:00:00. > :00:07.Why did it take so long for the London Fire Brigade
:00:08. > :00:11.to deploy a tall ladder on the Grenfell fire?
:00:12. > :00:13.It's a more awkward question for the Brigade tonight,
:00:14. > :00:16.as most other Fire Services tell us they would have sent a tall
:00:17. > :00:25.ladder out automatically. Vital minutes were lost before that
:00:26. > :00:29.tall ladder arrived, but its delay appears to be a sign
:00:30. > :00:31.of a haphazard patchwork of inconsistent policies and plans
:00:32. > :00:33.among the Fire Services across the country.
:00:34. > :00:37.The same fire in the same tower block elicits wildly different
:00:38. > :00:42.responses from Fire Services across the country.
:00:43. > :00:46.Also tonight: The killing of an elderly and reclusive man in 2006.
:00:47. > :00:50.The conviction of a Chinese man for the murder in 2009.
:00:51. > :00:56.I'm the first journalist to interview Wang Yam.
:00:57. > :01:00.Over the past year, I've spent 25 hours speaking with him by telephone
:01:01. > :01:38.And we do our bit to kick off the Proms...
:01:39. > :01:56.Last week, we reported on the often heroic response of the fire fighters
:01:57. > :01:58.to the Grenfell Tower blaze, and the failings in
:01:59. > :02:04.The biggest surprise was that no tall ladder was dispatched
:02:05. > :02:08.to Grenfell until half an hour after the initial call.
:02:09. > :02:11.This, it turned out, was London Fire Brigade policy,
:02:12. > :02:15.to wait and see before sending an aerial platform.
:02:16. > :02:18.Well, we've been doing some follow-up work with the other
:02:19. > :02:21.Fire Services of the UK, and it turns out that the bulk
:02:22. > :02:26.London was in a minority in not sending a tall ladder automatically
:02:27. > :02:34.London has adapted its policy since Grenfell as an interim measure,
:02:35. > :02:39.but there are still nine other services that don't deploy.
:02:40. > :02:44.And we've found other differences in plans of different Fire Services.
:02:45. > :02:47.In other words, this is yet another area where, post-Grenfell,
:02:48. > :02:52.you examine national policy closely and find it wanting.
:02:53. > :03:06.A month after the horrifying events of the 14th of June, and a clearer
:03:07. > :03:11.picture of how the London Fire Brigade responded to the Grenfell
:03:12. > :03:15.Tower fire has begun to emerge. Last week, Newsnight reported that the
:03:16. > :03:21.first high ladder, or are real, arrived 31 minutes after the first
:03:22. > :03:24.fire engine. -- or are real. London has now changed its predetermined
:03:25. > :03:29.attendance, what it would automatically send to a high-rise
:03:30. > :03:33.fire, to include a high ladder as an interim measure. But how would other
:03:34. > :03:37.Fire Services have reacted to a similar fire in a high-rise
:03:38. > :03:41.building? We contacted every Fire Service in the country to ask what
:03:42. > :03:46.their predetermined attendance was to a fire in a tower block. We found
:03:47. > :03:49.that 70% of Fire Services would have sent an aerial ladder. This is
:03:50. > :04:05.before Grenfell, remember, to any high-rise fire. However, nine Fire
:04:06. > :04:09.Services, including Tyne Wear, Leicestershire, Kent, Lancashire and
:04:10. > :04:14.Cambridgeshire will not send aerial ladder in the first instance. The
:04:15. > :04:20.crux of the problem is this - the same fire in the same tower block
:04:21. > :04:24.elicits wildly different responses from Fire Services across the
:04:25. > :04:29.country. Now, take this building behind me. It's a high-rise building
:04:30. > :04:32.in Essex. And if there's a fire here, the first response of the
:04:33. > :04:39.local Fire Service won't be to send a high ladder. Whereas in
:04:40. > :04:42.neighbouring Suffolk, they will. Lauren Irish is a community nurse
:04:43. > :04:46.who cares for a resident inside a tower block. At the end of the day,
:04:47. > :04:50.it's a tower block. You hear that it is on fire, why wouldn't you send
:04:51. > :04:54.the highest ladder you've got to get them out quicker, rather than just
:04:55. > :04:57.sending a little one? What's that going to do? You know, who is going
:04:58. > :05:07.to reach the top floor? It's not fair. That's my opinion on it. It's
:05:08. > :05:09.not. I wouldn't like to be on the top floor. White Essex Fire Service
:05:10. > :05:11.say that they have inspected all of their high-rise buildings post
:05:12. > :05:18.Grenfell, and that no changes to their response plans are needed.
