24/01/2018 Victoria Derbyshire

Hello, it's Wednesday, it's nine

o'clock, I'm Victoria Derbyshire -

welcome to the programme.

How has Scotland managed to cut

knife crime by 70% in a decade,

when in England and Wales,

it's on the rise?

I've been stabbed in the back,

punctured lungs...

So, what lessons can be learnt?

We have an exclusive report.

The politician who helped London win

the 2012 Olympic Games has spoken

publicly for the first time

to the BBC about being

diagnosed with an aggressive

form of brain cancer.

I have not a single apparent...

Symptom symptom.

I felt it was

something that I could deal with.

We'll be speaking to

a 22-year-old who' has survived

three brain tumours.

Also, on the programme...

We'll talk live to the deaf mum

who is suing the promoter of a gig

by Little Mix for failing to provide

a sign language interpreter

for the two support acts.

Hello and welcome to the programme -

we're live until 11 this morning.

We're going to bring you that

exclusive film on knife crime

at quarter past nine - incredible

progress made in reducing

knife crime in Scotland.

If your family has been

affected by knife crime,

then we want to hear from you today.

What happened, what impact did

it have on your family

and what's your solution to trying

to tackle it?

Use the hashtag #VictoriaLIVE, send

me an email or Facebok message -

and you don't have to leave your

name, that's absolutely fine.

Our top story today...

More than 900 criminal cases

were dropped last year in England

and Wales due to a failure by police

or prosecutors to follow

the rules relating to

the disclosure of evidence.

Figures obtained by BBC News show

a 70% increase in the number

of collapsed cases over the course

of two years.

Our home affairs correspondent

Danny Shaw reports.

I was relieved not only for myself

but also everyone that's been

with me every step of the way.

Under investigation

for rape for two years,

Liam Allen's life was on hold.

Then, three days into his trial,

his legal team received

crucial information,

and the prosecution was halted.

The case highlighted

problems with disclosure,

the duty on police and prosecutors

to pass on material which might

assist the defence case

or undermine the prosecution's.

BBC News has obtained figures on how

many people have been cleared or had

allegations dropped against them

because of disclosure failings.

In 2014-15, proceedings

were halted against 537 people.

By last year, that

number had risen to 916.

That's a 70% increase in two years

in the number of defendants cleared

after disclosure failings emerged.

The justice system has

to have confidence in it.

Without that, how can you expect

anybody to respect the law and to

have confidence in

a civilised society?

The Crown Prosecution Service

pointed out that the number of cases

which failed because of disclosure

issues represented only a fraction,

0.15% of all prosecutions.

But the CPS said that was still too

many and it would take a collective

effort across the criminal justice

system to bring

about an improvement.

Danny Shaw, BBC News.

We can speak to our reporter, who is

here. What is disclosure?

It is a

good question. Police and

prosecutors have to do two things in

the build-up to a criminal trial.

They have to show the defence any

evidence which may help their case,

and the prosecution any evidence

which might undermine theirs

potentially. When this is done

openly, say, in the case of a

serious rape trial, innocent people

can go to prison if it is not done

properly.

And there have been a

number of high-profile cases

recently?

Yes, we have had the case

of Leon, was on this programme.

There was also Isaac, who was

charged with raping a child under

16. His case collapsed because the

police were too late to pass on new,

important evidence, sieges which

showed the girl who was 16 at the

time telling Isaac that she was in

fact 19.

We can bring you the rest

of the news now. Ben Brown is in the

newsroom.

newsroom. Two newspapers have

threatened legal action if the

parole board does not publish its

reasons for agreeing to release the

convicted rapist John Worboys. The

sun and the Daily Mail have written

to the Justice Secretary and the

Parole Board demanding a report

within seven days or they say they

will apply for judicial review. At

both the Parole Board and the

Ministry of Justice says drawers and

legally prohibited from disclosing

such decisions. One in a free 11

patients in England is being

prescribed medication which could be

addictive difficult to stop taking,

according to new NHS data. Public

Health England is launching a

year-long review into what it calls

the growing problem of prescription

drug addiction. It will look at

sedatives, painkillers and

antidepressants. Baroness Tessa

Jowell, the former Labour minister,

has been speaking for the first time

about being diagnosed with a severe

form of brain cancer. As Culture

Secretary in Tony Blair's

government, she led the successful

bid for London to host the 2012

Olympic Games. On Thursday she will

give a speech in the House of Lords

about her illness and her thoughts

on the way that cancer treatment

could be improved. She has been

speaking to the Today Programme's

Nick Robinson.

I feel every single

bit of my determination to go on

creating better opportunities for

people managing cancer. I feel very

clear about my sense of purpose and

what I want to do. And how do I know

how long it's going to last? I'm

certainly going to do everything I

can to make it a very long time.

A

deaf woman is suing the promoter of

a concert by Little Mix for failing

to provide a sign language

interpreter for two support acts.

She and two deaf friends took her

daughter to a concert last year and

after repeated requests an

interpreter was provided for the

main act but not for the support

act. Bylaw, any organisation

supplying a service to the public

must make reasonable adjustments to

accommodate those with disabilities.

Talks aimed at restoring the

coalition government in Northern

Ireland are due to start today.

Newly appointed Northern Ireland

Secretary Karen Bradley will attend

the talks at Stormont along with

representatives from the region's

five main parties. There has not

been a functioning power-sharing

executive for more than a year. The

coalition between the democratic

union and Sinn Fein collapsed last

January.

Liam Fox, the International Trade

Secretary, has told the BBC

the government is providing enough

funding for the NHS but admitted it

may be time for a national debate

on how that money is spent.

His comments come after

Boris Johnson let it be known

he would push in cabinet for more

funding for the service.

Dr Fox, a former GP, was speaking

from the World Economic Forum

in Davos, where he is hoping to lay

the foundations for

post-Brexit trade deals.

I think it's very clear where our

direction of travel is on health.

We've spent £12.5 billion more

since 2010 - that will be

£16 billion more by 2020.

