Browse content similar to 14/07/2017. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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Why did it take so long for the London Fire Brigade | :00:00. | :00:07. | |
to deploy a tall ladder on the Grenfell fire? | :00:08. | :00:11. | |
It's a more awkward question for the Brigade tonight, | :00:12. | :00:13. | |
as most other Fire Services tell us they would have sent a tall | :00:14. | :00:16. | |
ladder out automatically. Vital minutes were lost before that | :00:17. | :00:25. | |
tall ladder arrived, but its delay appears to be a sign | :00:26. | :00:29. | |
of a haphazard patchwork of inconsistent policies and plans | :00:30. | :00:31. | |
among the Fire Services across the country. | :00:32. | :00:33. | |
The same fire in the same tower block elicits wildly different | :00:34. | :00:37. | |
responses from Fire Services across the country. | :00:38. | :00:42. | |
Also tonight: The killing of an elderly and reclusive man in 2006. | :00:43. | :00:46. | |
The conviction of a Chinese man for the murder in 2009. | :00:47. | :00:50. | |
I'm the first journalist to interview Wang Yam. | :00:51. | :00:56. | |
Over the past year, I've spent 25 hours speaking with him by telephone | :00:57. | :01:00. | |
And we do our bit to kick off the Proms... | :01:01. | :01:38. | |
Last week, we reported on the often heroic response of the fire fighters | :01:39. | :01:56. | |
to the Grenfell Tower blaze, and the failings in | :01:57. | :01:58. | |
The biggest surprise was that no tall ladder was dispatched | :01:59. | :02:04. | |
to Grenfell until half an hour after the initial call. | :02:05. | :02:08. | |
This, it turned out, was London Fire Brigade policy, | :02:09. | :02:11. | |
to wait and see before sending an aerial platform. | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
Well, we've been doing some follow-up work with the other | :02:16. | :02:18. | |
Fire Services of the UK, and it turns out that the bulk | :02:19. | :02:21. | |
London was in a minority in not sending a tall ladder automatically | :02:22. | :02:26. | |
London has adapted its policy since Grenfell as an interim measure, | :02:27. | :02:34. | |
but there are still nine other services that don't deploy. | :02:35. | :02:39. | |
And we've found other differences in plans of different Fire Services. | :02:40. | :02:44. | |
In other words, this is yet another area where, post-Grenfell, | :02:45. | :02:47. | |
you examine national policy closely and find it wanting. | :02:48. | :02:52. | |
A month after the horrifying events of the 14th of June, and a clearer | :02:53. | :03:06. | |
picture of how the London Fire Brigade responded to the Grenfell | :03:07. | :03:11. | |
Tower fire has begun to emerge. Last week, Newsnight reported that the | :03:12. | :03:15. | |
first high ladder, or are real, arrived 31 minutes after the first | :03:16. | :03:21. | |
fire engine. -- or are real. London has now changed its predetermined | :03:22. | :03:24. | |
attendance, what it would automatically send to a high-rise | :03:25. | :03:29. | |
fire, to include a high ladder as an interim measure. But how would other | :03:30. | :03:33. | |
Fire Services have reacted to a similar fire in a high-rise | :03:34. | :03:37. | |
building? We contacted every Fire Service in the country to ask what | :03:38. | :03:41. | |
their predetermined attendance was to a fire in a tower block. We found | :03:42. | :03:46. | |
that 70% of Fire Services would have sent an aerial ladder. This is | :03:47. | :03:49. | |
before Grenfell, remember, to any high-rise fire. However, nine Fire | :03:50. | :04:05. | |
Services, including Tyne Wear, Leicestershire, Kent, Lancashire and | :04:06. | :04:09. | |
Cambridgeshire will not send aerial ladder in the first instance. The | :04:10. | :04:14. | |
crux of the problem is this - the same fire in the same tower block | :04:15. | :04:20. | |
elicits wildly different responses from Fire Services across the | :04:21. | :04:24. | |
country. Now, take this building behind me. It's a high-rise building | :04:25. | :04:29. | |
in Essex. And if there's a fire here, the first response of the | :04:30. | :04:32. | |
local Fire Service won't be to send a high ladder. Whereas in | :04:33. | :04:39. | |
