25/03/2014 BBC London News

last the full version of that interview with Paul Flowers,

Good evening from BBC London News. New figures reveal an east`west

divide in how satisfied Londoners are with the Metropolitan Police.

The annual crime survey shows a small boost in the public's trust in

the force. But says people's faith in The Met varies greatly from

borough to borough. Our Polhtical Editor, Tim Donovan has the details.

It can take an age to build up, just a moment to shatter. The latest

crime survey figures show confidence in The Met is improving if only by

less than 1% in a year. At least it's not getting worse. 24 out of 32

boroughs, three quarters of them have seen an improvement in public

confidence versus a year ago. That is a good starting point, btt not

enough to hit our target. The talk today was of an east`west dhvide,

the deputy mayor said poverty didn't appear to be a major factor, but one

academic said it was. There is a very strong sensation deprivation

and contrast in confidence hn the police. So what are the varhations?

Confidence is good where it is red and less where it is grey. What are

the extremes? In Richmond, 84% of people say the police do a good or

excellent job. While in Lewhsham, it's 48%, dropping 13% in a year. In

the last few months there h`s been unfortunate publicity about

Lewisham, named the least pdaceful borough in a survey and the place

where a child was most likely to be Tasered. Was this a fair impression?

If I needed to call the polhce, I wouldn't. I'd call someone dlse to

deal with the problem. I don't trust them. Some can't thank the police in

love and some have nothing good to say about them. So bit of a ying and

yang. We don't see any police walking round in Lewisham. So that's

probably why there is a lot of petty crime. In fact, most crime hn

Lewisham is down and the officer in charge offered this today. H know

this isn't about satisfaction but where people have actually `ccessed

a service we are at 78%, so that's a better picture. It's just the

confidence that's really dr`gging the overall performance scorecard

down. City Hall says The Met is not yet on track to get a 75% ptblic

approval rating by 2020. But the police know building trust hs one of

the key things they need to do. Well it comes on the day thd head of

the force, Sir Bernard Hogan Howe, was questioned by MPs over the

shredding of thousands of documents a decade ago. Nick Beake is outside

Scotland Yard, what did he say? They were very frosty, those exchanges.

But in the middle of them, Sir Bernard Hogan`Howe said he had and

all members of his organisation from shredding documents. It follows the

revelation that a lorry load of evidence in an anti`corrupthon probe

was destroyed more than a ddcade ago. Today, he said he was still

trying to establish whether that have been done for malicious or

innocent purposes. He said the shredding was hard to justify but he

said it was possible it was done because the information had been

safely transferred to computers The Commissioner was specifically

questioned over alleged corruption in the Stephen Lawrence casd? Yes, a

barrister had been asked to look again at the Stephen Lawrence

investigation. He said therd were reasonable grounds to suspect a

former police officer, Sergdant John Davidson of corruption. Thex say it

should be done by an extern`l organisation.

And in a special programme later this week, The Met Commissioner

talks directly to an audience of Londoners about recent scandals in

the Force. That's 'Do You Trust the Police?' with Jeremy Vine, on Friday

at 7:30pm. The family of a young soldidr who

died at Deepcut barracks in Surrey, nearly 20 years ago, has bedn told

they can apply to the High Court for a new inquest. Private Cherxl James

died from gunshot wounds. She was one of four soldiers there to die

over seven years, sparking allegations of bullying and abuse as

Alex Bushill reports. Private Cheryl James was 18 when she

died from a single gunshot wound to her head. Her body was found on the

outskirts of the barracks in the Surrey countryside. She is

remembered as a bubbly teen`ger and the army said her death was

suicide. Her family have never accepted that, accusing the MoD over

cover`up. And now some promhsing news, a second inquest into her

death. We were always confident this day would come. The more we learned

about Cheryl's case and her death, the more we knew it had not been

investigated. His daughter was one of four young recruits who died of

gunshot wounds within four xears at deep cut. Cheryl James was found

dead, an open verdict was rdcorded. In 2001, Private Geoff Gray from

Hackney was found dead with two gunshot wounds. And a year later

Private James Collins and's body was discovered and both returned open

verdicts. Surrey Police carried out an investigation into thous`nd and

two but there have never bedn any prosecutions. A series of

investigations found bullying and abuse but calls for a full public

enquiry have been refused. The authorities have persistently shut

the families down and tried to close ranks. I think that aware the

families have looked to othdr institutions to help them, such as

the police, they have failed them. The army has said it has le`rned

lessons from what happened `t deep cut and the MoD said they would

provide support for any second inquest. Private James' famhly now

await a six`week wait to sed if the High Court will grant them ` second

inquest. That's all from me, so I'll wish you

goodnight and leave you with the weather.

We have clear skies but the sunshine will be replaced by showers in the

afternoon. We could see a couple creeping across Kent, Essex and

Hertfordshire in the next fdw hours but mostly it will be a dry night. A

breeze blowing and it will be chilly. Sheltered from the spots may

maybe below freezing. There could be a touch of ice first thing tomorrow

morning. It will not be a whdespread trouble. For most it will bd a dry

start, a little bit of brightness around but the showers get going in

the afternoon. They look like they will be heavy and thundery `nd they

might be wintry. Feeling chhlly at 10 degrees. The outlook,

might be wintry. Feeling chilly at 10 degrees. The outlook, it stays

chilly and temperatures look like they will pick up towards the eight

-- weekend. In early spring, a bit of sunshine

makes the difference. Today we had some sunshine in the far east of the

UK and in the far west. In Northern Ireland and East Anglia,

temperatures climbed into the teens. But for most of us, it was gloomy

and temperatures were at sixes and sevens. Single figure temperatures

will feature heavily over the next few days. We are already seeing the

weather coming in from the east pushing the weather to the West so

we will see showers continuing in the night. Isolated showers. Most

towns and cities just about avoiding a frost but in rural areas we will

seek pockets of frost and fog patches for the morning. Some

showers across the West but it will brighten up in the West, however in

the East the cloud thickens, the winds pick up and out rakes