And we've seen extra money

for winter pressures this year,

another £400 million,

so the money's going in.

If we have to have a debate

in this country about how

we spend that money,

how we get better efficiency

in the health service and make sure

that more of the money goes

through to the patients,

I think that will be a good thing

through to the patients,

I think that would be a good thing

not least as an ex-GP myself.

The BBC has learned that three men

from Britain are among a group of

international volunteers who are due

to join the fighting in Syria.

Turkey has been continuing its

offensive on a Kurdish held enclave.

Many Western volunteers have been

fighting with the Kurds against

so-called Islamic State running

warnings from the British

Government. England and the United

States have opted out of a new

international test which will

measure how much teenagers respect

other cultures and whether they can

spot fake news. The subject has been

added to the influential tests run

by the Organisation for Economic

Co-operation and Development, which

ranks education systems around the

world.

Stars of the small screen

were on the red carpet last night,

for the annual National Television

Awards.

Best Drama was won by the BBC

series, Doctor Foster,

with its star Suranne Jones taking

home Best Drama Performance.

Ant and Dec were named

Best Presenters for the 17th time

and also picked up the first ever

Bruce Forsyth Entertainment Award.

It's been a very emotional night

tonight. It's been quite a year,

quite a tough 12 months. So, winning

this tonight really means a lot. I

would personally like to thank Pepsi

and my friends, some of you are here

tonight. I love you, thank you very

much. Thank you to all of you for

your support, it really, really

means a lot to me and it has helped

me get through it. I love you, man!

Hold it! Let's not

Hold it! Let's not cry!

That's a summary of the latest BBC

News - more at 9.30.

Very happy for them, and for Sir

David Attoub, who won the Impact

Award. Time for some sport, with

Holly. Phil Neville is the new

England women's coach but for

several reasons quite a few people

are not happy about it?

We can't

hear you, Holly. You just need to

put your microphone up, somehow. It

has been questioned whether he has

enough managerial experience to take

on a roll as big as this one. We

know that he was a coach at

Manchester United and Valencia while

his brother was manager and England

U21s. But he has only managed one

game and that is at Salford cities,

the team he is the co-owner of.

England and Chelsea midfielder Katie

Chapman says, surely there must be

coaches out there who have a lot

more experience in the women's game

and have actually been a manager!

That of course is the next problem -

how much experience does he have in

the women's game specifically? Some

people say it simply highlights that

there is an issue in women's foot

will - a lack of female coaches,

something we've talked about in the

past. Just three of the Women's

Super League clubs are managed by

women. We can now hear from former

Arsenal and England defender Alex

Scott.

It is an interesting one, he

has been involved in the game at the

top level as a player and as an

assistant manager. Maybe FA thought

was this was the right important

that he could add insights.

Obviously, he has knocked in the

women's game, I think that will be

the main thing that people will look

at. But he has people around him to

draw on, and the experience of

people like Casey Stoney, he is

looking to move into a coaching

role. As long as he builds the right

network of people around him I am

sure he will be fine.

There is,

Victoria, still some excitement

around this appointment, especially

among the players themselves. That I

will say the eyes of the world will

be watching. But sometimes perhaps

in the women's game, is that a good

thinker

thinker thinker scheme they are

certainly looking back at some of

his tweets from a few years ago,

which have emerged?

Absolutely. This

came out last night almost

immediately after his appointment,

not the best start. Rebel do this as

soon there is a big appointment like

this. They begin looking back at all

tweets, trying to find something and

it did not take them long. 2012,

tweets from Phil Neville that he

probably will be regretting. In one

tweet in particular he attempts to

clarify why in a previous tweet he

had only addressed me in it and he

wrote... When I said mourning, men,

I thought the women would be busy

preparing breakfast, getting kids

ready! Sorry, mourning, women!

Slightly unfortunate! And among

those posts, that got thousands of

retweets last night and he then

deleted his Twitter account. But he

will have to put this behind him.

His first taste of women's football

will involve taking on the top two

teams in the world, the United

States and Germany, then France in a

tournament which begins on the 1st

of March. He will probably not have

time for Twitter between now and

then!

And what about the Australian

Open in Golbourne?

This morning we

saw world number one Simona Halep

doing through after she beat

Karolina Pliskova in straight sets.

She will meet Angelique Kerber

tomorrow. Meanwhile South Korea got

their first ever Grand Slam

semifinalist. But will he face Roger

Federer or Tomas Berdych? That

quarterfinal is under way right now.

Federer really not getting into his

stride early in the first set. Tomas

Berdych took an early lead. It

looked like at one point he was

about to take the first set, but

Federer, as he does, is coming back

fighting. That first set continues.

Tomorrow morning, Kyle Edmund back

on court, looking for his place in

the final, against Marin Cilic. That

is expected to begin at about half

past eight.

Right now the Brexit

Secretary, David Davis, is appearing

before the select committee whose

job it is to scrutinise the whole

process. We will bring you more on

what he has to say to them later on

in the programme. We're going to

start today by talking about knife

crime in Scotland, which has reduced

by a massive 70%.

But it's a very different story

in England and Wales where it's

at the highest level

since at least 2011.

So how have they done it?

Well, the police in Scotland have

adopted what's known

as a "public health" approach.

As well as increasing sentences

for people caught carrying knives,

they've engaged heavily with gang

members and people working

in education, health

and social services.

A senior member of the Scottish

government told the Victoria

Derbyshire programme that England

and Wales may want consider

changing their approach.

Louis Lee Ray reports

now from Scotland.

A warning,

his film contains graphic

descriptions and images

of violence from the start.

Knife crime in England and Wales

is at its highest level for years.

Stabbed in the head.

Fractured skulls.

Stabbed in the back,

punctured lungs.

Last year, more than 200 people

were fatally stabbed.

You are walking into a situation

where somebody has maybe been

stabbed seven times.

And you're saying,

how are you doing?

"I'm absolutely fine,

aye, it's great."