neighbouring Suffolk, they will. Lauren Irish is a community nurse | :04:40. | :04:42. | |
who cares for a resident inside a tower block. At the end of the day, | :04:43. | :04:46. | |
it's a tower block. You hear that it is on fire, why wouldn't you send | :04:47. | :04:50. | |
the highest ladder you've got to get them out quicker, rather than just | :04:51. | :04:54. | |
sending a little one? What's that going to do? You know, who is going | :04:55. | :04:57. | |
to reach the top floor? It's not fair. That's my opinion on it. It's | :04:58. | :05:07. | |
not. I wouldn't like to be on the top floor. White Essex Fire Service | :05:08. | :05:09. | |
say that they have inspected all of their high-rise buildings post | :05:10. | :05:11. | |
Grenfell, and that no changes to their response plans are needed. | :05:12. | :05:18. | |
Sally leaves Lee led the review to modernise Fire Services in | :05:19. | :05:20. | |
Queensland, Australia. And aerial ladder is now essential for all -- | :05:21. | :05:26. | |
how are fires in this country. The response time has to be arranged so | :05:27. | :05:31. | |
that it is within 15 minutes. Any new policy about aerial ladders must | :05:32. | :05:34. | |
take account of what numbers are needed, because there may not be | :05:35. | :05:37. | |
enough to really adequately provide the risk that we now know is with | :05:38. | :05:40. | |
these buildings throughout the country. The differences in | :05:41. | :05:45. | |
predetermined attendances between various fire rescue services go | :05:46. | :05:49. | |
beyond whether they send an aerial ladder or not. For example, Kent | :05:50. | :05:54. | |
sends up three fire Rangers to report a tower block files. Whereas | :05:55. | :06:04. | |
in neighbouring summary, the same tower block fire gets six fire | :06:05. | :06:06. | |
engines, and aerial ladder and a command support team. A London Fire | :06:07. | :06:07. | |
Brigade spokesman told Newsnight... Few could have foreseen what | :06:08. | :06:26. | |
happened at Grenfell. But after the disaster, questions have to be asked | :06:27. | :06:29. | |
about whether there should be a national minimum attendance to a | :06:30. | :06:33. | |
high-rise fire. Can it be right that your post code dictates what kind of | :06:34. | :06:36. | |
a response of Fire Services will deliver? | :06:37. | :06:38. | |
Now, if you're interested to find out how your local Fire Service | :06:39. | :06:42. | |
would immediately respond to a tower block fire, then you can do | :06:43. | :06:45. | |
so on the BBC's website, where we've created an interactive | :06:46. | :06:47. | |
We asked the London Fire Brigade for an interview tonight, | :06:48. | :06:52. | |
as well as each of the other services whose plans don't include | :06:53. | :06:55. | |
sending a high ladder automatically to a tower block fire, | :06:56. | :06:58. | |
I'm joined instead by Matt Wrack, the General Secretary of the FBU. | :06:59. | :07:08. | |
Good evening to you. Is there any sense in the position that says you | :07:09. | :07:18. | |
don't need to send one? London Fire Brigade say, actually, we deal with | :07:19. | :07:24. | |
these things internally and you assess the situation before you | :07:25. | :07:28. | |
deploy. There's a logic to what London Fire Brigade are saying, | :07:29. | :07:34. | |
firefighters are trained to fight tower block fires internally because | :07:35. | :07:38. | |
of compartmentalisation. We've discussed this before, and using | :07:39. | :07:43. | |
internal tri- rising mains and so on. What Grenfell Tower has | :07:44. | :07:48. | |
demonstrated is that the risk has clearly changed, because that is | :07:49. | :07:53. | |
premised on the basis that the fire will not spread externally. | :07:54. | :07:56. | |
Including we have a case where fire did spread externally and we now | :07:57. | :08:01. | |
find that other tower blocks around the country are feeling similar | :08:02. | :08:08. | |
tests? Should we always be sending high ladders, or now we have seen | :08:09. | :08:12. | |
that we have got dangerous cladding on buildings that we haven't | :08:13. | :08:14. | |
understood and we have seen the risk, it is time to learn from that | :08:15. | :08:20. | |
and sent the aerials? There are two points. The other point you have | :08:21. | :08:23. | |