:05:19. > :05:20.Sally leaves Lee led the review to modernise Fire Services in
:05:21. > :05:26.Queensland, Australia. And aerial ladder is now essential for all --
:05:27. > :05:31.how are fires in this country. The response time has to be arranged so
:05:32. > :05:34.that it is within 15 minutes. Any new policy about aerial ladders must
:05:35. > :05:37.take account of what numbers are needed, because there may not be
:05:38. > :05:40.enough to really adequately provide the risk that we now know is with
:05:41. > :05:45.these buildings throughout the country. The differences in
:05:46. > :05:49.predetermined attendances between various fire rescue services go
:05:50. > :05:54.beyond whether they send an aerial ladder or not. For example, Kent
:05:55. > :06:04.sends up three fire Rangers to report a tower block files. Whereas
:06:05. > :06:06.in neighbouring summary, the same tower block fire gets six fire
:06:07. > :06:07.engines, and aerial ladder and a command support team. A London Fire
:06:08. > :06:26.Brigade spokesman told Newsnight... Few could have foreseen what
:06:27. > :06:29.happened at Grenfell. But after the disaster, questions have to be asked
:06:30. > :06:33.about whether there should be a national minimum attendance to a
:06:34. > :06:36.high-rise fire. Can it be right that your post code dictates what kind of
:06:37. > :06:38.a response of Fire Services will deliver?
:06:39. > :06:42.Now, if you're interested to find out how your local Fire Service
:06:43. > :06:45.would immediately respond to a tower block fire, then you can do
:06:46. > :06:47.so on the BBC's website, where we've created an interactive
:06:48. > :06:52.We asked the London Fire Brigade for an interview tonight,
:06:53. > :06:55.as well as each of the other services whose plans don't include
:06:56. > :06:58.sending a high ladder automatically to a tower block fire,
:06:59. > :07:08.I'm joined instead by Matt Wrack, the General Secretary of the FBU.
:07:09. > :07:18.Good evening to you. Is there any sense in the position that says you
:07:19. > :07:24.don't need to send one? London Fire Brigade say, actually, we deal with
:07:25. > :07:28.these things internally and you assess the situation before you
:07:29. > :07:34.deploy. There's a logic to what London Fire Brigade are saying,
:07:35. > :07:38.firefighters are trained to fight tower block fires internally because
:07:39. > :07:43.of compartmentalisation. We've discussed this before, and using
:07:44. > :07:48.internal tri- rising mains and so on. What Grenfell Tower has
:07:49. > :07:53.demonstrated is that the risk has clearly changed, because that is
:07:54. > :07:56.premised on the basis that the fire will not spread externally.
:07:57. > :08:01.Including we have a case where fire did spread externally and we now
:08:02. > :08:08.find that other tower blocks around the country are feeling similar
:08:09. > :08:12.tests? Should we always be sending high ladders, or now we have seen
:08:13. > :08:14.that we have got dangerous cladding on buildings that we haven't
:08:15. > :08:20.understood and we have seen the risk, it is time to learn from that
:08:21. > :08:23.and sent the aerials? There are two points. The other point you have
:08:24. > :08:28.raised, the number of fire engines, is a key issue. The number of
:08:29. > :08:31.firefighters is crucial. In terms of high reach vehicles, aerial
:08:32. > :08:35.appliances, we would generally have said that they should always be in
:08:36. > :08:39.tower block fires. Your position is that they always go, but especially
:08:40. > :08:46.after Grenfell? Yes. Why would they not send them out? Is it expensive?