In Scotland, a different

approach has seen the number

of stabbings fall significantly.

Over a period of time,

young people's attitudes

towards carrying weapons

and carrying knives changed.

We have seen a massive reduction

in more serious forms of violence,

particularly homicide.

So, does the rest of the UK need

to rethink the way it

deals with knife crime?

Guys went and played football,

we went to try and stab each other.

Callum is 26.

He has been in and out of prison

since he was a teenager.

I grew up in the East

End of Glasgow.

I started to get involved

in violence when I was about 12.

Gang fighting, from the age of 12,

13, I remember getting brought

in by the police when I was 13

years of age.

It was for gang fighting

and having an offensive weapon.

And that was just, just seemed

normal, for where I was from.

And what kinds of

things were you doing?

Assaults, mobbing and rioting,

carrying offensive weapons,

breaching the peace.

Continuously getting myself

involved with the police.

You've been injured a lot,

I think, in fights.

I've lost count.

That gies ye some sort

of pointer how many times

I have been in and out

of Accident & Emergency.

I've nearly had my arm severed off.

Stabbed in the head,

fractured skulls,

stabbed in the back,

punctured skulls.

Countless, countless times.

It's amazing I'm still alive,

to be honest with you.

It's all fear-driven.

You carry a knife because of fear,

and then you fear that

you've got a knife on you.

It is riddled with ten

different forms of fear.

Scotland is in perfect when it comes

to violent crime but stories

like Calum's are increasingly rare.

Back in 2005, parts of Scotland

were much more violent.

Knife crime, violent

crime was more common.

A UN report that year found that

Scotland was the most violent place

in the developed world.

Another gave Glasgow an unwanted

title, the murder capital of Europe.

This is the Tollcross area.

Round here, we had maybe at one

point 20 different gangs,

round this one park area.

This was a really bad

park for gang violence.

Will Linden started working

for the police in Scotland

in the early 2000s.

Glasgow had a notorious

image for gangs, we had

a generational problem for gangs.

We had fathers and sons

and grandsons being in the same

gangs as their grandfathers.

And it was almost omnipresent.

In areas of our communities,

areas known as gang territories

rather than actual areas.

Will helped to set up the violence

reduction unit in 2005,

it's run at arm's-length

by Police Scotland,

and funded by the government.

One of their first jobs,

to deal with Glasgow's gang problem.

So we had 200-odd gang members

turn up, two sittings,

one in the morning,

one in the afternoon.

We did the call in.

We had them in and we told

them to stop offending,

not necessarily stop offending,

stop being violent.

We did that three or four times.

So all in all, possibly

seen 800 gang members.

I'm not saying the gangs have

disappeared, the gangs still exist,

but in much smaller numbers.

It's a model of carrot and stick.

What you basically say

to the gang members is,

if you persist in your gang fighting

and your violence etc,

we will arrest you.

We will arrest you, we will charge

you, you will end up in jail.

However, if you want

out, we will help you,

we will support you,

we will give you access to services

and we will support you no matter

what you want to do.

The violence reduction unit took

what is called the public health

approach to violence and knife

crime, they treated it

like a disease, dealing

with the causes rather

than the symptoms.

Scotland was often held up

as being the knife capital,

Glasgow in particular,

of Western Europe.

Trauma surgeons travelling

throughout the world to come

to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary,

to learn how to deal

with knife crime.

But what we changed it to,

to de-normalise the feeling that

everybody else was carrying weapons,

that actually, it actually meant

that people started to realise,

weapons were in the minority,

weapons were no

longer cool to carry.

And what we've seen was,

over a period of time,

young people's attitudes

towards carrying weapons

and carrying knives changed,

because a lot of our knife assaults

were happenstance, people get caught

in fights and somebody takes a knife

out and stabbing someone.

If you remove the knife

from the situation, by addressing

the kind of misconception about it,

the seriousness of

the violence reduces.

The police in Scotland are still

stopping and searching people.

And they have upped the heavier

sentence for carrying

a knife to five years.

But you're more likely to serve

a community sentence than go to jail

as a first-time offender.

The unit runs a number of programmes

to help those caught up in a knife

life of violence,

working with people

in education, health,

and social work across Scotland

to reduce violent crime.

The Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh

is home to one of these schemes.

These guys, in the pink T-shirts,

are known as navigators.

I guess our goals for navigating

is to install hope that people can

change, and empower people to take

control of their own lives.

They are here to speak to anyone

who turns up in A&E.

But mostly those who have got issues

with drugs and alcohol

and in particular people

who have been stabbed.

You're walking into a situation

where somebody has been

stabbed maybe seven times.

You ask them, how are you doing?

They say, I'm absolutely

fine, aye, it's great.

At that moment, when they're

getting stitched up,

and they're getting all the medical

staff, there's nothing I can do,

I'm not medically qualified.

But I can take a step back and look

at the situation and look

at what is happening,

I can then use that and it is

a reality shock for them as well.

Some people involved in this

lifestyle get too used to it,

they're able to brush things

like that off and it's not

a normal thing to do,

but to bring someone back to reality

and make them aware,

balance between life and death,

and see the emotion come flooding

back in, and that is an opportunity

that we can really pounce on.

The navigators work

here and in Glasgow,

they use this moment in hospital

to try to turn

people's lives around.

By engaging them

with other services.

While it's a police run

scheme, the navigators

are not police officers.

Even helping that one person,

you're then affecting potentially

a whole community or a whole family.

Because we know that it just

takes that one stab,

and that's that one life over.

The way the service works as well,

generally when somebody is in having

been stabbed or assaulted,

and they're there plotting already

to go back out there and attack

the person that's done it.

So we're in a perfect point of that

intervention to be saying,

what are you doing, you can't

be doing that.

How may people are keen

engage with you guys?

Oddly enough, most of them.

We've had very little rejection.

Which sounds kind of strange,

because we are a team of people

in bright pink T-shirts.

Speaking to a young fighting male

with massive amounts of bravado.