raised, the number of fire engines, is a key issue. The number of | :08:24. | :08:28. | |
firefighters is crucial. In terms of high reach vehicles, aerial | :08:29. | :08:31. | |
appliances, we would generally have said that they should always be in | :08:32. | :08:35. | |
tower block fires. Your position is that they always go, but especially | :08:36. | :08:39. | |
after Grenfell? Yes. Why would they not send them out? Is it expensive? | :08:40. | :08:46. | |
Aerial ladders and high reach vehicles, the problem that we have | :08:47. | :08:49. | |
had is that they are very specialist. They therefore used | :08:50. | :08:53. | |
rarely. Sometimes people could use them and don't use them. But they | :08:54. | :08:57. | |
are just sitting around. If they are not being taken to a fire... | :08:58. | :09:00. | |
Firefighters can do lots of other things. One of the problems we have | :09:01. | :09:05. | |
identified in our own research is actually, it is also about speed, | :09:06. | :09:11. | |
how quickly do fire engines get that? The majority of aerial | :09:12. | :09:14. | |
appliances in the UK or not permanently crewed. There are even | :09:15. | :09:18. | |
further delays. If you put them on the PDA, the predetermined | :09:19. | :09:23. | |
attendance, you will probably have to have them always screwed up and | :09:24. | :09:27. | |
it might cost them more? That makes sense. The London ones are | :09:28. | :09:30. | |
permanently crewed. Matt, do you trust the people who are running the | :09:31. | :09:35. | |
Fire Services of the UK to be competent at making these decisions? | :09:36. | :09:38. | |
Well, we have raised concerns about this sort of issue for more than a | :09:39. | :09:42. | |
decade. We used to have national standards of fire cover. We now have | :09:43. | :09:46. | |
local so-called risk management plans. What they are in reality is | :09:47. | :09:50. | |
budget management plans. You see that the risk assessments over time, | :09:51. | :09:54. | |
as budgets are squeezed, the response is declined over the past | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
few years. In a way, the Government says, look, we leave this up to the | :10:00. | :10:02. | |
local people because they will make up their mind. Many of them visit | :10:03. | :10:05. | |
the individual buildings were talking about, so they know the | :10:06. | :10:08. | |
buildings. In Kent they said, we don't need to send the aerial | :10:09. | :10:14. | |
initially... At the turn-of-the-century it was | :10:15. | :10:17. | |
Government funded research about what firefighters do a different | :10:18. | :10:20. | |
types of incidents. You could map out how many firefighters you need | :10:21. | :10:23. | |
to fight a fire in a terraced house, a tower block and so on. I have to | :10:24. | :10:28. | |
say, that was Government funded, we've done similar research | :10:29. | :10:31. | |
ourselves. The idea... It depends how many firefighters or on the fire | :10:32. | :10:35. | |
engine, because the number of fire engine itself may not be an adequate | :10:36. | :10:40. | |
clue, how many firefighters are on each fire engine, the idea of | :10:41. | :10:47. | |
sending three in our view is completely inadequate to fight a | :10:48. | :10:49. | |
fire in a tower block. Matt Wrack, thank you. London have at least as | :10:50. | :10:52. | |
an interim measure it changed their policy sets the Grenfell fire. -- | :10:53. | :10:56. | |
since the Grenfell fire. On Tuesday, the Court of Appeal | :10:57. | :10:59. | |
will examine whether to overturn the conviction of a man | :11:00. | :11:01. | |
who is in jail on a minimum 20-year It's a case that goes back | :11:02. | :11:04. | |
to the violent killing in 2006 of an elderly man in a leafy, | :11:05. | :11:08. | |
prosperous part of North London. It was unique in that | :11:09. | :11:11. | |
some of the subsequent Did that contribute to a potential | :11:12. | :11:13. | |
miscarriage of justice? Well, all such cases of course | :11:14. | :11:17. | |
invite the question - did the man convicted of the crime | :11:18. | :11:19. | |
do it or not? But this one is complicated by | :11:20. | :11:22. | |
an association between the Chinese It means reporting restrictions | :11:23. | :11:24. | |
