08/05/2014 BBC London News

Good evening. Hundreds of police officers have been equipped with

portable cameras attached to their uniforms. Scotland Yard says the

state`of`the`art gadgets will help them deal with stop`and`search

operations, and it's also hoped the technology will increase public

trust in the police. But civil liberty campaigners say the cameras

are open to abuse. Here's the BBC's home affairs correspondent, Matthew

Prodger, and let me warn you that you may find some images in this

report disturbing. Police respond to a report of

domestic violence. The evidence from a police body camera is undeniable.

Are their children here? The attacker was pleading guilty. His

victim was spared a trip to court. Sometimes, the victim is so

terrified, they feel unable to take the case to court, and we can put

this evidence before a court, and it is important to me, as you will see

in that footage, you can see the terror. This pilot scheme will

establish however active body cameras are. They can help avoid

costly trials. A similar exercise in California also found that officers

fitted with cameras were less likely to use force, and complaints against

the police dropped by 88%. The reasoning behind these body cameras

is simple. If the criminal knows there is recorded evidence of their

wrongdoing, they are more likely to plead guilty early, and if somebody

knows that they are being filmed, they are less likely to be violent.

He is walking away now. That one. Camera use will focus initially on

reports of violence and stop and search. Video will be stored for a

month, and then deleted unless it is needed for evidence in a prosecution

or complaint. Police in Lambeth have been trying out a different body

camera to provide an independent record of searches on the street.

Often a flash point for animosity between officers and the public. But

there are concerns the bidders may abuse their power to stop and start

recording. `` that officers may abuse their power.

Clearly there is a risk that the officer can turn the camera offers

they don't want something recorded, and if that does happen and evidence

isn't created, the Met police will have to crack down on that hard. The

net predicts that in London alone, ten to 20,000 body cameras will

eventually be in use, and many more across the UK.

Police are still questioning the violent armed robber known as the

Skull Cracker, who's been recaptured in east London after absconding from

an open prison in Kent. Michael Wheatley was arrested in Tower

Hamlets yesterday, hours after allegedly robbing a building society

at Sunbury`on`Thames. Lawyers for the radical Muslim

cleric Abu Hamza have claimed he secretly worked with MI5 to keep the

streets of London safe. The cleric has been giving evidence at his

trial in New York on terrorism charges. Our home affairs

correspondent Guy Smith has this report.

For many years, he was the face of Britain's battle against extremism.

Abu Hamza, a British cleric, was jailed for inciting racial hatred.

He was extradited to the United States and faces 11 terrorism

charges there. In a New York courtroom, he repeatedly denied his

part in the kidnapping of Western tourists in Yemen, a plot to set up

training camp in Oregon, and calling for holy War in Afghanistan. But the

court has also been told about claims he secretly worked for

British intelligence agency MI5 to keep the streets of London safe.

Abu Hamza's lawyer claims he was a moderating influence within the

Muslim community, seen here around a decade ago preaching outside

Finsbury Park mosque in north London will stop the defence wants to

introduce documents from Scotland Yard showing how he cooperated with

police to calm tensions and help release hostages. But the US judge

has ruled that evidence inadmissible.

The version Abu Hamza is presenting to an American court is very

difficult from the one he resented here, that of running a global

terror network from Finsbury Park. Claims of his working with reduced

damage and will only go to fuel conspiracy theories about why he was

able to reach hate in the UK for so long. Meanwhile, Abu Hamza told the

court his life story of how he started out on the wrong side of

morality, running a strip club in Soho, but then turned to Islam. He

said he had been a member of the Royal Society for Arts and also

worked at Sandhurst, the military Academy in Camberley, in Surrey full

top Abu Hamza's testimony is expected to last into next week. He

has already spent eight years in prison in the UK. If found guilty of

aiding terrorism, he faces life in jail in the US full.

Angelina Jolie is as much known for her humanitarian work as for her

acting. Well, this evening she was in London promoting her new film

Maleficent. But she took time out to speak to BBC London of her horror at

the recent abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria. She also

told us she's joined a campaign to get them freed.

We need to start sending a message to the perpetrators that they will

not get away with it, and we need to make sure that we not only returnees

girls but prevent girls in the future from being taken.

That's it from me for tonight, so it just leaves me to hand you over to

Sarah for the weather forecast. Grim today, isn't it?

That is the word. It has been wet and grey, and they will be a few

showers on the cards as we head through the next few days. The

breeze is quite a feature of the weather as we head through the next

few days. It will be dried to start Friday morning. Sunny spells through

the morning, but one or two fairly scattered heavy showers. By the

afternoon, these will tend to fade away. We still have the breeze, but

more in the way of sunshine in the afternoon will stop tomorrow, up to

around 17 or 18 Celsius. The breeze will just take the edge off those

temperatures. The weekend is set to start on a fairly damp note, but the

main band of rain clears away. That is how it is looking. I leave you

with an outlook of London's weather, and John Hammond will take

a look at the National forecast over the course of tomorrow and through

the weekend as well. The evening. Hello there. Fancy escaping the rain

this weekend? We will be looking at the weather further afield in a

moment. Another area of low pressure out here is lined up to the weekend.

There will be some sunshine in between. Overnight tonight, most of

the wet weather is across the North and the West, but later on in the

night, showers will spread right the way across the country. Another cold

night, temperatures are staying in double figures. Tomorrow, some

places fare better, others worse. An improving story from the south

across the country. Snapshot mid-afternoon, some showers across

the Highlands. More prolonged bursts of rain across the North, and sharp

showers across eastern counties, but further west, plenty of grey and

breezy