10pm at night. Every day you are

lucky to get a seat. You are constantly banging against people.

You have to be restless ambush people over. It is a nightmare.

Here his first Great Western's solution. It is taking all of the

old redundant buffet cars it can find. In Scotland, these vehicles

are being stripped back to bare metal and refurbished with high-

density airline-style seating. are going to put 84 seats in here

so they can use it for the Olympics. When they are finished, these will

be added to existing trains making a busy his services one carriage

longer. Together with other rolling stock, they will increase rush-hour

capacity on the first Great Western by 9%. By the time the Olympic

Games take place, the vast majority of those carriages will be in

traffic for our customers. The trains were built more than 35

years ago. They are the oldest long-distance trains in the country.

Eventually, passengers will get a new generation of electric trains.

Three years ago, the Japanese firm Hitachi was named to protect third

bidder. That deal has still not been signed so the trains remain

years away. Until they arrive, this is the stop absolution. These extra

carriages will make life easier on Britain's most crowded trains, but

they won't mean that everyone gets a seat. Growth on the Great Western

is so fast, they will absolve less than three years increase in

passengers. They will only stop the journey becoming even more

overcrowded or a little while. Well, Paul has just got back from

Scotland, and he's here with me now. Will adding one more carriage make

much difference? One more carriage will help. But on

trains like the 0740 from Reading to Paddington there are twice as

many passengers as there are seats. So adding an extra 84 seats will

help, but it won't bring a transformation.

And passenger numbers are still growing, of course.

These carriages add about 9% more capacity to trains through the

Thames Valley. But passenger numbers are also growing by 9% a

year. A lot of that growth is leisure travel outside the rush

hour, so First Great Western thinks overall this will stabilise the

overcrowding for about three years. We've been talking for years now

about new trains to replace these old ones. When are they coming?

This diesel railway is going to be electrified. After that, we will

get new trains. We've known for three years now that Hitachi of

Japan is going to build them. But some of the engineering details are

not finalised and the contract has still not been signed. So

realistically they are five or six years away. With demand growing so

fast, things are clearly going to get worse before they get better.

Thank you very much. Still to come in this evening's

South Today: The party's started to celebrate Poole's iconic new bridge,

but for the moment, it's still a road to nowhere.

The victims of the holocaust have been remembered at a special

service in Auschwitz where 200 sixth formers from across the South

lit candles. This week they've been touring the concentration camp as

part of a government-funded scheme run by the Holocaust Educational

Trust. Here's Simon Clemison's They stare into the past, but

making sense of it is a struggle. They see inside the gas chambers

and take a look at some of the terms of hair shaved from the heads

of the victims. Sometimes people who come here find it is that that

you cannot see that his most challenging. Come to the second

camp and it feels as though the guards have only just left. It is

abandoned and the watch towers still watching. One day in, cross

the tracks and the years have hardly past.

There is a row of wooden huts that had been rebuilt, but most were

raised to the ground. The chimneys are all that still stand for as far

as the eye can see. This is meant to be not just a museum, but to

awaken something in people. We want the next generation to be

aware of what happened. A lot of these children went have a member

of family who lived through the wall. Absolutely. That is why

coming here and letting them experience it is vital for the

future of our society. The people here had nothing and it just makes

me feel, it is hard to think about it. What I'm feeling compared to

them feeling, seemed this, it has In a service at the end of the

visit, the rabbi tells a new generation of the need to speak out

against prejudice. The stories and the memories may be passing further

into history, but these teenagers may now keep them alive.

You can really feel the eeriness watching that report. Let's move on

to sport now. Let's start with Portsmouth.

When clubs have problems, the question is often asked what part

good local authorities play in trying to help the club.

The leader of Portsmouth City Council has confirmed it could buy

Fratton Park, but would only do a deal if Portsmouth Football club

was to be liquidated. Gerald Vernon-Jackson has confirmed he's

had initial talks over the possibility of buying the ground,

but that he would rather a new owner was found for Portsmouth.

Yesterday, the Conservative group on the city council tabled a motion

calling for the council to investigate buying the stadium. I

spoke to the council leader earlier. We are not going to bail the club

out. Other councils have done it in the last year.

No, my understanding is that would put of other owners coming forward

because they would not own the ground and people want to own the

ground if they owned the club. day they could bite back of few,

couldn't they? You might be the best way of saving the club in the

short term. That would happen if the club went into liquidation.

That meeting is a couple of weeks away.

On the field, Portsmouth make their first trip to the Amex Stadium to

face an Albion side which is chasing a play-off place. Tuesday

night's 1-0 reverse at Reading sent Pompey to the bottom of the

Championship. A threadbare squad is now seven games without a win and

struggling to score goals. The manager is keeping his hopes up.

We are in a period where there is no hiding place, this is where it

is. It is do or die time. All of the old cliches. I can keep reeling

them of if you want me to. Albion are aiming to maintain an

unbeaten run since the turn of the year in the league which has seen

them establish themselves as genuine play-off contenders.

that I am categoric League would like the team to do better.

boss Gus Poyet's had his say about the type of financial problems

clubs like Portsmouth have found themselves in,. While sympathetic

with the club and it's fans, Poyet feels the penalties for those

hitting financial problems should be firmer in the future.

Reading manager Brian McDermott has won the Championship's manager of

the month award for February. The Royals won all four matches they

played during the month. Goalkeeper Adam Federici was named player of

the month. Tomorrow the Royals host Leicester and could go into the

automatic promotion places if results go their way.