apply in this case. But the journalist and writer | :11:25. | :11:31. | |
Thomas Harding, who lived in the neighbourhood of the murder, | :11:32. | :11:34. | |
has been intrigued by what happened. He's written a book | :11:35. | :11:38. | |
on it and interviewed He's authored this film for us | :11:39. | :11:40. | |
on the case, and there are some Alan Chappelow was bludgeoned | :11:41. | :11:45. | |
to death in his home in 2006. The man convicted of his killing, | :11:46. | :12:08. | |
a Chinese dissident who was somehow connected to the secret | :12:09. | :12:11. | |
intelligence service MI6. The case has always been shrouded | :12:12. | :12:15. | |
in mystery as the first murder trial in modern times to be held | :12:16. | :12:18. | |
partly in secret. The Court of Appeal is due to decide | :12:19. | :12:21. | |
whether the guilty verdict We've spoken exclusively | :12:22. | :12:23. | |
to the man behind bars, who always claimed he suffered | :12:24. | :12:33. | |
a miscarriage of justice. I knew the victim Alan Chappelow | :12:34. | :12:45. | |
as the eccentric who lived four After he was killed, | :12:46. | :12:53. | |
the house was knocked It's recently been on the market | :12:54. | :12:57. | |
for over ?14 million. I've spent the past year writing | :12:58. | :13:00. | |
a book about this story. I want to get to the bottom | :13:01. | :13:02. | |
of what happened to my neighbour. An author and photographer, | :13:03. | :13:09. | |
who wrote about George Bernard Shaw, Peter Tausig lived two doors down | :13:10. | :13:12. | |
the street from him. Alan Chappelow was part | :13:13. | :13:20. | |
of Downshire Hill. He was one of the | :13:21. | :13:23. | |
original characters. One would always see him wandering | :13:24. | :13:27. | |
up and down the street in his grubby raincoat with his belt tied | :13:28. | :13:31. | |
round his waist or on his old motorbike which he | :13:32. | :13:33. | |
kept in the garden. But he was so incredibly proud | :13:34. | :13:41. | |
of this ramshackle house. You used to see him up on the roof | :13:42. | :13:44. | |
repairing leaks with Sellotape. I felt terribly sad | :13:45. | :13:47. | |
when I heard about his death. Police found 86-year-old | :13:48. | :13:53. | |
Alan Chappelow's body buried under half a tonne of his own book | :13:54. | :13:56. | |
manuscripts after being strangled Over the past year, I've had | :13:57. | :14:00. | |
a number of conversations with Peter Lansdowne, | :14:01. | :14:06. | |
the murder inquiry's senior He is portrayed in our | :14:07. | :14:08. | |
film by an actor. It was a real whodunnit, it took two | :14:09. | :14:15. | |
days of searching his house. Lansdowne believes | :14:16. | :14:20. | |
Alan Chappelow had been the victim of fraud, | :14:21. | :14:28. | |
which led to a burglary gone wrong. You have seen a lot of murders, | :14:29. | :14:31. | |
have you ever seen any bungled burglary with such | :14:32. | :14:34. | |
a high-level of violence? Does that raise | :14:35. | :14:36. | |
questions in your head? I'm still supremely confident | :14:37. | :14:46. | |
we've got the right man. I find it hard to believe that those | :14:47. | :14:58. | |
brutal pictures of Alan were the result of a robbery that | :14:59. | :15:00. | |
had gone wrong. Keri Nixon is an expert | :15:01. | :15:03. | |
in criminal behaviour. This is an excessive | :15:04. | :15:06. | |
use of violence, if it The burglar would likely use some | :15:07. | :15:09. | |
violence to incapacitate the person and they would get out as quickly | :15:10. | :15:18. | |
as they could. What they have done here, | :15:19. | :15:20. | |
they've used an excessive use of violence and they've then taken | :15:21. | :15:23. | |
a long time to bury the body amongst all the manuscripts and rubbish | :15:24. | :15:26. | |
that we can see here. Just days before he was killed, | :15:27. | :15:30. | |
Alan called the Inland Revenue, worried he'd been a victim | :15:31. | :15:35. | |
of mail fraud. This is the audio | :15:36. | :15:38. | |
recording of that call. Within days of finding the body, | :15:39. | :16:05. | |
the police had identified their prime suspect, | :16:06. | :16:08. | |
Wang Yam, a 45-year-old Chinese dissident who lived | :16:09. | :16:14. | |
