17/07/2012 BBC News at Six

The Olympic security fiasco - the boss of G4S faces tough questioning

from MPs. Nick Buckles admits his company's reputation is in tatters.

Kick it is a humiliating shambles for the company, yes or no?

cannot disagree with you. And that's before the company's

latest no-shows. More guards fail to turn up, and trainees speak of

confusion. When do you start work? Are I have

no idea. They have not told you? no. Have you asked? Yeah. I know

response? Are I have to wait for an e-mail. We'll be asking if G4S can

deliver on their other commitments? Also tonight:

Buried alive in their car - police discover a couple who drove into a

landslide last week. Inflation drops - all that rain had

the high street slashing prices to get us into the shops.

The "Blade Runner" makes history - we're with Oscar Pistorius, the

first amputee to compete in the Olympic games. Neither and and on

the BBC News Channel, we will be live at Toral are then sent answer

as Tiger Woods faces another tough day in practice for the Open -- we

Good evening. Welcome to the BBC News at Six. The man who runs G4S,

the private contractor at the heart of the Olympic security crisis,

says he regrets the company ever took on the job. Nick Buckles faced

fierce questioning from MPs today. He admitted the company's

performance had been a humiliating shambles. While he was speaking, it

emerged that yet more of its staff had failed to turn up for duty at

an Olympic venue, this time at Box A G4S and his chief executive had

hoped to bring a little Olympic gold to the company's reputation,

by signing up to protect the London Games. But instead, Nicholls took

his seat in front of MPs today for a roasting. Mr Buckles, it is a

humiliating shambles, isn't it? is not where we would want to be.

It is a humiliating shambles for the company, yes or no? I cannot

disagree. He also agreed that for a second day, Olympic venues are

missing G4S security guards. 17 turned up at the road cycling

course in Surrey. 30 it had been expected. G4S has 10,000 staff on

its roster. It is training and equipping more every day at centres

like this, but now the Olympic venues are being searched and

locked down, G4S's staff are not turning up in the right numbers to

guard them. The question is why. The answer, MPs were told today, is

that in the gap between being trained, often months ago, and

given their security duty, they have gone missing. Perhaps they

have found other jobs, but between 30051000 staff are now not

available to work for G4S. You have not actively managed to people

between recruiting them and expecting them to turn up to a

venue. Could be. Could be, or it is? Could be sounds very vague. We

like specific answers. It is on some occasions, but I don't know

how many. Is that indicative of a more general management problem

within your organisation? database and getting hold of people

and running them through the process has been a challenge.

even now, the company is leading into the last minute to call in its

recruits. When do you start work? I have no

idea. They have not told you? No. Have you asked? Yeah. What was the

response? I have to wait for an e- mail. G4S admitted today that it

has no way of knowing if trained staff are still willing and

available to work until they are sent at e-mail. We are delighted to

have G4S on board. They have been securing the Olympic Fir Park.

despite the high-profile endorsements, the company now

regrets bidding for the Olympics, regrets agreeing to a contract

requiring thousands of staff to be trained and then held in reserved

for the big day. But G4S still wants to be paid. 57 million is

your feet, and you still think you ought to claim it? Yes. Even after

all that has happened? We are still expected to deliver a significant

number of staff for the Olympics. find that astonishing. But G4S will

pay penalties and a cost of bringing in soldiers and police to

cover its failings. Tonight, those troops are making camp in east

London. The Games start in ten days. And Tom's here now. Tom, in the

light of Nick Buckles' evidence, can G4S be trusted with security at

the games? G4S may have come clean last week, but this is not over yet.

To go over those figures again, the promised 10,500 or so. They have

about 5500. They believe they have not -- they believe they can get

that up to 7000, but that still leaves the Olympics about a third

short, which is where the army come in. We are hearing more tales from

the Police Federation in the Midlands, for example. They say

around 380 police officers will be needed to fill in behind G4S at the

Olympic football venues. To get about 7000 figure, G4S not only

need to get everybody trained up, which has by no means been a smooth

process, we have heard about people making long round trips to pick up

at a uniform, only to be told it is not available, but they also have

to make sure they get in touch with those people and that people are

there to answer the e-mails and phones and that they turn up. We

are being told that once people are committed to coming, they do turn

up on site. So any suggestion that this is a lazy work force that G4S

has recruited is not borne out tonight.

With just ten days to go before the start of the Olympics, the

organisers are releasing another 400,000 tickets. And tens of

thousands of football tickets are being withdrawn because of poor

demand. Our sports correspondent James Pearce is at the Olympic Park.

James, why are so many tickets still available for sale? That is

the question that many of those people who applied unsuccessfully

for tickets last year will be asking. We always knew there would

be some tickets released at the last minute, but not this money.

