23/01/2014 BBC London News

shaking your head. That is horrible. That is all from the

pounded by a new year storm, 8 pounded by a new year storm,

teams where you are. Tonight on BBC London News, an embarrassing mix`up

for transport bosses. Spilt cement brings disruption to commuters. I'm

at Warren Street with the latest on the disruption which could last

until tomorrow. Also tonight: the mother of a schoolboy who died after

taking ecstasy at a rave speaks about the loss of her son. Then the

door went and it was the police and it is like your worst nightmares. It

is what you dread always. And three weeks on, the flooded sewage works

still bringing misery to hundreds of homeowners. I was born and brought

up here, I went to school here. I have wonderful family connections

here. Plus, Angela Lansbury returns home to London ` to tread the boards

in the West End for the first in 40 years.

Welcome to the programme. First tonight ` some breaking news. The

journey home for thousands of commuters has been disrupted because

the control room at Victoria Station has been flooded with a mixture of

water and cement. The service between Warren Street and Brixton

has been suspended with major delays on the rest of the Victoria line.

Lets get more from Warren Nettelford, who's at Warren Street

station for us now. And what more do we know? Well it seems it is down to

a mistake by engineers who are working on the station to expand the

station. They pumped by accident cement into the signal box. You can

see pictures of that. That has meant big delays. The line is suspended

between Warren Street down to Brixton. We spoke to some passengers

at Oxford Circus. Brilliant people, managed to pour concrete all over

the control box. We may have to take a bus. But it is always congestion.

I don't know what to do. It is not the best thing to have happened. It

is the first I have heard of it. I will reserve judgment until I hear

the reasons. Do we have any idea how long it will before the line is up

and running again? Well transport for London have said it could be

some time before it is. It could be tomorrow morning before it is fully

operational. It is one of the busiest lines on the the

underground, servicing 200 million people a year. Transport for London

said people should check before they travel and use alternative routes.