:08:47. > :08:49.Aerial ladders and high reach vehicles, the problem that we have
:08:50. > :08:53.had is that they are very specialist. They therefore used
:08:54. > :08:57.rarely. Sometimes people could use them and don't use them. But they
:08:58. > :09:00.are just sitting around. If they are not being taken to a fire...
:09:01. > :09:05.Firefighters can do lots of other things. One of the problems we have
:09:06. > :09:11.identified in our own research is actually, it is also about speed,
:09:12. > :09:14.how quickly do fire engines get that? The majority of aerial
:09:15. > :09:18.appliances in the UK or not permanently crewed. There are even
:09:19. > :09:23.further delays. If you put them on the PDA, the predetermined
:09:24. > :09:27.attendance, you will probably have to have them always screwed up and
:09:28. > :09:30.it might cost them more? That makes sense. The London ones are
:09:31. > :09:35.permanently crewed. Matt, do you trust the people who are running the
:09:36. > :09:38.Fire Services of the UK to be competent at making these decisions?
:09:39. > :09:42.Well, we have raised concerns about this sort of issue for more than a
:09:43. > :09:46.decade. We used to have national standards of fire cover. We now have
:09:47. > :09:50.local so-called risk management plans. What they are in reality is
:09:51. > :09:54.budget management plans. You see that the risk assessments over time,
:09:55. > :09:59.as budgets are squeezed, the response is declined over the past
:10:00. > :10:02.few years. In a way, the Government says, look, we leave this up to the
:10:03. > :10:05.local people because they will make up their mind. Many of them visit
:10:06. > :10:08.the individual buildings were talking about, so they know the
:10:09. > :10:14.buildings. In Kent they said, we don't need to send the aerial
:10:15. > :10:17.initially... At the turn-of-the-century it was
:10:18. > :10:20.Government funded research about what firefighters do a different
:10:21. > :10:23.types of incidents. You could map out how many firefighters you need
:10:24. > :10:28.to fight a fire in a terraced house, a tower block and so on. I have to
:10:29. > :10:31.say, that was Government funded, we've done similar research
:10:32. > :10:35.ourselves. The idea... It depends how many firefighters or on the fire
:10:36. > :10:40.engine, because the number of fire engine itself may not be an adequate
:10:41. > :10:47.clue, how many firefighters are on each fire engine, the idea of
:10:48. > :10:49.sending three in our view is completely inadequate to fight a
:10:50. > :10:52.fire in a tower block. Matt Wrack, thank you. London have at least as
:10:53. > :10:56.an interim measure it changed their policy sets the Grenfell fire. --
:10:57. > :10:59.since the Grenfell fire. On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal
:11:00. > :11:01.will examine whether to overturn the conviction of a man
:11:02. > :11:04.who is in jail on a minimum 20-year It's a case that goes back
:11:05. > :11:08.to the violent killing in 2006 of an elderly man in a leafy,
:11:09. > :11:11.prosperous part of North London. It was unique in that
:11:12. > :11:13.some of the subsequent Did that contribute to a potential
:11:14. > :11:17.miscarriage of justice? Well, all such cases of course
:11:18. > :11:19.invite the question - did the man convicted of the crime
:11:20. > :11:22.do it or not? But this one is complicated by
:11:23. > :11:24.an association between the Chinese It means reporting restrictions
:11:25. > :11:31.apply in this case. But the journalist and writer
:11:32. > :11:34.Thomas Harding, who lived in the neighbourhood of the murder,
:11:35. > :11:38.has been intrigued by what happened. He's written a book
:11:39. > :11:40.on it and interviewed He's authored this film for us
:11:41. > :11:45.on the case, and there are some Alan Chappelow was bludgeoned
:11:46. > :12:08.to death in his home in 2006. The man convicted of his killing,
:12:09. > :12:11.a Chinese dissident who was somehow connected to the secret
:12:12. > :12:15.intelligence service MI6. The case has always been shrouded