London 2012 organisers have spoken on so many occasions with pride

about a sold-out Olympics, and there are now suddenly urging us to

buy, buy, buy. The National Youth Theatre welcomes the first

competitors to the athletes' village. Every nation will take

part in a ceremony like this. This afternoon, it was the turn of the

British Virgin Islands, but when the party had started in this

corner of town, down the road the mood was far from festive. Lord Coe

was on the defensive after revealing that 400,000 tickets have

not even gone on sale yet. There are still tickets on the website.

If you do want tickets, get on to our website. Don't run away with

the idea that we will have a great gaping gaps in our venues, we will

not. But there will be gaps at the Olympic football matches. Tickets

have sold so slowly in Cardiff that half the Millennium Stadium will be

closed off for the opening match, when Team GB's women to play next

Wednesday. It is a similar story around the UK. Half a million

football tickets have been withdrawn. A further 150,000 have

been given away for free. That leaves 450,000 football tickets

still to sell. Double gold medallist Dame Kelly Holmes carried

the torch today. She knows all about the importance of filling

venues. Having full stadiums is something that a lot of sports

people don't ever normally get to feel, so having that will bring a

new height and energy and excitement, and it will raise

performances. The news that more tickets are still to go on sale is

frustrating for people like will Stephenson, who applied last year,

and having missed out, had formed the impression that most events

were sold out. You get an e-mail saying no tickets are available, so

you click on a link, see something you would like to buy, request it

and until we get to the checkout stage, you do not know it is

available. You might be looking at category D tickets, then you find

there are only category A left, which are more expensive. It is not

clear what is available when you get to the website. There were

further problems today for the organisers, when a protest by taxi

drivers brought the central London to a standstill. But it is not all

doom and gloom. The water on the Olympic Park has at last been

coming from a hose, rather than a sky. If you do want to buy tickets,

log on to the London 2012 website. You can buy tickets for the opening

ceremony, but if you want those, you will need a spare �2,012 in

your bank account. A missing couple from Somerset have

been found dead inside their car, more than a week after it was

buried by a landslide. The vehicle was discovered yesterday evening

under tonnes of earth and mud at the mouth of the Beaminster tunnel

in Dorset. Robert Hall is there. In the past hour, the contractors

have moved in and begun clearing away this mud and rock and foliage

that has come down the hillside, taking with it part of the tunnel

entrance and claiming two lives. One of those who died has been

named locally as Rosemary Snell. She and her companion died in what

police described to me as a chance in a million.

It has been a vital route for two sentries. Now the tunnel is silent

as police try to establish the events which led up to the deaths

of two weekend visitors. These pictures were filmed by a BBC

camera crew shortly after torrential rain brought mud, trees

and brickwork down from the tunnel's northern portal. Unknown

to everyone, a car had been passing beneath at that moment and was

hidden under the mudslide. A Dorset Fire and rescue used heat-seeking

equipment to see if there were signs of life, and that proved

negative. In hindsight, the vehicle was so badly crushed her that it

was lying low, and the rubble and mud gave the appearance of there

being nothing trapped underneath. After the storms, a couple from

Crewkerne were reported missing and police traced them to a minister

using phone records and credit card transactions. Emergency services

returned to the tunnel. And the car was found within 40 minutes. The

bodies of its occupants were still inside. It was probably a mixture

of literally shock and amazement, shock because any of us could have

been going through the tunnel at the time, and amazement,

particularly in the week that you read about an avalanche on Mont

Blanc, where rescue workers within an hour, and bizarrely here, just

200 metres above sea level, it has taken a week and a bit before any

of this was suspected. So even as the car was removed for forensic

examination, the questions had already begun - had the checks on

the mudslide been fair enough? Could rapid intervention have save

two lives? The agencies involved have begun an investigation and

will report to the coroner. The tunnel, which was due for

renovation, will be closed for the foreseeable future. There are

concerns amongst the communities which use this road and amongst

those who knew it the couple who died. The police are stressing that

this was one of 150 flood related incidents during that very busy

weekend, but they are confident that the initial checks here were

thorough. Every fact will be gone in to buy all of those agencies and

will appear in the eventual report. Police are investigating allegedly

racist comments made against Chelsea footballer Ashley Cole on

the social networking site Twitter. The comment posted by the

individual, who's believed to be from Derby, was then re-posted by

Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand. A police spokesman said

Mr Ferdinand was not under investigation.