Thank you for that latest. And you can always get the latest travel

details on our web`site and our radio station. Union officials have

condemned plans to draft in hundreds of volunteer workers to keep the

Tube running during next month's strikes. So`called ambassadors will

swap their normal day jobs and take the place of the station staff who

are involved in the two 48`hour walkouts to minimise disruption to

passengers. But unions claim it will do little to dent the impact of the

industrial action. Emma North reports. Now please come on

everybody... They were the stars of Olympics, the games makers helped to

fill the city with good will. Now, volunteering is taking on a

political element in a particularly nasty dispute. Next month's tube

travellers face troubled journeys ass workers `` as workers stage two

two`day walk outs. So TfL has asked back room staff to step in and they

say a thousand have said yes. Many of the people will be in the public

areas giving advice to passengers. Other staff have been trained to

give them licences to work on this side of the barrier. But unions say

they haven't heard of one volunteer coming forward. I think that it is a

big lie. Why would people who are facing attacks on their wages and

their pensions volunteer to break a strike? I think most will be showing

solidarity to those coming out to make sure that we have a safe Tube

in the future. We asked to meet one of the volunteers, but TfL said it

wasn't appropriate. They are proposals. We want to go for

meaningful consultation and get around the table and have the

discussion. It is too early for industrial action. These changes

won't take place for about a year. So get around the table and let's

keep London moving and talk and get the right plan to improve efficiency

and customer service on the Tube. The signs of an automated future

have been around for a while. But whether the volunteers are strike

breakers are stopping the capital grinding to a halt, they could be

sending industrial relations in a whole new direction. Coming up later

in the programme: Gone walkabout ` why there are fewer Australians on

London's streets. The parents of a Croydon teenager

who died after experimenting with ecstasy ` have warned that drugs are

too easily available and cheap. Speaking about the death of their 16

year`old son, Tim and Fiona Spargo`Mabbs also warned other

parents that a teenager will know people who've taken drugs. Chris

Rogers reports. I would give him a big kiss and a hug and say, I love

you Dan, he said I love you mum, I promise I won't die. That happened

on the last time you saw him? Yeah. That was the last thing #4e said to

`` he said to me. Absolutely the last thing. The couple had no idea

their 16`year`old son was heading to an illegal rave with friends. His

decision to experiment with ecstasy cost him his life. The door went and

it was the miss and it is your complete worst nightmare. It is what

you dread. Always. He was unconscious Ha got all these tubes

and machines and just... It was just... Bizarre. But at the same

time, he looked like Dan. I thought he is just going to sit up and just

go, yeah, Ha Ha sort of thing, but obviously he didn't. Metropolitan

Police have arrested three men from Croydon on suspicion of supplying

controlled drugs. I don't think there's going to be a single

teenager in London and most of the country who doesn't, if they haven't

tried something, knows somebody who has and can say it is amazing and it

is like whatever. And... They're out there, just so available and they're

cheap. We had done a lot of the things we had advised to do and even

went to a course called how to drug`proof your kidded. To be fair,

they did say there is nothing you can do to rule it out. He was such

an amazing boy and we were so blessed to have him in our lives for

all of those, well what a blessing, we may never have had him and we had

him for 17 years. The parents of Daniel Spargo`Mabbs speaking about

the death of their son. The father of an 11`year`old girl has been

jailed for 20 years after admitting strangling her at their home in

Bushey in Hertfordshire. Rebecca Thompson's body was found by her

mother who said it's left her totally destroyed and devastated.

52`year`old Simon Thompson pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the

grounds of diminished responsibility. Police have made 428

arrests so far today in an operation to crackdown on domestic abuse.

4,500 officers were involved in the raids. And they're now using

alternative ways to make life difficult for offenders, as Alice

Bhandhukravi explains. Police officers out today just up with of

many raids happening all over London targeting suspected domestic

abusers. Organisations working in this field say though more people

are reporting abuse, on average a victim will have suffered 35

incidents before they go to police. Lisa is trying to put her terrible

experiences behind her. The last incident was quite horrific. It

resulted in me being held captive in a room for five hours and in that

attack, let's put it this way, I was scared for my life and it resulted

in broken bones. At this address, a man is suspected of stalking his

victim, his victim alleged to have put up with this for years. If you

commit violence and harass or stalk a partner or ex`partner, the police

will not tolerate it. We are looking at a range of tactics and if that

means we want to pursue somebody's driving licence and get it

restricted, that is what we will do. We may look at their tenancy and

what welfare benefits they're on and what job they're doing. Through

speaking to the police and then doing something about it and things

being put in place for me, I'm able to walk down the road. Something so

simple, without hyper ventilating and thinking I'm going to have a

heart attack, he is there, where is he? He will kill me. The police

still have their work cut out, but for victims like Lisa, it could be a

matter of life`or`death. Thames Water has apologised to hundreds of

people in Berkshire who've been left with blocked sewers ` after a

pumping station was flooded three weeks ago. Residents haven't been

able to flush their loos and equipment has had to be brought in

to pump out millions of gallons of waste water to stop their homes from

flooding. From Wraysbury Helen Drew sent this report. We flush the

toilet. What my husband's done is he has take an pipe from the toilet, so

the toilet empties into a bucket and then when the bucket is full, he

emis the it into a water Butt. Deborah is one of hundreds who have

been without a working sewer system for nearly three weeks. A pumping

station flooded this month and as a result the machinery has not been

able to remove waste. It is awful. It really is awful. There doesn't

seem to be any, there is no answers coming from anyone. No one wants to

help us at the moment. So... I don't know what to do. Others are having

to come up with similar solutions or use friend's toilets in near by

towns. Part of the problem is the town is on the banks of Thames and

is close to several reservoirs, making it susceptible to flooding.