The navigators might connect

patients with implement

opportunities, help them get off

drugs or into appropriate housing,

anything that helps to break

the cycle of violence.

And they're a huge help to

the clinical director

of the Edinburgh A&E unit,

helping to make sure patients

who come in often don't come back.

In the emergency department don't

have any continuity with patients.

So you do very much patch people up

and go on.

The navigators have been able

to come in and give a more

holistic approach to the way

we are treating our patients.

And Callum, who'd had such

a frequent and devastating

relationship with violence,

was one of those people.

My lifestyle was really

catching up on me.

I was stabbed nine times

and a hatchet was put in my head.

But my son witnessed all this,

through the window,

because it was right

outside my house.

I've got a son and a daughter now.

Leading up to that event,

I was getting sick and tired

of leading the life I was leading,

I didn't know how to change the life

because I had been doing it so long.

I didn't know how to do it.

I've been in and out of A&E.

For a very long time.

I'd never met anybody

in there who had said to me,

have you had enough of that

lifestyle you are living?

Then we can help you

step away from it.

That's what happened.

It was a desire to change.

And I grabbed it with both hands.

Because I kind of knew that

I was running out of chances.

I've got more lives than a Siamese

cat, you know what I mean,

it's unbelievable, how many times

I have diced with death.

And if I didn't make a change then,

my days were probably

numbered in that lifestyle.

And Callum is not alone,

the violence reduction units work

has helped to almost half Scotland's

homicide rate in the last ten years.

From 115, to 64.

According to one academic,

it helped to reduce street Bay

of Islands in particular.

So we've seen a marked decline

in public place violence

involving men with weapons.

But also men using fists as well,

so not just weapon related

violence, and that has

declined very significantly.

And I think that is

because of the involvement

of the violence reduction unit.

The figures suggest Scotland

is still a more violent place

than England and Wales.

Although we've seen big changes,

and we've seen a massive reduction

in the most serious forms

of violence, particularly homicide,

and some parts of Glasgow have been

transformed as a result of some

of the work that has been done,

violence is still a problem

in pockets of Scotland.

But Scotland's approach

does seem to have been

successful among young people.

Last year, more than 35 children

and teenagers were killed

with knives in Britain.

Not one was in Scotland.

Mark?

Aye, Auntie Karen.

Where you going?

Park.

Aye, watch yourself.

I will.

All yous.

This film tells the story

of what can happen when you carry

a knife, and when you use one.

It was produced by another

government funded scheme, working

in schools to prevent knife crime.

It's incredibly graphic,

so you may want to look away now.

A report in 2013 found that working

with school age kids was one

of the most important ways

of preventing people

from carrying knives.

And in Scotland, they raise

the issues at a young age.

Six is really young but we know

anecdotally from local partners that

in primary schools there have been

incidences where young people do

take knives into school,

often they don't understand

the consequences or the risks

associated with this so that's why

it is important to start prevention

as early as possible and invest

in that early stage,

so that young people don't grow up

thinking that is

unacceptable behaviour.

--thinking that is an

acceptable behaviour.

It's not just within Scotland that

their training schemes are popular.

There doesn't seem to be

an equivalent of our

programme in England,

one that works nationally.

We have worked with partners

based in London, like

the Ben Kinsella Trust.

We do actually here quite often

from practitioners in England,

once or twice a week.

Could adopting a public health

approach to knife crime help

in reducing the number of stabbings

south of the border?

I think the difficulty is that

in Scotland we've always had more

of a consensual form of policing,

so, the police public relations

in Scotland have always been better,

and particularly in London,

where you have got a situation

where some communities have such

anti-authority views,

very negative attitudes towards

the police and the perception

that they are being persecuted

by the police, that is very

difficult to shift.

Here at the home of

the Scottish Government,

a change in tack since 2005 is seen

as a great success.

The Scottish Justice Secretary says

he is not soft on crime.

This isn't about the false dichotomy

of whether it is soft

justice or tough justice,

this is about smart justice,

taking a smart approach,

listen to what the evidence says,

how you can prevent young

people from getting

involved in violent crime.

Last year into this year

there was a slight rise

in the number of people handling

offensive weapons and the number

of homicides, have you reach

the point where you cannot

go any lower?

Well, the slight increases we saw

in recent years have only been based

on small numbers of an increase.

We've got the whole issue

at a much lower base,

both homicide and with knife crime.

What we cannot afford

to be is complacent,

we are certainly not complacent.

Does he think the government

in Westminster needs to change tack?

I would certainly encourage them

to look at the experience

in Scotland, and we are always very

willing to demonstrate

the way we have gone

about doing these things.

It is also important that people

don't just say that, you know,

continue what we are doing

at the present moment,

because if it's not able to address

the issue effectively,

then we need to be honest

and politicians need to recognise

that we may need to change tack.

It's not just about more police

officers or increasing

sentencing powers.

Or sentences within the courts,

it's about preventing young people

from getting involved in the first

place, and I certainly see that

as an approach that could help

England in tackling some

of these issues.

Whatever happens in England

and Wales, for Callum,

things are working out.

He is now part of another

of the violence reduction unit's

programmes, which provides

employment, mentoring and support

to offenders with a violent

past on this food truck.

I wanted to be a role

model to my children.

I didn't want to be

leading that life anymore.

My life is night and day.

I was a guy whose life was totally

unmanageable, involved

in a lot of chaos, violence.

Didn't know where

I was going in life.

I used to look and people and think,

they know where they're going,

they know what they're doing

with their life, I don't know

what I'm doing with my life.

I come here, I've got a purpose.

There's nothing more rewarding

at the end of a day,

when you've earned

an honest day's work.

It's the satisfaction

for that, it's amazing.

I'm leaving my house in the morning,

waving my kids off, and coming

to work, I'm finishing work,

going to the house, my son

is there waiting on me.

I'm responsible, do

you know what I mean.

There is no feeling that beats that,

without a shadow of a doubt.