:12:16. > :12:18.in mystery as the first murder trial in modern times to be held
:12:19. > :12:21.partly in secret. The Court of Appeal is due to decide
:12:22. > :12:23.whether the guilty verdict We've spoken exclusively
:12:24. > :12:33.to the man behind bars, who always claimed he suffered
:12:34. > :12:45.a miscarriage of justice. I knew the victim Alan Chappelow
:12:46. > :12:53.as the eccentric who lived four After he was killed,
:12:54. > :12:57.the house was knocked It's recently been on the market
:12:58. > :13:00.for over ?14 million. I've spent the past year writing
:13:01. > :13:02.a book about this story. I want to get to the bottom
:13:03. > :13:09.of what happened to my neighbour. An author and photographer,
:13:10. > :13:12.who wrote about George Bernard Shaw, Peter Tausig lived two doors down
:13:13. > :13:20.the street from him. Alan Chappelow was part
:13:21. > :13:23.of Downshire Hill. He was one of the
:13:24. > :13:27.original characters. One would always see him wandering
:13:28. > :13:31.up and down the street in his grubby raincoat with his belt tied
:13:32. > :13:33.round his waist or on his old motorbike which he
:13:34. > :13:41.kept in the garden. But he was so incredibly proud
:13:42. > :13:44.of this ramshackle house. You used to see him up on the roof
:13:45. > :13:47.repairing leaks with Sellotape. I felt terribly sad
:13:48. > :13:53.when I heard about his death. Police found 86-year-old
:13:54. > :13:56.Alan Chappelow's body buried under half a tonne of his own book
:13:57. > :14:00.manuscripts after being strangled Over the past year, I've had
:14:01. > :14:06.a number of conversations with Peter Lansdowne,
:14:07. > :14:08.the murder inquiry's senior He is portrayed in our
:14:09. > :14:15.film by an actor. It was a real whodunnit, it took two
:14:16. > :14:20.days of searching his house. Lansdowne believes
:14:21. > :14:28.Alan Chappelow had been the victim of fraud,
:14:29. > :14:31.which led to a burglary gone wrong. You have seen a lot of murders,
:14:32. > :14:34.have you ever seen any bungled burglary with such
:14:35. > :14:36.a high-level of violence? Does that raise
:14:37. > :14:46.questions in your head? I'm still supremely confident
:14:47. > :14:58.we've got the right man. I find it hard to believe that those
:14:59. > :15:00.brutal pictures of Alan were the result of a robbery that
:15:01. > :15:03.had gone wrong. Keri Nixon is an expert
:15:04. > :15:06.in criminal behaviour. This is an excessive
:15:07. > :15:09.use of violence, if it The burglar would likely use some
:15:10. > :15:18.violence to incapacitate the person and they would get out as quickly
:15:19. > :15:20.as they could. What they have done here,
:15:21. > :15:23.they've used an excessive use of violence and they've then taken
:15:24. > :15:26.a long time to bury the body amongst all the manuscripts and rubbish
:15:27. > :15:30.that we can see here. Just days before he was killed,
:15:31. > :15:35.Alan called the Inland Revenue, worried he'd been a victim
:15:36. > :15:38.of mail fraud. This is the audio
:15:39. > :16:05.recording of that call. Within days of finding the body,
:16:06. > :16:08.the police had identified their prime suspect,
:16:09. > :16:14.Wang Yam, a 45-year-old Chinese dissident who lived
:16:15. > :16:16.here on Denning Road. Less than five minutes walk
:16:17. > :16:21.from Alan Chappelow's home. When they arrived at his flat
:16:22. > :16:23.to arrest him they soon discovered that their suspect had
:16:24. > :16:29.fled to Switzerland. The police went through Wang Yam's
:16:30. > :16:32.rubbish and discovered that he had been involved with various
:16:33. > :16:41.suspicious financial dealings. Soon after, they obtained CCTV
:16:42. > :16:43.images of him using Alan's But they found no forensic evidence
:16:44. > :16:51.tying Wang Yam to the crime scene. The police also had audio recordings
:16:52. > :16:54.of a Chinese sounding man calling banks and pretending
:16:55. > :16:56.to be Alan Chappelow. How as a police officer do
:16:57. > :17:28.you then go to the murder, All of the transactions