here on Denning Road. Less than five minutes walk | :16:15. | :16:16. | |
from Alan Chappelow's home. When they arrived at his flat | :16:17. | :16:21. | |
to arrest him they soon discovered that their suspect had | :16:22. | :16:23. | |
fled to Switzerland. The police went through Wang Yam's | :16:24. | :16:29. | |
rubbish and discovered that he had been involved with various | :16:30. | :16:32. | |
suspicious financial dealings. Soon after, they obtained CCTV | :16:33. | :16:41. | |
images of him using Alan's But they found no forensic evidence | :16:42. | :16:43. | |
tying Wang Yam to the crime scene. The police also had audio recordings | :16:44. | :16:51. | |
of a Chinese sounding man calling banks and pretending | :16:52. | :16:54. | |
to be Alan Chappelow. How as a police officer do | :16:55. | :16:56. | |
you then go to the murder, All of the transactions | :16:57. | :17:28. | |
on the victim's account were linked to Wang Yam or an Oriental male | :17:29. | :17:34. | |
with similarities to him, so circumstantially | :17:35. | :17:37. | |
everything adds up. And the answer has to be | :17:38. | :17:38. | |
very, very unlikely. There is no evidence that he'd | :17:39. | :17:45. | |
ever been in the house? No evidence he'd ever | :17:46. | :17:48. | |
touched Chappelow? No evidence full stop. | :17:49. | :17:50. | |
No witnesses, nothing. But no evidence that | :17:51. | :17:54. | |
anyone else had either. Could there be another | :17:55. | :17:59. | |
viable alternative? Wang Yam is currently serving a 20 | :18:00. | :18:01. | |
year sentence and is being held He continues to maintain | :18:02. | :18:10. | |
that he's innocent. I'm the first journalist | :18:11. | :18:21. | |
to interview Wang Yam. Over the past year I've spent 25 | :18:22. | :18:23. | |
hours speaking with him Following his arrest | :18:24. | :18:26. | |
in Switzerland, Wang Yam Kirsty Brimelow QC has | :18:27. | :19:02. | |
represented him from the beginning. So, Kirsty, why do you think your | :19:03. | :19:09. | |
client was innocent? There was no evidence | :19:10. | :19:17. | |
at all forensically that he had There was no traces of blood found | :19:18. | :19:20. | |
upon clothing and there were no He had no history of violence | :19:21. | :19:30. | |
and to beat someone to death where you have not a violent bone | :19:31. | :19:46. | |
in your body is unusual I've been given exclusive access | :19:47. | :19:49. | |
to correspondence written by Wang Yam's solicitors to the CPS | :19:50. | :19:53. | |
before the murder trial. It is clear from this | :19:54. | :19:57. | |
that his lawyers felt that crucial information was not being disclosed, | :19:58. | :20:01. | |
in particular Wang Yam's His lawyers also attached this | :20:02. | :20:04. | |
letter from the Ministry of Defence which invited Wang Yam | :20:05. | :20:13. | |
in for an interview and thanked him Because of a 2008 court order we're | :20:14. | :20:15. | |
not allowed to learn any more about Wang Yam's work for MI6 or how | :20:16. | :20:24. | |
it relates to his defence. I questioned Wang Yam | :20:25. | :20:31. | |
about whether he'd asked the police to get in touch with MI6 | :20:32. | :20:33. | |
after being arrested. You had told them already off | :20:34. | :20:51. | |
the record that you were with MI6? What I can tell you, | :20:52. | :21:06. | |
and this was in open court, is that he was trying to get | :21:07. | :21:11. | |
alongside pretty serious criminals in order to gather information | :21:12. | :21:14. | |
as to their illegal activity. To take that information and report | :21:15. | :21:21. | |
to the appropriate authorities. His defence given in open court | :21:22. | :21:24. | |
was that he was gathering information of illegal activity | :21:25. | :21:37. | |
and was taking that information to report back | :21:38. | :21:41. | |
to appropriate authorities. I can't tell you any more | :21:42. | :21:45. | |
as to who those authorities were and as to why he was in that | :21:46. | :21:49. | |
position in the first place. Because all of that was | :21:50. | :21:52. | |
in camera, in secret. A few weeks after I started speaking | :21:53. | :21:58. | |
to Wang Yam, I received a letter from the Attorney General's Office, | :21:59. | :22:02. | |