I don't even know if I'd be alive,

so it has literally saved my life,

and it has saved other people's

lives.

The ripple effect that this has,

just engaging me, is massive.

It has helped my son,

it has helped my daughter,

it has helped my mother.

And it's helped everybody

in my community.

Because Callum isnae running

about involved in violence anymore.

You know what I mean.

So the impact it has is massive.

Callum talking to Loui Lee Ray.

If knife crime has

affected your fmaily,

let me know your own experiences

and your own views

about best to tackle it.

After ten this morning we'll talk

live to Police Scotland,

to London's Deputy Mayor on Policing

to see what they think

of Scotland' approach,

to a youth worker who was stabbed

when he was 15, and to a mum who's

20-year-old son was fatally

stabbed four years ago.

Still to come...

The thank you messages. Gareth

says... I am impressed that Scotland

has reduced this awful indictment of

society by 70%. I am also shocked

that England and Wales has not

already learned from Scotland's

success and replicated their

measures for tackling this very

serious issue. I struggled for more

than ten years with post-traumatic

stress disorder.

And this, from

Charles... Schools need to target

potential knife carriers at an early

stage. Aggressive behaviour needs to

be nipped in the bud. Do let me know

if you have been affected by knife

crime. Send me an e-mail and I will

read it out later.

Still to come...

A deaf mum is suing the Little Mix

concert promoter for failing to

provide a sign language interpreter.

We will be speaking to Sally

Reynolds and her dynamic interpreter

Vicki to find out what happened to.

That's coming up in the next half an

hour. Before that, the latest news

with Ben Brown.

Proceedings were dropped against

more than 900 people in the last 12

months up to April because of

problems with evidence. The issue

has been highlighted by some recent

rape trials which have put the

process under scrutiny. Two

newspapers have threatened legal

action if the Parole Board does not

publish its reasons for agreeing to

release the convicted rapist John

Worboys. The Sun and the Daily Mail

have written to the Parole Board and

the Justice Secretary demanding they

report within seven days, or they

say they will apply for a judicial

review. But both the Parole Board

and the Ministry of Justice says

they are legally prohibited from

disclosing such decisions. Breaking

news this morning... The latest

unemployment figures show

unemployment fell by 3000 between

September and macro November to 1.44

million. The number of people in

work has reached a record high of

32.2 million rate the Office for

National Statistics. One in 11

patients in England is being

prescribed medication which could be

addictive or difficult to stop taken

according to new data from the

National Health Service. Fabric of

England is launching a year-long

review into what it calls the

growing problem of ascription drug

addiction.

addiction. That is a summary of the

news. Time for the sport now. Coming

up... Phil Neville has not had the

best start to his England women's

managerial tenure. Former England

defender has signed a deal with the

lionesses but within hours of his

confirmation as manager, screen

shots of old tweets posted by him

were circulating on Twitter and they

have been widely condemned. Back to

the tennis now. The line-up for the

Australian Open is almost complete

after the South Korean has got

through. But on court right now

Roger Federer and Tomas Berdych are

playing each other. Federer has come

back from 5-2 down to take the first

set after a tie-break. Meanwhile

world number one Simona Halep beat

Karolina Pliskova in straight sets

to claim a final place in the

women's semifinals. She will take on

Angelique Kerber in the last four.

And we will have more on the Bristol

City against Manchester City match

later in the programme.

It's that time of the morning

where we bring you up to date

in the trial of former football

coach Barry Bennell.

Our reporter Jim Reed has

been following the trial

at Liverpool Crown Court.

An alleged victim of Barry Bennell

has told a court how he was abused

in the changing rooms

at Crewe Alexandra Football club?

As you said, this is the trial

of Barry Bennell in Liverpool.

The former football coach denies 48

counts of historical abuse

against 11 alleged victims.

Yesterday the court heard

from an alleged victim who said

he had been abused at the coach's

home, on a trip to Butlins and -

he said - in the changing rooms

at Crewe Alexandra Football Club.

The man said he contacted the police

in 2016 after seeing reports

about Mr Bennell in the press.

And what happened under

cross examination?

Well, the same alleged victim

was then questioned by Eleanor Laws

QC who is representing Mr Bennell.

She said...

"I am going to suggest you have

made these allegations

up either for money

or whatever reason."

He replied...

"That is ridiculous."

She continued...

"You essentially blame

Crewe Alexandra and the FA

for your failed career."

He replied...

"I blame Barry for my failed life,

not my football career."

And the court also heard

from a second witness as well?

Yes, that was earlier in the day.

Testimony from a former

Crewe Alexandra youth footballer

called Martin Clarke.

He said he returned to Crewe's

training ground one day

after a game to pick

up his boots, he said,

and he said he saw Barry Bennell

abusing another young player.

He claimed Mr Bennell then

pinned him up against the wall

and told him: "If you say anything

to anyone I will make sure

I will finish your football career."

Again, this man came forward at the

tail end of 2016 after seeing media

reports.

As I said at the start,

Mr Bennell denies 48 charges

of abuse in this trial.

It continues tomorrow morning.

Coming up, we will speak to a deaf

mother who is suing concert

organisers who refused to provide a

sign language interpreter at a

Little Mix concert.

The politician who helped London win

the 2012 Olympic Games,

Baroness Tessa Jowell,

has spoken for the first time

about having an aggressive form

of brain cancer called glioblastoma.

Around 2,000 people each year

will receive a similar diagnosis.

The prognosis is grim -

measured in months, not years.

No new drugs have been developed

in the last 50 years that have

improved survival rates.

But Tessa Jowell is determined that

that that should change -

a former health minister,

she's been speaking to experts

from around the world

to make sure it does.

Tomorrow she will lead a debate

in the House of Lords and argue that

innovative cancer treatments should

be evaluated much more quickly

so that they are made

available on the NHS.

She's been speaking to Radio

4's Today programme

about her diagnosis...

I was diagnosed with

an acute and very serious

form of brain cancer.

It came with absolutely

no expectation.