The water still got in desite sandbags. Thames Water is trying to

fix it. It was severely flooded and we have had generators in a for a

week. We are working adds fast as we can. How long before it is fixed? We

hope within a week we should see the pumps up and running again. They say

they are looking at flood`proofing the site for the future. Although

some are skept skal `` sceptical. We were told in 2003 they would make

the stations resilient and they would make the water system and the

telephone system resilient. Nothing has happened since 2003 and my fear

is nothing will happen this time. People are living in 18th century

conditions. For the residents, working sewers can't return quickly

enough. Surgeons at St George's Hospital in Tooting are the first in

the world to carry out a new type of operation to treat Deep Vein

Thrombosis. DVT affects one in 1,000 people. In extreme cases some

patients are in so much pain that they choose to have their limbs

amputated ` which doctors now hope will longer be the case. As Alex

Bushill explains. Ary Ed is 25 and a word's first, the first to receive

this pioneering surgery for deep vein thrombosis. I started to feel

pain in my left groin one night. And I thought maybe because I was

sitting on the sofa, maybe it was because of the position or something

like that. I went to work and the following morning, I couldn't walk.

I started to feel... It was... The pain was awful. She was told she had

deep vein thrombosis because of a genetic blood desishlt si and ``

deficiency. But thanks to surgeons at St George's this will change. I

had one patient referred to me to have an amputation and we put a

stent into his veins and he has returned to cycle and running. So

there is that potential in patients with such pain that they would

rather lose thier leg than carry on as they are. This us how the

technology works. A catheter will deploy a mesh into the vein that is

affected. When it is removed the stent springs into place. When the

stent reaches the same temperature as the body, it is at its strongest.

This is how it works in the vein, before the blood is constricted and

muched to other minor areas. Then the flow is restroered `` restored.

When you consider 25,000 people a year die in the UK from deep vein

thrombosis, it is clear many lives could be transformed. Still to come

before 7: I talk to the students who stumbled across a supernova on their

first day using a telescope. And from the East End to the West End `

Angela Lansbury on her early life in London and latest stage role. There

was a time when half the bar staff in London seemed to be Australian

but it appears the Antipodean appeal of the capital has worn thin. The

number of Australian visas issued by the Home Office has halved since

2006, while 10,000 Aussie residents appear to have left the UK, leaving

several Australian themed pubs and shops closed. Tarah Welsh has been

finding out why they've gone. A few years ago this area and plenty of

others would have been heaving with Aussies, but not any more. This pub

used to have an Australian theme, but now it does not because it seems

fewer Australians are coming to the UK. They avoided most of the

economic downturn that we have seen over here, so people will tend to

stay more in Australia, particularly the people who used to come over for

a working holiday, the bar staff. You do not want to come here now and

work for the minimum wage when you could get a pretty good job in a bar

in it is not hard to see why we are

still tempting them from their shores. There are still some with a

taste for the capital. I love it that London is at the doorstep of

Europe and you can travel to anywhere in Europe within a couple

of hours and the people I nearly dashed are really nice and there is

a community that helps each other out. But the number of visas issued

has halved since 2006. That has led to a number of Australian pubs and

shops closing in the capital. There is a different sense of freedom over

here, not only about driving, but jumping on the Tube and the bus and

being able to go anywhere because it is so compact. You can be on the

other side of the city in half an hour. Will they stay? If they do,

they will get one of my special badges. Are you staying or going

back? I am definitely staying. I am staying. We have got to stay in, but

that cannot make up for the thousands who have already left.

Next, it is the sort of thing astronomers dream of seeing, a

supernova, or a dazzling, exploding star. But a group of students at

University College London have pulled to stumble across one during

a lesson and it is the closest supernova that has been spotted in

decades. Katharine Carpenter is at the observatory where the discovery

was made. It sounds like something out of a Hollywood movie.