Counter-terrorism officers have flown to Libya to investigate the

murder of policewoman Yvonne Fletcher, who was killed in London

while on duty in 1984. The officers are working with Libyan officials

to identify who was responsible for her murder. Yvonne Fletcher was

policing a demonstration when she was shot by a bullet fired from the

Libyan embassy. MPs have been questioning the

Governor of the Bank of England in the wake of the rate-rigging

scandal at Barclays. Sir Mervyn King told MPs today that the board

of Barclays had been in a "state of denial", despite warnings from the

City watchdog. MPs have also seen emails which appear to show a close

relationship between the former Barclays boss and the Deputy

governor of the Bank of England. Barclays, a bank frantically trying

to replace its top three people, in part because the Bank of England

decided this giant bank needed new leadership in the wake of the LIBOR

scandal. The Governor of the Bank of England told MPs the message he

delivered to backless chairman Marcus aegis that led to the

resignation of Bob Diamond as Barclays' chief executive. I would

like you to make clear to the board that the regulators have expressed

these concerns and the board needs to know they are very concerned and

have lost confidence. The chairman of the FSA had also tried to force

out Mr Diamond, but Barclays' chairman did not take the hint and

announced that he himself would be quitting. That was an honourable

thing to do. I think he thought it was the right thing to do. It was

not what I was expecting him to do, and I have to be blunt, I did not

think it was the most sensible decision in the circumstances.

Mervyn want to know why Marcus Agius had resigned. A first he

wanted to find out whether the Chancellor had been involved in the

discussions that led up to that, and I learnt from the BBC website

of the resignation of the chairman, which I found it odd. It has been

at least 15 years since the Governor of the Bank of England has

asked at a bank boss in a way that Sir Mervyn King forced Bob Diamond

out of Barclays. Sir Mervyn King felt it was appropriate to behave

in this way because of government reforms, which would force the Bank

of England to work more closely with the Financial Services

Authority. But there are some who believe the Bank of England and its

governor have become too powerful. At the end of 2008, relations

between Bob Diamond and Mervyn King's deputy seemed chummy. Mr

Diamond e-mailed Paul Tucker, Mr Tucker was today forced to

explain why he did not realise LIBOR was being fiddled after he

saw a memo from his US counterpart. His deliberate misreporting

dishonest? It turns out, with hindsight, yes, it was. But that is

not... It did not set alarm bells ringing at the time, I am afraid.

The LIBOR scandal, poisoning everything it touches. From the

Our top story: The boss of G4S, Nick Buckles, faces tough

questioning from MPs, admitting his company's reputation is in tatters.

Coming up: He is nicknamed the Blade Runner. We talked to Oscar

Pistorius about his final preparations ahead of London 2012.

In business news, UK inflation falls as retailers slash the price

of goods and the cost of petrol goes down. And scandal hits another

major bank. HSBC is accused of The rate of inflation has fallen to

its lowest level in more than two and-a-half years. The consumer

prices index, which excludes mortgage costs, dropped by just

over 0.5% in June. It seems all that rain persuaded high-street

retailers to start sales early. So, will prices continue to fall?

We have had a lot of inflation surprises in the past few years.

Today it was a pleasant one. Consumer price inflation has fallen

to 2.4%. That is half what it was last September and the lowest rate

since the end of 2009. One big part of the explanation is the fall in

the world price of oil and the first part of the year. Jenny

Coomber's House runs on heating oil. Last summer she could not afford to

fill up the tank. They have to think about every drop they used.

Now the price is back to where it was two years ago. It's a massive

relief that the prices have dropped to a sensible level. It means we

can fill the tank up, going into the winter. We don't have to be as

conservative with de heating. We can put it on without having to

worry if there will not be any left and we will not be able to fill it

up again. We are also seeing the effect of falling oil prices at the

pump. In April we were paying �1.42. Now it is 10 pence cheaper, a 7%

fall in two months. Our miserable summer also seems to have played a

part. The price of clothes and shoes fell because retailers

started their summer sales early to coax it out into the rain. Meat

prices were also cut, perhaps thanks to all of those cancelled

barbecues. Farmers here are worried about the damage the rain might

have done to crops. But in America they have had the opposite problem,

a severe drought. That could put up the price of our food in the second

half of this year. America's harvest is so crucial to world

grain supplies that fears over the crop hath sent prices soaring.

Corner is up by more than 40% in the past month. The cost of a

barrel of oil on world markets has also been rising. City economists

say it could prevent inflation falling quite so quickly in future

months. But at least the average pay packet finally has a chance of

keeping up. The good news is that incomes are not being squeezed

anything like they were last year. That should help boost consumer

spending. The bad news is that prices are falling in many

instances because demand is so weak. That is a sign that the economy is

in ill health at the moment. Falling inflation means the long

squeeze on real household incomes is finally starting to ease. That

is good news for most families. Even if it is partly due to a

dismal British summer and an Ruth Fuller, the mother of the

three children apparently killed by their father before he took his own

life, has released a statement describing her devastation. The

bodies of the children, aged 12, 8 and 7, were found at a beauty spot

near Shrewsbury yesterday. The police are calling the deaths a

tragic family situation. 12-year-old Sam Fuller and his

young sister, Charlotte, aged seven. They, and eight-year-old Rebecca,

the three children murdered by their own father at a disused

quarry in Shropshire. Their mother says she does not have the words to

express how she feels. Mr Fuller's At the scene, police are continuing

their investigation. A knife found near the bodies of the three

children has been taken away for forensic testing. Numerous police

search officers are combing the area, some with climbing equipment.

