11/04/2014 BBC News at One

The Co-op bank announces losses of ?1.3 billion for last year.

The bank said it did not expect to make a profit this year or

the next and apologises to its 4.7 million customers.

We'll be assessing the latest blow to trouble the Co-op Group.

Nearly 16 years after Northern Ireland?s worst act

of terrorism left 29 dead in Omagh, murder charges are brought

Oscar Pistorius speaks in detail for the first time about what happened

on the night he shot dead his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, and

She did not do that. ??PREVSUB ??NEWSUB It's time I fell in love.

Sue Townsend has died after a short illness. She was 68. Magistrates

courts go paperless to speed up cases. And a new study finds small

business is booming in the capital, as confidence returns.

The troubled Co-operative Bank has announced losses of ?1.3 billion

The bank, which has almost 300 branches, has confirmed that it will

not pay deferred bonuses to former executives who left the company when

It has also revealed details of the pay package of

Our business correspondent Joe Lynam reports.

It's been a year which the Co-op Group and especially its banking

Today the bank posted a record loss and warned there'd be further

Including last year's loss of ?1.3 billion, there's a figure

of over half a billion for bad debts, or loans which the

It?s also setting aside ?412 million for fines and repayments

for mis-selling products like PPI to some customers.

Just over a year ago, the Co-op Bank was talking about

tripling in size by taking over part of the Lloyds branch network.

But it had seriously overreached itself.

Now it's talking about rehabilitation

That, unfortunately, means further job cuts

In a statement the Co-op Bank said, ?There are still major hurdles to

The level of change required in improvement in processes,

We are determined to rebuild trust in the Bank after the events

of the past year and reward the loyalty our customers

The Co-op woes began last year when it emerged that its bank had

And its disgraced former chairman, Paul Flowers,

quit amid a drugs scandal and the revelation that he lacked

Only last month the Co-op also lost its group chief executive Euan

Sutherland, who resigned describing the Co-op as ?ungovernable?.

He and other top executives will not be getting planned bonuses,

??YELLOW ??CAPNEXT I think bonuses are probably a bit of a PR stunt.

Obviously it is pushing home again today the fact that it wants to

stick to the ethical standards of the Co-operative Group, and this

clearly, given the losses they've taken today, is a way of trying to

say that we are very aware of our responsibilities

On top of today's posted losses,

the bank still needs to find another ?400 million from somewhere.

That could put even more pressure on the rest of the Co-op

businesses, such as its supermarkets and funeral divisions.

In terms of what the bank has to do to move forward, can it achieve what

it wants to achieve? So far so good on the retention of customers. The

high street customers have stayed with the bank and remained loyal.

They are losing business customers. The bank probably want that, as they

shrink towards a more ethical, retail high street customers have

stayed with the bank and remained loyal. They are losing business

customers. The bank probably want that, as they shrink towards a more

ethical, retail high-street bank. As for the 4 million, that's a lot of

money. It is only 30% owned by the group. The rest of it is by US hedge

funds. That money is for capitalists, a rainy day fund in

case of emergencies, which they've had quite a few of late. If these

hedge funds and the Co-op Group don't stump up the money, then the

Co-op Group is in trouble. I be optimistic because the UK economy is

recovering, which means a bank should do well as it lends money to

a growing economy. If it lends money and gets more profits, it can pay

off its debts and raise the capital. I'd be slightly more optimistic than

I would have been two or three years ago.

An Irish Republican has appeared in court in County Tyrone charged

with murdering the 29 people killed in the Omagh bombing.

Seamus Daly, who is 43 and from County Monaghan

in the Irish Republic, has always denied any involvement.

Our Ireland correspondent Chris Buckler is in Dungannon.