No warning?

Absolutely none at all.

I had not a single apparent symptom.

I felt it was something I could deal

with, and that I would have to deal

with.

And that, I suppose, is where

I immediately stopped thinking

about, what would other

people do and what

there would be for them?

Because I felt strangely

competent to deal

with what was likely to happen.

Anyone who has had cancer knows

that, particularly for people

like you, and maybe me as well,

the hardest thing, in a way,

is getting used to not

being in control.

I don't think I immediately leapt

to the inevitability of cancer.

I think that, to begin with, I felt

that I would have this tumour, that

it would be operated on,

and that would be it.

It's actually much harder now,

because now, my life is,

day by day, affected by the tumour.

And affected by the

uncertainty of what

my cancer is actually

going to mean for how long.

Not just that uncertainty,

but I can feel your

frustration, because there are words

occasionally that don't come, and

that the tumour is doing its work.

But the tumour bloody

well does this to you.

And then if you have an hour

of being quiet and so forth, you get

it back again.

And then you're fine.

What have you learnt as a patient

that you would like people who care

in the medical system, not just

doctors and nurses but others, about

how they treat patients?

It's a really interesting

question, that.

And it's much more

complicated, I think,

then you necessarily assume.

I spent a huge amount of time

with people with cancer.

I spend a huge amount of time very

risk averse children.

All these are things which now seem

difficult, and that we

underestimate the scale

of the problem that they have.

I feel every single bit

of my determination to go

on creating better opportunities

for people managing cancer.

When you are a patient,

you often want every

trial going.

You want to try everything

because you want to stay alive.

You want to have as long

a life as you can, but...

Shall I tell you something?

I am absolutely 100%

staying to stay alive.

Good for you.

The problem is, sometimes,

in medical research,

they say, one trial at a time,

one drug at a time,

because we need to

isolate which one works.

But what that doesn't do

is to identify the way in which the

accessibility and the availability

of different treatments become

changed, and that's

what that is doing, so there's...

For instance, there's no

point in having another

six months of waiting for that

trial, because it's not going to

have any effect, so let's

go on to the next one.

What that also does is to respect

in the proper way the...

Just how quickly you get...

You get...killed.

People listening to you would think,

why don't you curl up on the sofa,

be with your family and friends,

look after yourself?

And yet, here you are,

as busy as ever, wanting to

be of public service.

I have so much love in my

family, my children, my

close friends.

It's the most...

It is the most

extraordinary, blessed

and...

And...recreating sense.

And I feel that I want

that to be experienced

by so many other people as well.

And so, we'll talk

more about it, we'll

experience more about it, and I hope

for more people, it will be their

future as well.

Tessa Jowell talking to Nick

Robinson.

We can speak now to Chandos Green,

he's just 22 years old and has

already survived three

brain tumours, and to Dr

Kieran Breen - Research Director

at Brain Tumour Research <QUESTIONS

Is thanks for coming on the

programme. You were just three when

you've got a brain tumour and some

of it had to be left - why was that?

It was difficult for the surgeon to

remove all of it, so it was a

monitoring situation.

And so, yours,

as I understand it, it grows a

little and then potentially stops,

and then the rules more surgery?

Psychologically, how do you deal

with that?

Because of the type of

tumour it is, it can go through

stages where it is dormant and

others where it grows. That

uncertainty for me is quite

difficult, because I have a lot of

anxiety, and that had depression in

the past, so to go through those

points in life where I don't know

what's going to happen tomorrow, it

can be scary and daunting.

What do

the doctors say about your future?

I

have a scan in November last year,

and luckily, the tumour has shrunk a

bit since my last operation in 2014.

In the future, it is just kind of

monitoring it, but they are hopeful

that won't do anything.

Do you know

why it has shrunk?

I have no idea,

to be others. I think it's just a

bit of luck and also progress in the

way they operated last time.

We just

showed our audience some photographs

that you kindly gave us of yourself

in hospital. Let me bring in Kieran

Breen from brain tumour research.

There are many different types of

brain cancer, is that correct?

That

is one of the key challenges - the

Rover 100 different types of brain

tumour. We

tumour. We heard from Chandos about

the tumour he has, and Tessa

Jowell's is different. You have

slow-growing and fast-growing

tumours which have different genetic

components. You can't use the same

treatment for both. They are both

brain tumours, but they are actually

very different.

A huge challenge for

developing treatments and executing

them.

Some can be treated with

surgery, others can't. Some tumours

can be treated with specific drugs

that others won't respond to. This

is a key challenge to us, and we

really need to start at the very

beginning and understand the

differences between a brain tumour

and a normal brain cell. Our brains

are such complex organs. Each of the

different types of brain cells can

potentially become a tumour. Even if

you have two exactly the same brain

cells that become tumours, depending

on the pathway they take, it needs

different therapies. One thing that

researchers are doing is looking at

the very beginning, what happens

when a normal brain cell sparks off

to become a tumour cell, because

that is what we need to understand -

what is the difference between the

two? And that is then how we can

understand potential ways to develop

new drugs which would be much more

effective at stopping the growth of

tumour and killing it.

Its vital

work, because brain tumours are the

biggest cause of cancer deaths in

people under 40. Most people don't

know that.

This is the thing,

because when you think of tumours,

cancer in people under the age of

40, most people think of leukaemia

or blood cancer, but the success

rate or survival rate for people

with that sort of tumour is 50%

after five years of diagnosis. For

brain tumours, it is only 20% after

five years of diagnosis.

Chandos

said that his tumour was so close to

the brain that they had to leave

apportioned there. You have talked

about the many differences in the

types of cancer, and that's one of

the reasons why would research --

why research is slow, or is it just

not fashionable to put money into

brain tumour research?