These four students were learning how to use this telescope when

they're quite literally could not believe their eyes. Their lecturer,

Dr Fossey is here now. At what point did you realise you were looking at

something special? We took our first images and I had seen this galaxy

before and I thought there was a star in the wrong place. I said it

was looking interesting, it could be a supernova and we did not quite

believe it. I said you better check online and find out if this has been

reported because it is so obvious. They did some online checks and

found nothing and we thought this could be new, this is exciting. Why

is this super neither soap `` supernova so important? The galaxy

it is then is relatively close by, it is just up the road relative to

our galaxy, so to have a bright supernova so accessible and to be

able to study it with instruments over the next few weeks gives us an

insight and understanding of the physics. How did it feel to be

making history? It was very exciting, we did not know how to

deal with it, practical lessons do not get much better than this. What

was the atmosphere like? It was building up. How are you going to

top this? I hope I have not peaked yet and I hope it is a sign of

things to come and it is a great start to the astronomy course. We

have been very lucky, the weather has been kind to us. This live image

was taken just a short while ago. The good news is you do not have to

have this kind of impressive kit to see it. Even an amateur astronomer

should be able to look through a telescope and at the end of this

month you should be able to see it as it gets brighter through a pair

of binoculars. How incredible is that? Some very

happy students. She is best known as the crime

solving Jessica Fletcher in the TV series Murder She Wrote. Now at the

age of 88 Angela Lansbury is returning to the West End stage for

the first time in 40 years in a Noel Coward play, Blithe Spirit. She has

been speaking to Brenda Emmanus about that and why she is proud of

her London origins. Her career spanned seven decades

with acclaimed performances on stage and screen, but it was her role as

Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote that made Angela Lansbury a

household name. The genteel detective was a character she helped

producers to develop. Last night the police arrested him. I wanted to

slow her down and make her more of a real woman and more liberal minded

and not so cute. I did not want to play her cute and for laughs. So I

gradually prevailed upon the writers to turn her down and make her more

of a genial, easy`going, liberal woman, a bit of an Everywoman. I

wanted her to represent women at their best. Seen here in Broadway,

Angela Lansbury now reprises her role in the West End production of

Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit. It sees your first return to the West End

for almost 40 years. Are you as excited as we are? I am enormously

excited and nervous and I am just keeping everybody crossed at this

point. I hope I can bring it off and live up to everybody's expectations.

As Londoners we feel excited we can play new as our own. Out proud are

you of being a Londoner? As proud as I can possibly be. I was born and

brought up here, I went to school here, I have wonderful family

connections here through my grandfather George Lansbury who was

a tremendous influence on me and my family as we were growing up. We

spent a lot of time in Brno and in Poplar and those places and that is

very much part of my life, the East End. So I feel completely at home in

London and I have to tell you that. Blithe Spirit is at the Gielgud

Theatre from March. She is wonderful. Let's return to

the story about plans by transport bosses to bring in so`called

ambassadors, volunteers, to keep the Tube station is open during the

strike. You have been getting in touch with your views.

Thank you very much for those. Now Sara is here with a check on the

weather and thankfully clear skies for that supernova spot.

But it means it is going to be quite chilly as we go through this

evening. We have got more rain in the forecast and there will be

overnight frosts as well. The reason is because the showers we had

earlier are clearing away and we have got clear skies and the

temperatures are starting to fall away. Elsewhere, clear skies with

temperatures falling away. The blue will disappear on the map for a

time, but in the second half of the night we have got thicker cloud

moving in from the west. We do not have much time before rain starts to

move in tomorrow and for the temperatures to start to rise. It

comes in at about nine o'clock in west London and it makes more

progress towards the east. Wherever you are from late morning cater for

rain and do not be fooled by the temperatures. The temperatures are

going to be stuck for much of the day tomorrow and it is not until

later on in the evening that we will see the temperatures rise. That rain

is going to be with us through much of the day tomorrow, overnight

tomorrow night, and into the start of Saturday morning as well. It is

bringing slightly milder air with it. We will start with mist and fog

on Saturday morning. Saturday is the best day of the weekend by a long

chalk. Later we have got rain moving towards as for Sunday, so it means

we will start with a bit of frost on Sunday morning, but then rain as

well. The main headlines: Some hospital

waiting times cannot be relied upon according to unofficial watchdog.

The National audit office discovered errors inconsistencies after

discovering hundreds of nonemergency cases. Overall crime has fallen by

10% to its lowest level for a number of years. A woman has been found

guilty of throwing acid into her friend's face leaving her scarred

for life. Mary Konye disc `` disguised herself with a Muslim veil

while carrying out an attack on Naomi Oni in Dagenham. Thousands of

Tube passengers are facing major delays tonight after a control room

at Victoria flooded with water and cement. It is unclear when the

service will be back to normal. If you are concerned about tomorrow

morning's commute, you can get the latest news on BBC local radio and

on our website. Have a lovely evening.