The prosecutor in the Oscar Pistorius murder trial has

Seamus Daly?s lawyer argued there were weaknesses in the case. Amid

high security, Seamus Daly was driven to court to be charged with

murdering 29 people. He appeared handcuffed in the dock, as details

of 33 offences were read out. The vast majority of them connected to

the explosion in Omagh. It is a bombing that stands out. Even among

Northern Ireland?s bloody years of violence and atrocity. It up to now,

no one has been convicted of it. But these remain scolding memories. The

BBC?s panorama programme named Seamus Daly as someone who played a

role in the attack, although he's always denied any involvement. The

explosion happened on a busy Saturday afternoon in August 1998.

Five years later, Seamus Daly was charged with being a member of the

Real IRA in Dublin. He pleaded guilty. In 2009, he was one of four

men fined by a civil court to be responsible for what happened at

Omagh. Today he appeared in court to face criminal charges. Michael

Gallagher was in the courtroom during the short hearing. His son

was killed in the bombing. Over the past 15 years I've spent a lot of

time in courts in Dublin and Belfast. With the civil action

taking almost ten years, it can be soul destroying. Seamus Daly was

refused bail. His next court appearance will be in a month?s

time. Mirrors have been built in a memorial garden to reflect light

into the town, but this is a place that is always aware of the shadows

cast by the bombing. During today?s proceedings, more details were

revealed about how Seamus Daly was taken into custody. He was taken

into custody in the car park of a maternity hospital, his wife is due

to give birth today. He faces trial and is remanded in custody. That is

a trial that will be watched very closely to -- by the families of the

victims. The prosecutor in the

Oscar Pistorius murder trial has told the court that the athlete shot

his girlfriend through the bathroom Gerrie Nel said this was the only

possible outcome. The story is facing Mr Reeva Steenkamp for an

intruder. The focus today has been on the lead

up to the moment Reeva Steenkamp died, and why Pistorius didn't check

she was in bed beside him. Why then did he rushed towards danger? He

insisted he was acting on instinct. Instead of cowering and running

away, at that moment I wanted to put myself between the danger, perceived

danger and Reeva, I cannot explain why. I wish I did all these other

things that are put to me. So you wanted to confront them. That's

correct. I wanted to go and shoot them. That's not what I said. The

prosecutor then asked Oscar Pistorius about the moment he fired

those shots through the toilet door. He insisted the athlete must

be lying. That surely, Reeva Steenkamp would have called out

either before the shooting had started or at least after that first

shot was fired. At no point did reverse shout out or scream. I wish

she had let me know she was there, she did not do that. After you fired

the first shot, did she scream? No. Are you sure? Would you have heard

her? I'm not sure, after the gun went off my ears were ringing. How

could you exclude the fact that she was screaming if you couldn't hear?

If I couldn't hear... You said, Mr Pistorius, she never screamed. You

couldn't hear, you are just saying that. That is what I'm saying. No,

that's not what you are saying. You are saying she didn't scream, and

that's why I tested you on it. It's been a very dramatic morning in

court. It has. Oscar Pistorius sticking strongly to his story, his

version of events about what happened that night. Really pushing

back quite hard against the prosecutor, but it has been this

extraordinary week. It began with Pistorius understand howling with

grief and regret, when he was first asked to give evidence about what

happened that night. Then the prosecutor coming in so

aggressively, confronting him with that graphic image of Reeva?s dead

body. And now this very, very aggressive counter cross-examination

that is really getting, at times, Oscar Pistorius into some trouble.

There'll be updates on the trial throughout the day,

Plus a special programme each evening

That's at 7.30pm on the BBC News Channel.

The Director of Public Prosecutions, Alison Saunders,

has defended the decision to bring recent sex abuse cases involving

to court. Yesterday, the former Deputy Commons Speaker, Nigel Evans,

said he had been through hell after being cleared of rape and other

Sexual offences. How has Alison Saunders been defending her work?

She said they only brought cases to trial where there was a reasonable

prospect of conviction, and they would assemble their evidence

thoughtfully and carefully. But she set out that there is a very

different role for a jury in any case. They have to decide whether

they can convict beyond all reasonable doubt. She said that is a

far higher bar. One statistic for you from the director of public

prosecutions, she says there are over 700,000 prosecutions every

year, and 86% of them reach a conviction. She said many of the

high-profile cases that we hear about in the news are not

representative of the broad range of cases that come before the court.