It is a

complex situation. The complexity of

the brain, the fact that the brain

is by what we call the blood brain

barrier, which stops drugs getting

into the brain. We have a lot of

drugs that will treat other cancers

but they don't actually get into the

brain. If they can't get in, they

can't kill the tumour, so we need to

develop new drugs, innovative

therapies. We need to think out of

the box. We have a tumour within

this enclosed area called the brain,

so how do we develop new drugs that

will get in there? We need a

completely new approach. But we also

need to invest in research.

Unfortunately, in the UK over the

past 20-30 years, the investment

just hasn't been there. Indeed, even

at the moment, only 6% of people

with brain tumours take part in

clinical trials. For breast cancer,

it is 13%, for leukaemia, 16%, so we

don't have the capacity to do the

research.

Chandos, would you agree

with Kieran? Would you a clue what

he says, that there needs to be more

money put in to get more research

done?

As you said previously, it is

the biggest cancer killer of those

under 40, and I've known a lot of

people who have lost their lives to

brain tumours, so I 100% echo the

fact that more investment needs to

go into research and finding a cure

for this disease.

Thank you very

much for talking to us.

Coming up: Should free school meals

be given to all primary school

children, not just the first few

years? And if you think that, where

would you get the money from? We

will speak to a teacher and a

mother.

Last year Sally Reynolds booked

tickets to go and see

Little Mix for herself,

two friends and their daughters.

Sally and her two friends are deaf,

so they requested a sign language

interpreter through the concert's

organisers, LHG Live.

They refused to provide one,

so in an unprecedented move

Sally Reynolds applied for a court

order to compel them to.

LHG then agreed to this before

the hearing reached court.

The mums and daughters

went to the concert,

only to find the interpreter

was provided for Little Mix and not

the two support acts.

In Sally's word's "it's

like being able to read only

the last third of a novel'.

The mum is now suing LHG Live under

the Equality Act which states any

organisation supplying a service

to the public must make

reasonable adjustments

to accommodate disabled people.

Sally is here alongside

her interpreter Vicki,

Chris Fry is Sally's solicitor,

and Marie Pascall is here too -

she provides sign language

interpreters for events

across the country.

Welcome to the programme, and thanks

for coming on. Nice to see you all.

Sally, I want to ask you first of

all, when you have an interpreter at

a gig, how do you experience the

concept? -- the concert?

For me, it

was the first time I had been to a

concert of that size, especially

something live, so I was really

blown away. We went

blown away. We went to see Little

Mix. I wanted to access the songs,

when they were singing, talking, the

way they engaged with the audience.

I was able to follow what they were

saying and talk to my daughter about

it. We talked about it after, which

was wonderful, a great experience. I

really got a feel of the concert

itself.

Where was your interpreter

placed so that... ? You can hear

some of the music a little, can't

you?

Well, I can hear the music, but

I can't follow the words, so really,

it made such a big difference to be

able to see the lyrics translated. I

could identify the songs, and for

me, it was just so important to be

able to see the interpreter just had

that clear view. They were opposite

us. We were in the accessible area,

which was great. For that part of

the concert, it was perfect.

But the

problem was, for a lot of the

concert, there was no interpreter.

Why was that a problem?

Yeah, I

mean... The reason behind it all

was, we asked the promoter probably

two months beforehand to have

access. We asked for an interpreter

specifically. The reply we got back

was, we're really sorry, but no, we

will give you carer tickets as a

compromise and you can bring your

own interpreter. I thought, Juno

what? That's not OK. You have a duty

to provide a reasonable adjustment

for us. I ask them again, and it

went up to the Board of Directors,

it was escalated. They made the

decision that no interpreter would

be provided and they offered a

refund, which I was shocked by. They

really couldn't explain their

justification for

justification for refusing an

adjustment. I wrote a third letter,

which was ignored, and then the

fourth letter, which I sent to the

Liz Hobbs group, they asked me which

part of the equality act they felt

had been breached. And it was just

such a convoluted process and so

long, and by that point, I

long, and by that point, I contacted

Chris, with all the evidence I had a

mass than the exchanges we had had,

and I have always been deaf, I was

born deaf. This is not the first

time I have faced those kinds of

barriers.

In the end, they provided

a dynamic interpreter for the Little

Mix bit of it but not for the two

support act. I will bring your

solicitor, Chris Fry, in. He is in

our Sheffield studio. Good morning.

Tell our audience what the law says.

The equality act and the disability

discrimination act 20 years before

that have been very clear that

service providers are under a duty

to make reasonable adjustments to

accommodate disabled customers.

OK,

and do you agree with Sally that

reasonable accommodation was not

made here, when after all, an

interpreter was provided for Little

Mix?

Absolutely. Sally bought

tickets for an event which was a

memorable family experience, and a

really interesting thing about this

is that for months before, she was

being told she wouldn't be able to

access that event at all, requiring

us to make an application for an

injunction to even get the signed

interpreting for the Little Mix

aspect itself. What is disappointing

in these circumstances is that the

service provider, having identified

that a reasonable adjustment was

necessary, just limited that to the

Little Mix aspect of the case,

whereas in fact the whole of the

concert should have been made

accessible, not just for Sally,

obviously, but for other people with

hearing impairments.

Which is why

you are now taking this action on

behalf of your client, Sallie

Reynolds, to sue them.

They upgraded your tickets, gave you

private seating, access to private

accessible toilets. Little Mix say

they strongly believe that concerts

should be completely inclusive for

all and the band welcomes all those

to the shows, including those with

hearing impairment. I will ask you,

Sally, what you want to achieve in a

moment. But let me bring in Marie,

because you do interpreting at

events, concerts, theatre

productions. You tell me they are

very good at this in America but we

are way behind in this country -

why?

Three main factors, and the

first is really a lack of deaf

awareness. There are huge

misunderstanding and misconceptions

around the deaf community and

British sign language needs.

What is

the biggest misconception?

Many

people ask me why deaf people want

to go to a music concert. They don't

understand that, actually, deaf

people can experience music on an

equal footing to hearing people.

Deaf people can get goose bumps and

crime. The interpreter is

essentially a bridge between the

music and the artist and the deaf

person, so it is a connection so

that the deaf person can essentially

experience is exactly the same as a

hearing person, but getting that

across to the music industry is

proving difficult.

