06/01/2017 South Today

Good evening to you, I'm Laura Trant with the news in the South.

There are calls for tougher laws to crack down on laser pens

following a spate of incidents near Southampton Airport.

Four aircraft were targeted by green laser pointers in separate incidents

The flights continued as planned but, with laser

incidents on the increase, the Pilots Association

says the devices are being used as weapons.

Take-off and landing are the most crucial times for pilots,

But it's also when they are most susceptible to laser beams

Here in Southampton, there were 11 incidents last month

In the first, a laser was shone into the flight path of a plane

Three days later, a laser was focused

The next night, a plane was targeted as it took off over the M27 motorway

and then another inbound aircraft with the light beamed

We're talking about high-powered green lasers, which can be

PC Andy Sparshott from Hampshire Police showed me

how clearly they work, even in daytime, and said he was in

a cockpit of a police plane when it was targeted on take-off.

There was a lot of brilliant white light flickering

The pilot took action, looking at the instruments, making

sure everything was OK, and then he was satisfied it was not on fire.

Public Health England say they are extremely dangerous.

Last February, a Virgin flight had to return to Heathrow after take-off

after a laser was shone at the cockpit, causing a medical

As of 2010, it's illegal to shine a light to dazzle a pilot.

But the police and the Pilots Association want to make it

an offence to be in possession of a laser pen.

The police are prosecuting but the problem is their hands are tied

because they don't have the correct powers at the moment.

We are expecting to see some laser-specific

legislation coming out relatively soon.

We need police to have the power so they can

stop the people who are shining lasers and arrest them and get them

to justice and get them in prison because it's a really

Police say there's always a spike of activity around Christmas

as people receive laser pens as presents but they stress

that they're not toys and the Pilots Association describes

Luckily, in the recent cases, the planes have all been able

A former senior NHS official has been jailed for three and a half

years at Guildford Crown Court for accepting ?80,000 in bribes.

57-year-old Peter Lewis from Windlesham worked

He admitted receiving the payments in return for awarding a computer

contract worth ?950,000 in the first year.

Surrey Police say they're now focusing on recovering the money

Mr Lewis made from his crime and returning it to the NHS.

The medical director of the South East Coast Ambulance

Service has resigned, BBC South Today understands.

Dr Rory McCrae has left for what he calls personal reasons.

Secamb, which is currently in special measures,

was at the centre of a scandal involving the reassessment of some

Plans to build a 25 megawatt solar farm in Dorset have been scrapped.

Wildlife charities opposed the development at Rampisham Down

near Dorchester, which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The developer, British Solar Renewables, has decided

to shelve the application, which was approved two years ago

but was then subject to a public inquiry.

A smaller farm will be built on an alternative site nearby.

A 108-year-old man living in Alton is now Britain's oldest man.

Bob Weighton inherited the title when a man

He lived in Japan in the run-up to the Second World War.

When Roger Finn went to see him at his care home,

Bob told him what it meant to be Britain's oldest man.

I do not seem to feel any different in myself.

But everybody else I meet will remind me of the fact.

He spent his childhood in Hull and was part of a large family.

In the 1930s, he travelled to Taiwan and Japan, where he worked

He married his British sweetheart but the couple were forced to leave

They and their three young children spent the war in Canada

and the USA where Bob broadcast propaganda to the Japanese.

Throughout his long life, Bob has held Christian

The most important thing I have learnt is that it is far better

to make a friend out of a possible enemy than it is to make an enemy

What would you say is the key to finding happiness?

I do not think you find happiness by looking for it.

I think happiness comes when you do certain things.

I have got to ask the cliched question, what is your secret

It is nothing I have actually done or a regime I have followed

at all because I have had such a varied from existence.

I have eaten all sorts of things I never thought I would eat and been

to places I never thought I would visit.

I have no clear answer to that question at all.

We're back tomorrow at 5:30pm and there's more

But now Sarah is here with our weekend weather forecast.

We have got some outbreaks of rain through the course of the night but

that band of rain is gradually easing south-eastwards. We will

start to see drier conditions developing. Albeit on the murky

side. Some hill fog and patchy drizzle lingering towards dawn.

Temperatures, lows of three or 4 degrees. A grey and murky start the

Saturday morning, hill fog lingering and patchy drizzle as well. Quite a

bit of cloud in the picture for tomorrow, they enough to produce

rain. There will be brighter breaks but they will be limited.

Temperatures look to peak at ten or 11 degrees. On Sunday, another

cloudy day. Brighton is possible and if you spots of rain here in there.

Breezy with outbreaks of rain. Good evening. The weather has been

turning milder and also cloudier through the course of the day. We

did see some clear spells moving in from the North will stop this was

the sunset, captured in Dundee. Some clear spells as we headed through

the course of the afternoon into the evening. Really, through the

weekend, wiki with a similar theme. Much milder than it has been. A lot

of cloud around in general, but for most of us think. Dry. Not dry

everywhere at the moment, particularly across central and

southern parts of England and Wales. We have a lot of cloud, bringing

outbreaks of light rain and drizzle. The patchy rain will ease away

slowly towards the south through tonight and further north across the

country, drier conditions. Wherever you are, it's pretty cloudy. Mostly

frost free to start the weekend, but there could be frost across the

central glens of Scotland. A chilly start, but quite a lot of cloud,

some pockets