:17:29. > :17:34.on the victim's account were linked to Wang Yam or an Oriental male
:17:35. > :17:37.with similarities to him, so circumstantially
:17:38. > :17:38.everything adds up. And the answer has to be
:17:39. > :17:45.very, very unlikely. There is no evidence that he'd
:17:46. > :17:48.ever been in the house? No evidence he'd ever
:17:49. > :17:50.touched Chappelow? No evidence full stop.
:17:51. > :17:54.No witnesses, nothing. But no evidence that
:17:55. > :17:59.anyone else had either. Could there be another
:18:00. > :18:01.viable alternative? Wang Yam is currently serving a 20
:18:02. > :18:10.year sentence and is being held He continues to maintain
:18:11. > :18:21.that he's innocent. I'm the first journalist
:18:22. > :18:23.to interview Wang Yam. Over the past year I've spent 25
:18:24. > :18:26.hours speaking with him Following his arrest
:18:27. > :19:02.in Switzerland, Wang Yam Kirsty Brimelow QC has
:19:03. > :19:09.represented him from the beginning. So, Kirsty, why do you think your
:19:10. > :19:17.client was innocent? There was no evidence
:19:18. > :19:20.at all forensically that he had There was no traces of blood found
:19:21. > :19:30.upon clothing and there were no He had no history of violence
:19:31. > :19:46.and to beat someone to death where you have not a violent bone
:19:47. > :19:49.in your body is unusual I've been given exclusive access
:19:50. > :19:53.to correspondence written by Wang Yam's solicitors to the CPS
:19:54. > :19:57.before the murder trial. It is clear from this
:19:58. > :20:01.that his lawyers felt that crucial information was not being disclosed,
:20:02. > :20:04.in particular Wang Yam's His lawyers also attached this
:20:05. > :20:13.letter from the Ministry of Defence which invited Wang Yam
:20:14. > :20:15.in for an interview and thanked him Because of a 2008 court order we're
:20:16. > :20:24.not allowed to learn any more about Wang Yam's work for MI6 or how
:20:25. > :20:31.it relates to his defence. I questioned Wang Yam
:20:32. > :20:33.about whether he'd asked the police to get in touch with MI6
:20:34. > :20:51.after being arrested. You had told them already off
:20:52. > :21:06.the record that you were with MI6? What I can tell you,
:21:07. > :21:11.and this was in open court, is that he was trying to get
:21:12. > :21:14.alongside pretty serious criminals in order to gather information
:21:15. > :21:21.as to their illegal activity. To take that information and report
:21:22. > :21:24.to the appropriate authorities. His defence given in open court
:21:25. > :21:37.was that he was gathering information of illegal activity
:21:38. > :21:41.and was taking that information to report back
:21:42. > :21:45.to appropriate authorities. I can't tell you any more
:21:46. > :21:49.as to who those authorities were and as to why he was in that
:21:50. > :21:52.position in the first place. Because all of that was
:21:53. > :21:58.in camera, in secret. A few weeks after I started speaking
:21:59. > :22:02.to Wang Yam, I received a letter from the Attorney General's Office,
:22:03. > :22:05.letting me know that they were aware of my research and reminding me
:22:06. > :22:09.of the court's press restrictions. It stated, "Breach of this order
:22:10. > :22:23.is a contempt of court". Somebody murdered Alan Chappelow,
:22:24. > :22:25.there was no other option. That is what you have to rely
:22:26. > :22:28.on at the end of the day. There wasn't an alternative,
:22:29. > :22:30.and almost without exception, I think it is without exception,
:22:31. > :22:34.if it looks like a murderer, and smells like a murderer,
:22:35. > :22:41.it probably is the murderer. If there were other people prowling
:22:42. > :22:48.around the streets looking at mail and post beside the suspect
:22:49. > :22:50.Wang Yam, would that begin to undermine the no
:22:51. > :22:52.alternative concept? It begins to nibble
:22:53. > :22:54.away, doesn't it? Yeah, it has to, yes, but there
:22:55. > :22:57.was no intelligence information, Have there been other attempts
:22:58. > :23:01.to defraud in this manner? Yeah, I'm absolutely confident.