That makes sense,

the way you describe that. Would you

agree with that, Sally? Once you

have the dynamic interpreter, that

is a major connection between the

lyrics and the sound of the music?

Definitely. I've felt so engaged, it

was a wonderful experience. I was

there with my friends, we were there

with our daughters, we could talk

about it after. We discussed the

songs, and we even talked about the

interpreter, who did a fantastic

job. I would like to be able to just

do that again. I want the full

experience this time.

What is the

purpose of suing them? What is it

that you want to achieve, apart from

presumably some compensation?

presumably some compensation?

Well,

I would like something... I would

like a precedent. I don't want to go

through this again. That is the

number one. It was so hard and

arduous. I would really like service

providers to think about access for

everyone, and inclusivity, and to

make those thoughts beforehand. I

would really like something in law

that anyone can use in the future if

they want to attend a concert or a

venue, if they want to buy a ticket.

All they have to do then is to ask

for either captions or an

interpreter, and they will know what

to do, and people will understand

that that is a reasonable

adjustment.

OK. Thank you.

And thank

you.

Thank you very much.

We will keep our audience updated on

your story and your legal action. We

will see what happens. Coming up

after 10am: We will talk more about

the incredible progress made in

Scotland to reduce knife crime. In a

decade, they have cut it by almost

70%. There are lessons llama

definitely for England and Wales,

surely. We will speak to a chief

constable from Police Scotland and

also a youth worker who was stabbed

at the age of 50. Now, the weather.

It is a difficult morning across

some part of the country. Elly Riley

overnight and mild conditions are.

Some of the rain that we have seen

has been particularly heavy,

particularly looking at these shots

from North East Somerset. Some

pretty dusty winds. Restrictions on,

which bridges and Ferris. It is

hectic linked in to Storm Georgina,

the latest storm of the season. It

has been giving gusts of up to 77mph

in the Hebrides, lower than they

were earlier. All linked into this

cold front. As it arrives you will

see a brief and intense spell of

rain, also some dusty winds. Over

lunchtime they will be heading

across London and the south-east and

working across East Anglia. The

winds drop as that really heavy rain

goes through. By lunchtime things

will be brightening up in parts of

Cornwall, Wales and Northern

Ireland. Similar across Scotland and

Northern Ireland, with summer

showers coming through rapidly on

the breeze. And showers across

northern Scotland, as temperatures

crop will be a little bit on the

wintry side.

wintry side. We have already seen

the peak in temperatures for the

day. It is going to drop from now

on, even with the sunshine out

later. Showers continuing in the

west with a blustery wind. In the

east, a touch of frost is possible.

The commute tomorrow will be colder

then this morning, but for many, a

good deal drier. Showers in the west

could merge into some longer spells

of rain across northern England and

southern Scotland, a little bit of

sleep across the top of the hills.

Staying dry throughout tomorrow.

Temperatures like this afternoon for

most, in single figures. The showers

becoming confined to eastern England

overnight. Coldest morning of the

week on Friday. Showers in eastern

parts of England will fade away. Not

a bad day for many of you. Even if

it is a bit on the cool side. Into

the weekend we will have cloudy

conditions and rain pushing

eastwards on Saturday. Temperatures

by Sunday, double figures for most

of us. A big change from what we saw

last weekend.

Hello, it's Wednesday, it's 10

o'clock, I'm Victoria Derbyshire.

How have Scotland managed to cut

knife crime on their streets by 70%

in a decade, whereas England

and Wales are experienced

a significant rise?

A hatchet was put in my head. My son

witnessed it from the window because

it was outside my house.

We'll be speaking to a Scottish

chief constable to see

what lessons can be learnt later

in the programme.

And we'll talk to the deaf mum

who is suing the promoter

of a gig by Little Mix,

for failing to provide a sign

language interpreter

for the two support acts.

One viewer says... In today's

environment we must appreciate that

resources are finite and

interpreters are very expensive.

This one says... I am not without

sympathy for the deaf mother that

you interviewed but surely, we might

as well have a blind man suing the

Tate modern because no-one described

the Senate to him.

the Senate to him. -- the art to

him.

And it's official -

the nation loves Ant

and Dec who won best

presenters for the 17th time.

We'll hear more about that

and more from last night's

National Television Awards.

And the most watch programme of

2017, blue planet, received a

special impact awards. We will hear

from all of the winners -- hear

about all of the winners in the next

hour.

Good morning.

Here's Ben in the BBC Newsroom

with a summary of today's news.

The number of prosecutions

which have collapsed because police

or prosecutors didn't follow rules

about disclosing evidence has risen

by 70% in England and Wales

over the past two years.

Proceedings were dropped

against more than 900 people

in the 12 months to last April,

because of problems with evidence.

Our home affairs correspondent

Danny Shaw reports.

I was relieved not only for myself

but also everyone that's been

with me every step of the way.

Under investigation

for rape for two years,

Liam Allen's life was on hold.

Then, three days into his trial,

his legal team received

crucial information,

and the prosecution was halted.

The case highlighted

problems with disclosure,

the duty on police and prosecutors

to pass on material which might

assist the defence case

or undermine the prosecution's.

BBC News has obtained figures on how

many people have been cleared or had

allegations dropped against them

because of disclosure failings.

In 2014-15, proceedings

were halted against 537 people.

By last year, that

number had risen to 916.

That's a 70% increase in two years

in the number of defendants cleared

after disclosure failings emerged.

The entire criminal justice system

has to run on the public trusting

and having confidence in it.

It's seen as a very serious issue

now at all levels and rightly

so because unless the defence can

have confidence, unless the public

can have confidence

in the disclosure regime,

we're going to have problems.

The Crown Prosecution Service

pointed out that the number of cases

which failed because of disclosure

issues represented only a fraction,

0.15% of all prosecutions.

But the CPS said that was still too

many and it would take a collective