Stepping back from the Nigel Evans case, there have been questions

about the general culture in Westminster. A good number of

questions about the culture in Parliament, how people behave.

Plenty of people will tell you there's a culture that leads people

to drink too much at Westminster, working practices, in the slightly

bizarre nature of Parliament, means that can happen, it can lead to

inappropriate behaviour. The weird and wonderful hours, the way that

people are away from their families in London during the week and might

be waiting for a late vote and hanging around in the bars. There's

a recognition that the culture needs to change. The Speaker of the House

of Commons says the Commons needs to modernise. He has set up a telephone

hotline allowing people to complain if they feel inappropriate behaviour

is going on. The Conservatives have issued a code of conduct to their

MPs. What is odd about Westminster is you have lots of MPs who are

effectively self-employed, employing their own staff, who are directly

accountable just to them. There isn't the structures you would get

in many workplaces with human resources departments and that kind

of thing. That is the challenge that the Parliamentary authorities now

place. There seems to be recognition that they do need to face up to that

and change needs to come. The writer Sue Townsend has died

at the age of 68. She'll be best remembered by many

for her series of books about the The novelist said that it was her

own children who had inspired Our correspondent David Sillito

looks back at her life. There's a new girl in my class, she

sits next to me in geography. At age 13 and three quarters, it was all

about spots, poetry and a desperate passion for Pandora Braithwaite.

It's time I fell in love, after all, I am 13 and three quarters years

old. You are so beautiful! 20 years on, Adrian is still struggling,

still a bit desperate. Adrian Mole, the most successful failure in

modern British literature wasn't just the creation of Sue Townsend,

it was part of her. In a sense, he's my worst side. Spots on my chin for

the first day of the New Year. If people realised that I was so near

to him, to Adrian Mole, they would be less... They wouldn't at Miami.

She was joking, of course. Sue Townsend only learn to read at

eight, left school at 16 and a 23 was working in a petrol station

bringing up three children. In her 30s she wrote the most successful

British novel of the 1980s. And when it came to actors, she had strong

views on what made a good Adrian. When I auditioned to play Adrian,

she told me that Adrian couldn't be too good looking. She pulled out a

huge magnifying glass, came right up to my face, I was in the last stages

of going, scanned me all over and said I was indeed not good-looking

enough to play the part. That failing sight was only one of many

health problems linked to diabetes. But it didn't stop her writing.

Beyond Adrian Mole?s live there were many other plays and novels, but she

was happy to be remembered for Adrian. The underdog history of

modern Britain. Growing up can be painful. Sue Townsend made it funny.

Our main story, the corporate bank has announced losses of ?1.3 billion

for last year and has apologised to its 4.7 million customers.

And still to come, the man who led British Cycling to a golden decade

Later on BBC London, technology on trial,

the magistrates courts going paperless to speed up cases.

And a new study finds small business is booming in the capital

Russia's been accused of using energy

as a tool of coercion after President Putin threatened

to cut off his country's gas supplies

unless Ukraine pays more than ?1.3 billion in debts.

comes as Ukraine's interim Prime Minister

is meeting regional leaders in the east of the country

on a mission to end a stand-off with pro-Russia protesters.

of Russian armour and advanced warplanes,

of a Russian military build-up on Ukraine's eastern border

or even to provide Moscow with a military option.

Russia says the images are old, the alliance insists they are recent.

And this is potentially the next flash point

Behind barricades, pro-Russians occupying a government building

The country's interim Prime Minister is visiting the region

TRANSLATION: I would like to state clearly

is not only ready for dialogue with the regions but is ready to fulfil

of all of the citizens of our country.

Whether that will satisfy the separatists

Kiev and Moscow continue to blame each other for fomenting trouble.

And the Russian president, Vladimir Putin,

has turned up the heat in another way,

warning that Russian gas supplies to Ukraine could be cut

with a potentially serious knock-on effect elsewhere in Europe.