:23:02. > :23:11.Absolutely confident. What else do we know
:23:12. > :23:16.about this case? There is very limited information
:23:17. > :23:19.in the public domain, but one of the few sources
:23:20. > :23:24.is the Supreme Court judgment. And it states that Wang Yam claimed
:23:25. > :23:27.he'd been given Alan's cheque-book and credit cards by gangsters
:23:28. > :23:30.and that he was playing along with them as a means of assembling
:23:31. > :23:32.evidence against them But because of court restrictions,
:23:33. > :23:37.there is little more we can And, extraordinarily, we can't even
:23:38. > :23:48.speculate about why parts Freelance crime reporter
:23:49. > :23:52.Duncan Campbell has been He believes the issue
:23:53. > :23:56.at the heart of this case is whether the interests
:23:57. > :23:58.of the British intelligence services were prioritised over Wang Yam's
:23:59. > :24:03.right to a fair trial. The official reason for holding
:24:04. > :24:05.the trial in secret The real reason, I think,
:24:06. > :24:13.was to avoid embarrassment. MI6 were embarrassed that they had
:24:14. > :24:17.been working with someone who was a little bit rackety
:24:18. > :24:23.and as far as they were concerned could possibly be involved
:24:24. > :24:25.in crime and even in murder. Years after Wang Yam was found
:24:26. > :24:30.guilty, a new witness came forward. We wrote an article in The Guardian
:24:31. > :24:33.in early 2014, and a couple of days "Dear Duncan, I read your article
:24:34. > :24:41.today with interest. I lived a few doors down
:24:42. > :24:47.from this back in 2006". This is after Wang Yam
:24:48. > :24:54.was already arrested. "I opened the door and there
:24:55. > :24:57.was a man with a knife What I'm amazed by is the fact
:24:58. > :25:01.that the local police did not immediately pass this on to people
:25:02. > :25:04.involved in the Chappelow case. And I think it's shocking
:25:05. > :25:06.that Wang Yam's defence were not aware of this,
:25:07. > :25:08.and shocking that nothing was done Do you think that Wang Yam should
:25:09. > :25:12.have been found guilty I'm sure if a jury had known that
:25:13. > :25:21.while he was in prison that somebody was carrying out a very similar kind
:25:22. > :25:23.of crime, that the jury This new witnesses testimony
:25:24. > :25:33.was sent to the Criminal Cases Review Commission who took
:25:34. > :25:35.it under review. I asked former senior
:25:36. > :25:36.police investigating officer Peter Lansdowne
:25:37. > :25:41.what he thought about it. Have you heard what happened
:25:42. > :25:43.today at the Criminal They've referred it
:25:44. > :25:57.to the appeals court. Oh my God.