letting me know that they were aware of my research and reminding me | :22:03. | :22:05. | |
of the court's press restrictions. It stated, "Breach of this order | :22:06. | :22:09. | |
is a contempt of court". Somebody murdered Alan Chappelow, | :22:10. | :22:23. | |
there was no other option. That is what you have to rely | :22:24. | :22:25. | |
on at the end of the day. There wasn't an alternative, | :22:26. | :22:28. | |
and almost without exception, I think it is without exception, | :22:29. | :22:30. | |
if it looks like a murderer, and smells like a murderer, | :22:31. | :22:34. | |
it probably is the murderer. If there were other people prowling | :22:35. | :22:41. | |
around the streets looking at mail and post beside the suspect | :22:42. | :22:48. | |
Wang Yam, would that begin to undermine the no | :22:49. | :22:50. | |
alternative concept? It begins to nibble | :22:51. | :22:52. | |
away, doesn't it? Yeah, it has to, yes, but there | :22:53. | :22:54. | |
was no intelligence information, Have there been other attempts | :22:55. | :22:57. | |
to defraud in this manner? Yeah, I'm absolutely confident. | :22:58. | :23:01. | |
Absolutely confident. What else do we know | :23:02. | :23:11. | |
about this case? There is very limited information | :23:12. | :23:16. | |
in the public domain, but one of the few sources | :23:17. | :23:19. | |
is the Supreme Court judgment. And it states that Wang Yam claimed | :23:20. | :23:24. | |
he'd been given Alan's cheque-book and credit cards by gangsters | :23:25. | :23:27. | |
and that he was playing along with them as a means of assembling | :23:28. | :23:30. | |
evidence against them But because of court restrictions, | :23:31. | :23:32. | |
there is little more we can And, extraordinarily, we can't even | :23:33. | :23:37. | |
speculate about why parts Freelance crime reporter | :23:38. | :23:48. | |
Duncan Campbell has been He believes the issue | :23:49. | :23:52. | |
at the heart of this case is whether the interests | :23:53. | :23:56. | |
of the British intelligence services were prioritised over Wang Yam's | :23:57. | :23:58. | |
right to a fair trial. The official reason for holding | :23:59. | :24:03. | |
the trial in secret The real reason, I think, | :24:04. | :24:05. | |
was to avoid embarrassment. MI6 were embarrassed that they had | :24:06. | :24:13. | |
been working with someone who was a little bit rackety | :24:14. | :24:17. | |
and as far as they were concerned could possibly be involved | :24:18. | :24:23. | |
in crime and even in murder. Years after Wang Yam was found | :24:24. | :24:25. | |
guilty, a new witness came forward. We wrote an article in The Guardian | :24:26. | :24:30. | |
in early 2014, and a couple of days "Dear Duncan, I read your article | :24:31. | :24:33. | |
today with interest. I lived a few doors down | :24:34. | :24:41. | |
from this back in 2006". This is after Wang Yam | :24:42. | :24:47. | |
was already arrested. "I opened the door and there | :24:48. | :24:54. | |
was a man with a knife What I'm amazed by is the fact | :24:55. | :24:57. | |
that the local police did not immediately pass this on to people | :24:58. | :25:01. | |
involved in the Chappelow case. And I think it's shocking | :25:02. | :25:04. | |
that Wang Yam's defence were not aware of this, | :25:05. | :25:06. | |
and shocking that nothing was done Do you think that Wang Yam should | :25:07. | :25:08. | |
have been found guilty I'm sure if a jury had known that | :25:09. | :25:12. | |
while he was in prison that somebody was carrying out a very similar kind | :25:13. | :25:21. | |
of crime, that the jury This new witnesses testimony | :25:22. | :25:23. | |
was sent to the Criminal Cases Review Commission who took | :25:24. | :25:33. | |
it under review. I asked former senior | :25:34. | :25:35. | |
police investigating officer Peter Lansdowne | :25:36. | :25:36. | |
what he thought about it. Have you heard what happened | :25:37. | :25:41. | |
today at the Criminal They've referred it | :25:42. | :25:43. | |
to the appeals court. Oh my God. | :25:44. | :25:57. | |
No, I didn't know that at all. It says, "The referral is based | :25:58. | :25:59. | |
on new evidence relating to the failure by police to reveal | :26:00. | :26:04. | |
to the Crown Prosecution Service and consequently to deprive Mr Yam's | :26:05. | :26:07. | |