Southampton remain top and on course for promotion, but they're

just a point ahead of West Ham. Tomorrow, Saints hope to bounce

back to winning ways, they host Barnsley at St Mary's. Saints made

four changes on Tuesday night in the draw with Ipswich. Manager

Nigel Adkins is without defender Danny Fox.

Elsewhere, tomorrow Bournemouth hope to end a streak of four

consecutive defeats, but they face a tough task to force their way

back into the play-off picture as they travel to Sheffield Wednesday.

In league Two Aldershot lost their first game in seven on Tuesday

night at Torquay. Tomorrow they're on the road again at struggling

Northampton. Crawley have slipped to sixth and travel to Macclesfield.

Steve Evan's side have not won in five league games. Lots of football.

The past few weeks have been a rollercoaster ride for Britain's

rhythmic gymnastics team. They failed to qualify by the usual

route for the Olympics, but learned this week they will get to

represent the UK after all, because they're from the host nation. Today,

some of the team were in Wiltshire visiting St Edmonds School. Pupils

there have been learning about the Olympic values and have pledged to

raise a thousand pounds to support the Rhythmic Gymnasts, who are all

self-funded. This school has links with one of the gymnasts through

their head teacher and the school called us up and said clear to come

in. Could you try and inspire their kids and talk to them about Joy Joy

-- journey. We are happy to do that. Our school is trying to help push

them along the way and try to raise �1,000 and the next couple of weeks.

We have a run 900 goals, so if we did a non school uniform day, �1

per person will instantly raised a lot of money. Little things like

that, it is just amazing. And the girls will be performing

live on tonight's One Show, here on BBC1, straight after South Today in

a few minutes' time. And now the weather. Can we expect

good weather this week? Settled conditions, but there are

some people who want rain in the forecast.

According to the old wives' tale, these cows lying down at a farm

near Stockbridge in Hampshire would suggest rain on the way, but

there's not a lot in the forecast. Thanks to Sandy Burnfield for that

photo. Despite grey skies, a splash of

colour in Bournemouth town centre - a beautiful display there. Hillary

a beautiful display there. Hillary Harth sent that photo in. We could

see some dampness and drizzly spells to the rest of though -- to

the west of the region. One or two breaks in the cloud here and there.

Temperatures eight or nine degrees which is more like what we would

see during the daytime so very mild tonight. The weekend is shaping up

to be fine and settled staying dry with high pressure in charge and

some good brightness on the way. Some semi a breaks. We start

tomorrow on them over class note, but we will see that cloud break

pantheon bringing brighter skies and sunny spells. Where we see that

sunshine, 14 or 15 degrees. Tomorrow night is looking to be a

mild night. Cloud coming and going once again. I think it will be a

dry one perhaps with c-file to the western part of our coastline.

Almost of verse, a calm and quiet night. On Sunday we stick with this

area of high pressure. It is not going very far in the coming days.

For Sunday itself we will see a generally settled and Friday. There

will be good ripeness with the best of that in the east. The western

coastline could cling on to that cloud a little longer through the

day. Pretty bright and find in the most

part. Temperatures in the mid-teens to the weekend, gradually becoming

cooler into the working week, but still settled and largely dry.

Perhaps by Wednesday we will see high pressure shift so they could

be cold spells on the way overnight Wednesday.

Wednesday. Now, if you live in Poole, it's a

big night for you. After a long wait, the town is having a party to

celebrate its �37m new lifting bridge.

Thousands of spectators have lined the streets this evening on both

sides of the bridge, which is designed to really put Poole on the

map. Roisin Gauson is there for us

tonight. Roisin there have been a few glitches, haven't there?

It may not be fully open yet, but why let small details stand in the

way of a good knees up? It's certainly been an extravaganza here

this evening, and the party is set to continue well into the night.

The council now says, rather than an official opening, the event is a

celebration of the 85th anniversary of the original bridge. Whatever

the reason, it's certainly been spectacular.

It may not be the grand opening as planned, but as they say, the show

must go on. The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra providing a

premiere of the new peace and 800 school children putting their best

There has been a real buzz about this bridge, it has been talked

about for 30 years. As it neared completion, the community got

behind it. Students from local schools made hard work to mark the

occasion. It was quite hard having to get into small places. But

really good. It was exciting knowing that we would be a name on

the street for ever. Ours was supposed to be a pirate theme. I

thought that on a pirate ship the figurehead would be a mermaid.

work formed part of a flotilla of boats. Images of the bridge has

gone out all over the world. It helps show our ambition and will

encourage more than �700 million of investment in the town. My hope is

that all who live, work and visit Poole will feel proud of this new

edition to the town. As Poole it turned out in numbers, their lack

of cars crossing did not matter in the least. When it goes a bid looks

lovely. Once the cars go over it will be dirty. Everyone will

grumble and then they will get it right and it should be fine. Or

they won't get it right and we will grumble for a bit longer.

There's still no firm date set for traffic to make use of the bridge -

which you can perhaps understand. After all, two earlier deadlines

have already come and gone. And in a way, it gives a chance to prolong

the party. On Monday the Princess Royal is due to visit with the

Royal Navy Warship HMS Cattistock taking part in the celebrations. So

cars or not, this iconic addition to the Poole skyline is getting a

warm welcome regardless. I hope you can go and enjoy some of

the celebrations and get partying as well. That is all from us.

She would have to catch them up, actually.

We have the rhythmic gymnasts coming up. Stay tuned.