:25:58. > :25:59.No, I didn't know that at all. It says, "The referral is based
:26:00. > :26:04.on new evidence relating to the failure by police to reveal
:26:05. > :26:07.to the Crown Prosecution Service and consequently to deprive Mr Yam's
:26:08. > :26:10.defence of material which might have assisted the defence and or
:26:11. > :26:17.undermined the prosecution case". I don't even know what
:26:18. > :26:25.they're talking about. Sometimes you have problems
:26:26. > :26:27.remembering things, correct? And my question is,
:26:28. > :26:35.is it just possible, when it's late at night and you're
:26:36. > :26:38.lying on your bed in prison, do you ever ask yourself,
:26:39. > :27:02.maybe I did it? I believe there are strong
:27:03. > :27:05.indications that Wang Yam suffered There were no forensics linking him
:27:06. > :27:13.to the scene of the crime. The secret trial may have meant that
:27:14. > :27:17.witnesses didn't come forward. And any failure to disclose
:27:18. > :27:19.potential evidence could seriously If the Court of Appeal does overturn
:27:20. > :27:27.Wang Yam's guilty verdict, the question then, is,
:27:28. > :27:35.who killed Alan Chappelow? Thomas Harding with his take
:27:36. > :27:41.on the Wang Yam case there. Newsnight contacted
:27:42. > :27:45.the Metropolitan Police for comment on that claim that another similar
:27:46. > :27:51.burglary in the same street was not passed by local police onto Met
:27:52. > :27:54.officers investigating the Chappelow murder, or to Wang
:27:55. > :27:56.Yam's defence team. The Met said it was unable
:27:57. > :28:00.to comment given the ongoing A spate of acid attacks occurred
:28:01. > :28:05.in East London last night - five attacks in all,
:28:06. > :28:07.and in each case the victims Two of the victims were couriers
:28:08. > :28:10.for food delivery services, Two teenagers have been arrested
:28:11. > :28:18.in relation to the attacks. There had been reports of robberies
:28:19. > :28:21.of mopeds in Hackney, at the heart of last night's
:28:22. > :28:23.attacks, but not But even before these attacks,
:28:24. > :28:29.there had been concern that acid was becoming a more common weapon,
:28:30. > :28:31.with 458 reported incidents Jaf Shah runs the charity
:28:32. > :28:42.Acid Survivors Trust International. And down the line from Brighton
:28:43. > :28:44.is Dr Marian Fitzgerald, who is a Professor of Criminology
:28:45. > :28:47.at the University of Kent, and was previously a researcher
:28:48. > :28:55.at the Home Office. Start us off on the evolution of the
:28:56. > :29:03.types of crime. As I understand it has gone from being a revenge crime,
:29:04. > :29:09.men and women, to a gang weapon to some degree. The strange thing is,
:29:10. > :29:13.we have returned to how acid attacks were committed 200 years ago in the
:29:14. > :29:18.UK, where there were many more gang-related activities. That has
:29:19. > :29:24.been the case as we have run through this century. In the 20s, 30s, Kwame
:29:25. > :29:29.Green wrote Brighton Rock where the main protagonist carries a container
:29:30. > :29:34.full of acid which he attacks other gangsters with -- Graham Greene. It
:29:35. > :29:38.is not a new phenomenon, that is the first in to point out, but what is
:29:39. > :29:43.different about what is occurring now, the trend is very different,
:29:44. > :29:50.globally it is men attacking women. 75% of victims are women globally.
:29:51. > :29:56.The UK is unique, what we are experiencing here, predominantly men
:29:57. > :30:02.and men attacks. This takes you back to the gang aspect, effectively.