defence of material which might have assisted the defence and or | :26:08. | :26:10. | |
undermined the prosecution case". I don't even know what | :26:11. | :26:17. | |
they're talking about. Sometimes you have problems | :26:18. | :26:25. | |
remembering things, correct? And my question is, | :26:26. | :26:27. | |
is it just possible, when it's late at night and you're | :26:28. | :26:35. | |
lying on your bed in prison, do you ever ask yourself, | :26:36. | :26:38. | |
maybe I did it? I believe there are strong | :26:39. | :27:02. | |
indications that Wang Yam suffered There were no forensics linking him | :27:03. | :27:05. | |
to the scene of the crime. The secret trial may have meant that | :27:06. | :27:13. | |
witnesses didn't come forward. And any failure to disclose | :27:14. | :27:17. | |
potential evidence could seriously If the Court of Appeal does overturn | :27:18. | :27:19. | |
Wang Yam's guilty verdict, the question then, is, | :27:20. | :27:27. | |
who killed Alan Chappelow? Thomas Harding with his take | :27:28. | :27:35. | |
on the Wang Yam case there. Newsnight contacted | :27:36. | :27:41. | |
the Metropolitan Police for comment on that claim that another similar | :27:42. | :27:45. | |
burglary in the same street was not passed by local police onto Met | :27:46. | :27:51. | |
officers investigating the Chappelow murder, or to Wang | :27:52. | :27:54. | |
Yam's defence team. The Met said it was unable | :27:55. | :27:56. | |
to comment given the ongoing A spate of acid attacks occurred | :27:57. | :28:00. | |
in East London last night - five attacks in all, | :28:01. | :28:05. | |
and in each case the victims Two of the victims were couriers | :28:06. | :28:07. | |
for food delivery services, Two teenagers have been arrested | :28:08. | :28:10. | |
in relation to the attacks. There had been reports of robberies | :28:11. | :28:18. | |
of mopeds in Hackney, at the heart of last night's | :28:19. | :28:21. | |
attacks, but not But even before these attacks, | :28:22. | :28:23. | |
there had been concern that acid was becoming a more common weapon, | :28:24. | :28:29. | |
with 458 reported incidents Jaf Shah runs the charity | :28:30. | :28:31. | |
Acid Survivors Trust International. And down the line from Brighton | :28:32. | :28:42. | |
is Dr Marian Fitzgerald, who is a Professor of Criminology | :28:43. | :28:44. | |
at the University of Kent, and was previously a researcher | :28:45. | :28:47. | |
at the Home Office. Start us off on the evolution of the | :28:48. | :28:55. | |
types of crime. As I understand it has gone from being a revenge crime, | :28:56. | :29:03. | |
men and women, to a gang weapon to some degree. The strange thing is, | :29:04. | :29:09. | |
we have returned to how acid attacks were committed 200 years ago in the | :29:10. | :29:13. | |
UK, where there were many more gang-related activities. That has | :29:14. | :29:18. | |
been the case as we have run through this century. In the 20s, 30s, Kwame | :29:19. | :29:24. | |
Green wrote Brighton Rock where the main protagonist carries a container | :29:25. | :29:29. | |
full of acid which he attacks other gangsters with -- Graham Greene. It | :29:30. | :29:34. | |
is not a new phenomenon, that is the first in to point out, but what is | :29:35. | :29:38. | |
different about what is occurring now, the trend is very different, | :29:39. | :29:43. | |
globally it is men attacking women. 75% of victims are women globally. | :29:44. | :29:50. | |
The UK is unique, what we are experiencing here, predominantly men | :29:51. | :29:56. | |
and men attacks. This takes you back to the gang aspect, effectively. | :29:57. | :30:02. | |
Should we view this as a new crime or is this old crimes and there is a | :30:03. | :30:07. | |
new weapon perhaps because we have clamped down on guns and knives and | :30:08. | :30:14. | |
this is the next thing available? Well, I think that we do need to see | :30:15. | :30:20. | |
it in wider terms, the danger is we will get a political knee jerk | :30:21. | :30:25. | |
response which targets acid, targeting the weapon, but we have | :30:26. | :30:30. | |
had many of these initiatives and I think you have to distinguish | :30:31. | :30:37. | |