Moscow says Ukraine owes the Russian energy giant Gazprom $2.2 billion,

and it's nearly doubled prices to Ukraine.

But Mr Putin has sent his warning to 18 European countries who rely

on Russian gas imports, saying their supplies could be affected.

Russia currently meets some 30% of Europe's natural gas needs,

with about half of that flowing through Ukraine.

Mr Putin's intervention prompted this new rebuke from Washington.

We condemn Russia's efforts to use energy

as a tool of coercion against Ukraine.

Ukraine is now paying $485, a price clearly not set by market forces.

It's all a volatile backdrop as diplomats plan

new international talks for next week

to try to de-escalate this high-stakes stand-off.

Ten people have died in a crash involving a school bus in California

when a bus collided with a delivery truck.

The NHS in England continues to perform marginally better than

the services in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland,

but according to a new report, the gap is narrowing.

The Nuffield Trust and the Health Foundation

say that life expectancy and death rates have all improved,

but they're concerned about budget cuts

and waiting times for some operations in Wales.

Our health correspondent Dominic Hughes reports.

At this hospital in Northumberland, Rose is recovering from breaking her

hip. She had an operation within 24 hours and hopes to be getting home

soon. Getting patients home quickly improves their chances of a

recovery, but this has required an injection of cash across the

service. The investment we have seen has been incredibly important in

terms of patient care, from a quality and safety perspective, and

it is something we have seen across the board from general practice and

community service. So it is very important. In the early 1990s, life

expectancy here in the north-east of England was pretty much the same as

in Scotland, but after a couple of decades of investment in the health

service, the region are starting to pull ahead, so people here can

expect to live up to a year longer than their Scottish neighbours just

north of the border. That improvement can be seen across the

English NHS. Death rates and life expectancy are improving, but

progress in Scotland - waiting times for operations have gone down. And

care for people who have had strokes has improved in Northern Ireland.

But in Wales, there have been cut to the budget and sharp increases in

waiting times. Welsh patient Athena Williams,

an NHS nurse for 40 years, was told she might not get

a hip replacement for 18 months As far as I was concerned,

I thought the NHS was there for everyone who lived

in the United Kingdom. It wasn't meant to be

a two-tier system, so you needed treatment,

then you should get the treatment. Devolution means that each

government can set its own priorities. We listened to what the

public told us, he sees in terms of waiting for treatment, for both

appointments and procedures, and we put in measures to ensure that those

were tackled. More all the differences in how the four health

services are run and organisers, the research suggests it is the funding

of the NHS that is the key factor in how it works.

Dominic Hughes, BBC News, Newcastle. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge

have taken part in a yacht race on the latest stage

of their tour of New Zealand. and our royal correspondent Nicholas

Witchell was watching. Take a pair of highly sophisticated

America's Cup racing yachts, of a pair of ultracompetitive

sporty types, and you have a race. was the Duchess of Cambridge,

who certainly looked the part and, what's more, showed that she

knows what she's doing. William, by contrast,

has never really taken to the sea, rather to the disappointment

of the Royal Navy. It wasn't long before Kate's

boat was surging ahead. Local skippers said her knowledge

of sailing showed. We're told she has have experience,

and it looks like it, too, you know. You can just tell by the way she's

steering the boat, it looks great. They had two races -

Kate's boat won both of them. A somewhat rueful

William came ashore. His wife was feeling very pleased,

he was told. She tried not to look too pleased

when they met, but glory was hers,

the somewhat battered pride he is. whose citizens had lined the

waterfront to watch the race? This is New Zealand's biggest city,

a good place to judge the extent to which people have

really engaged with this visit. The evidence, though,

is conflicting. Once again, the welcome for William

and Kate was warm, the crowds over the short

distance of the walkabout were of a good size,

but not massive. And at one point in the skies

overhead there was an aircraft towing a banner calling for an end

to the monarchy in New Zealand. Supporters of a republic

say there's a for change. In a contemporary,

diverse country like New Zealand, it's important that a head of state

reflect New Zealand culture, and so we need to change to

something better. Yet as Republicans know, almost

certainly the majority of people still feel comfortable

with the present arrangements and have no great wish

to change them. Nicholas Witchell, BBC News,

Auckland. The man who led Great Britain

to eight gold medals at both the Beijing and

London Olympics is standing down. Sir Dave Brailsford has quit

as performance director to concentrate on running the

professional cycling team Team Sky. The 50-year-old transformed the

sport during his ten-year reign. Well, our sports correspondent

Richard Conway is at Mr Brailsford's second home,

the Manchester velodrome. Richard. This is the national cycle centre in

Manchester, described as the house that they've built, because under

his leadership British Cycling has enjoyed an unparalleled decade of

success, but now they must face up to a future without him.

British Cycling has never been more successful.

Led by Sir Dave Brailsford, Great Britain has amassed an incredible 30

Olympic medals under his guidance, eight of them gold. The first at the

Beijing games in 2008, then London in 2012.

But with Sir Dave also responsible for Team Sky, who will this summer

bid for a third successive to the France title, he has decided to step

aside for his responsibilities with the British team. In a statement, he

said, since London 2012, we have worked hard on succession planning,

and that has meant we have got to a point where I can move on knowing

the team will go from strength to strength. The first thing he will

say is that it has been a team effort, everybody has been involved

in the whole journey from 1998 onwards. Obviously, the medal

success is something that stands out, London 2012 will be in

everybody's memories for hundreds of years to come, really. Awarded a

knighthood for services to cycling, Sir Dave Brailsford is known for

meticulous preparation and attention to detail. They now face a future

without him, but the man who leaves nothing to chance is confident he

has left a structure and a winning formula in place.

Well, all day we have seen riders of all ages coming down to use the

facilities here, and it is that level of inspiration that British

Cycling hope will continue through the performances on the track,

through the Olympics and the Paralympics that we have seen. Under

that leadership, they are hoping that will continue.

Richard, thank you very much indeed. Kylie Minogue is leaving BBC One's

talent show The Voice. She's been on the show

for one series but says in a tweet this morning,

due to timing of my tour I won't be back next season

for The Voice UK. The programme makers said

Kylie had been an awesome judge. Let's find out how the weather is

looking, could you describe it as awesome?

Yes, you could, some sunny spells around, and we have been talking

about a weather front lurking across southern parts of Scotland, and that

is the remnants of it, it has been the focus for the possibility of one

or two showers this afternoon across the southeastern quarter. I have got

money on more rain and wind getting into the corner of Scotland with one

or two showers and head of that. This is the introduction to quite a

wet spell of weather, quite a windy spell of weather for a good part of

Scotland over the next few days. But those are the two exceptions to

Scotland over the next few days. But those are the two exceptions an

otherwise dry and fine rule. Plenty of sun to go around, the temperature

is responding to that spring sunshine, at best 17 or so.

Elsewhere, just a fraction cooler around the coasts. During the course

of the night, the weather front does not go very far very fast, tails in

locations across the North West of Scotland. Elsewhere, not a problem

on the temperature front, but if the skies stay clear, there might be

mist around, and there may be two or three degrees on the thermometer by

the time you wake up. It does convert to a pretty decent start

across the southwestern quarter. The weather front gets a move on through

Scotland and Northern Ireland, blustery showers following on

behind. More cloud across the South, so I suspect the get 17 or 18,

closer to 15 or so. The weather front continues its journey to the

near constant, noticed the isobars, with another weather front too. A

cool start for the marathon, if you are off the course fairly quickly,

it will be cool, but if you are on the course for longer, it will be

warm work. See what I mean about the weather front? Some of you on

holiday next week, quite a lot of dry weather around, sunny spells,

but gardeners take note! There may well be some frost around underneath

the clear skies. A reminder of the top stories: the

Co-op Bank has announced losses of ?1.3 billion for last year and has

apologised to its 4.7 million customers. That is all