:30:03. > :30:07.Should we view this as a new crime or is this old crimes and there is a
:30:08. > :30:14.new weapon perhaps because we have clamped down on guns and knives and
:30:15. > :30:20.this is the next thing available? Well, I think that we do need to see
:30:21. > :30:25.it in wider terms, the danger is we will get a political knee jerk
:30:26. > :30:30.response which targets acid, targeting the weapon, but we have
:30:31. > :30:37.had many of these initiatives and I think you have to distinguish
:30:38. > :30:41.between these sort of things like lethal weapons which can only be
:30:42. > :30:46.used for that purpose, guns being the most obvious example, which
:30:47. > :30:51.should be made illegal, other than where ownership is justified and
:30:52. > :30:58.licensed, as opposed to a very wide range of things which are not only
:30:59. > :31:01.readily available in most domestic circumstances but which are
:31:02. > :31:09.absolutely necessary. Knives come into that category. Now we have
:31:10. > :31:14.acid. You have got things like sharpened styling cones, people have
:31:15. > :31:19.been killed with sharpened pencils. Someone was killed with a broken
:31:20. > :31:24.bottle. You can't ban those things. If people find it too difficult
:31:25. > :31:28.because there is a lot of focus on one particular weapon, the people
:31:29. > :31:35.who are determined to go up there and cause damage to other people,
:31:36. > :31:42.whether for gain or to perpetrate violence for whatever reason, they
:31:43. > :31:46.will choose whatever weapon is available that they are most likely
:31:47. > :31:53.to be able to get away with. You have got to target the people. Not
:31:54. > :31:58.just keep on endlessly trying to tighten up on the use of everyday
:31:59. > :32:02.objects which can be used for that purpose but there is an infinite
:32:03. > :32:10.variety. Do you agree? I absolutely do. I also believe we should
:32:11. > :32:13.introduce controls around concentrated sulphuric acid which
:32:14. > :32:22.does enormous lifelong damage. A toilet cleaner or something, bleach,
:32:23. > :32:25.that is completely different? It depends on the concentration of acid
:32:26. > :32:29.in any of these household products compared to be concentrated acid
:32:30. > :32:32.which you can purchase without a licence and which does enormous
:32:33. > :32:42.damage was not that is for cleaning drains? It could be for cleaning
:32:43. > :32:47.metals, treatment of some sort, but... That goes into the category
:32:48. > :32:58.of guns? Exactly. I agree with the point that was made. We are talking
:32:59. > :33:01.about it, is there an infection -- infectiousness about it, people will
:33:02. > :33:08.feel this is the thing to do the more we talk about it? If someone is
:33:09. > :33:11.looking whether in the spur of the moment, trying to do damage to a
:33:12. > :33:17.Pardo or whatever, but something to hurt them with, in so far as acid is
:33:18. > :33:22.now being mentioned, and is getting Barber today, it may well be that we
:33:23. > :33:26.see any increase in these things -- is getting publicity. Because they
:33:27. > :33:30.may not have previously thought that under the kitchen think is something
:33:31. > :33:34.that might do damage but now they might, so I think we will see an
:33:35. > :33:39.increase while the focus is on this but then there will be something
:33:40. > :33:44.else. It is a question of, domestic violence is one thing, and what sort
:33:45. > :33:52.of weapons are used and this is an extension of what is used by more
:33:53. > :33:58.criminally minded people. They will always you something. You need the
:33:59. > :34:02.intelligence to know who they are. You have got to target them rather
:34:03. > :34:05.than what they are using. Thanks for joining us.
:34:06. > :34:09.But don't go yet, because it's been the first night
:34:10. > :34:12.It's the last night, with its raucous patriotism,
:34:13. > :34:15.that gets much of the attention, but we thought we'd balance
:34:16. > :34:17.things out over the summer with a Proms playout each week.
:34:18. > :34:20.And to start us off, we bring you the vocal
:34:21. > :34:22.ensemble I Fagiolini, who open the Proms Lunchtime
:34:23. > :34:25.They are acclaimed Monteverdi specialists, and this is the 450th
:34:26. > :34:29.Here they are with Anima Mea Perdona.
:34:30. > :36:34.Good evening. The weather on Saturday isn't looking ideal across
:36:35. > :36:35.the UK. There is a lot