between these sort of things like lethal weapons which can only be | :30:38. | :30:41. | |
used for that purpose, guns being the most obvious example, which | :30:42. | :30:46. | |
should be made illegal, other than where ownership is justified and | :30:47. | :30:51. | |
licensed, as opposed to a very wide range of things which are not only | :30:52. | :30:58. | |
readily available in most domestic circumstances but which are | :30:59. | :31:01. | |
absolutely necessary. Knives come into that category. Now we have | :31:02. | :31:09. | |
acid. You have got things like sharpened styling cones, people have | :31:10. | :31:14. | |
been killed with sharpened pencils. Someone was killed with a broken | :31:15. | :31:19. | |
bottle. You can't ban those things. If people find it too difficult | :31:20. | :31:24. | |
because there is a lot of focus on one particular weapon, the people | :31:25. | :31:28. | |
who are determined to go up there and cause damage to other people, | :31:29. | :31:35. | |
whether for gain or to perpetrate violence for whatever reason, they | :31:36. | :31:42. | |
will choose whatever weapon is available that they are most likely | :31:43. | :31:46. | |
to be able to get away with. You have got to target the people. Not | :31:47. | :31:53. | |
just keep on endlessly trying to tighten up on the use of everyday | :31:54. | :31:58. | |
objects which can be used for that purpose but there is an infinite | :31:59. | :32:02. | |
variety. Do you agree? I absolutely do. I also believe we should | :32:03. | :32:10. | |
introduce controls around concentrated sulphuric acid which | :32:11. | :32:13. | |
does enormous lifelong damage. A toilet cleaner or something, bleach, | :32:14. | :32:22. | |
that is completely different? It depends on the concentration of acid | :32:23. | :32:25. | |
in any of these household products compared to be concentrated acid | :32:26. | :32:29. | |
which you can purchase without a licence and which does enormous | :32:30. | :32:32. | |
damage was not that is for cleaning drains? It could be for cleaning | :32:33. | :32:42. | |
metals, treatment of some sort, but... That goes into the category | :32:43. | :32:47. | |
of guns? Exactly. I agree with the point that was made. We are talking | :32:48. | :32:58. | |
about it, is there an infection -- infectiousness about it, people will | :32:59. | :33:01. | |
feel this is the thing to do the more we talk about it? If someone is | :33:02. | :33:08. | |
looking whether in the spur of the moment, trying to do damage to a | :33:09. | :33:11. | |
Pardo or whatever, but something to hurt them with, in so far as acid is | :33:12. | :33:17. | |
now being mentioned, and is getting Barber today, it may well be that we | :33:18. | :33:22. | |
see any increase in these things -- is getting publicity. Because they | :33:23. | :33:26. | |
may not have previously thought that under the kitchen think is something | :33:27. | :33:30. | |
that might do damage but now they might, so I think we will see an | :33:31. | :33:34. | |
increase while the focus is on this but then there will be something | :33:35. | :33:39. | |
else. It is a question of, domestic violence is one thing, and what sort | :33:40. | :33:44. | |
of weapons are used and this is an extension of what is used by more | :33:45. | :33:52. | |
criminally minded people. They will always you something. You need the | :33:53. | :33:58. | |
intelligence to know who they are. You have got to target them rather | :33:59. | :34:02. | |
than what they are using. Thanks for joining us. | :34:03. | :34:05. | |
But don't go yet, because it's been the first night | :34:06. | :34:09. | |
It's the last night, with its raucous patriotism, | :34:10. | :34:12. | |
that gets much of the attention, but we thought we'd balance | :34:13. | :34:15. | |
things out over the summer with a Proms playout each week. | :34:16. | :34:17. | |
And to start us off, we bring you the vocal | :34:18. | :34:20. | |
ensemble I Fagiolini, who open the Proms Lunchtime | :34:21. | :34:22. | |
They are acclaimed Monteverdi specialists, and this is the 450th | :34:23. | :34:25. | |
Here they are with Anima Mea Perdona. | :34:26. | :34:29. | |
Good evening. The weather on Saturday isn't looking ideal across | :34:30. | :36:34. | |
the UK. There is a lot | :36:35. | :36:35. |