The area they are searching is a disused quarry around 100 metres in.

It is heavily overgrown and full of dangerously steep slopes and expose

rock faces. Mr Fuller's body is understood to have been discovered

at the bottom of a cliff wall, a short distance from the children.

Post-mortem examinations are likely to take until tomorrow. They are

expected to reveal how the children and their father died. The officer

says he also wants to find out why. I have a team of detectives

currently working with Gloucester police to establish exactly the

background to the family and exactly the circumstances around

this tragic event. Police are also urging anyone who saw the Brett

Land Rover Freelander car used by Ceri Fuller to come forward. Police

say that the secluded spot is not somewhere that could have been

found by chance. He must have known about this place. It is not some

way you find by accident. You come because you know it is there.

Somewhere, there is a connection with the village, we think will

stop such clues may be uncovered by the police as they continue to try

to answer the question at the heart It is yet another scandal involving

one of Britain's biggest banks. US authorities say that HSBC failed to

stop drug lords and terrorists laundering money through the bank's

operation in America. Today, a senior executive announced he was

stepping down during an appearance before a US Senate committee.

Despite the best efforts and intentions of many dedicated

professionals, HSBC has fallen short of our own expectations and

the expectations of our regulators. This is something that a bank

seeking to conduct business in the United States and globally must

acknowledge, learn from and, most importantly, take steps to avoid in

future. Ian Pannell is outside the Senate, where the hearing is taking

place. This went on for, what, seven or eight years? How can that

possibly be? Yes, there are some accusations that it went on even

longer than that. A dark day for the banking industry, in the words

of one senior member of this Senate committee. They either did not

understand the risks or failed to recognise reality. This is not a

question of illegality, but it is a question of poor judgement and

mistakes in a company that advertises itself as the world's

local bank. There is some suggestion that it is almost too

large. Some of the problems were that in Mexico billions of pounds

of drug money was essentially cleaned by being passed through the

HSBC bank in the United States. In the Cayman Islands, there was one

branch of HSBC that had 50,000 customers. Yet, there was no branch,

no office, no employees. Investigators were concerned it was

being used for drug money. Fines are likely, perhaps even as high as

$1 billion. Now, he is known as the Blade

runner. This African athlete Oscar Pistorius is about to make history

in London, where he will become the first double amputee to run at the

Olympic Games. He has been training for the 400 metres at his base in

Getting set for Olympic history. In the rain-lashed Italian mountains,

Oscar Pistorius prepares for the latest chapter in one of Sport's

most remarkable stories. His lower legs had to be amputated when he

was one-year-old. Using prosthetic legs he enjoyed an active childhood,

boss and into a sportsman and, at 17, sprinted into glory. Oscar

Pistorius is flying away from all of them! My goodness! A gold medal

in Athens was followed by three more at the Beijing Paralympics.

Soon, he was chasing something even more extraordinary. He upped his

training, lost two Stone and his reward is a place at the Olympics,

the game's' first amputee Resnais. Proof, he told me, that right from

his childhood, barriers have simply never existed. It was not open for

debate in my family. You have prosthetic legs, that is very nice,

your brother puts on his shoes, you put on your legs and there we go.

That is the mentality I grow up with. So many years, a lot of

people's time and effort invested in tinny. A lot of my own

sacrifices and hard work. I think I will not fully believe it until I

unburied London, on the starting blocks. Initially he was banned

from the Olympics after authorities claimed that his carbon-fibre

running blades gave him an unfair advantage. With scientific backing,

he overturned the ban. It has not stopped rivals and observers asking

fresh questions. There will always be people with their opinions. You

always get the guy that wants to argue that what is dry, blue is

green. That is their job, that is the energy they are going to waste.

But mine is on the track. I am blessed. I have been given a

phenomenal talent and I worked extremely hard to get where I am.

It has been a long and sometimes difficult journey. He says his

target is to reach the semi-finals. He may not win the Olympics, but

its significance there will be Time for the weather now. I gather

we are in for a change. It is down to this, what is it, jet stream?

I will explain, our weather is going to change dramatically. It is

probably worth looking at what we have had this month. There has been

no prolonged dry weather. It has been particularly wet in the south

of England. There has not be much sunshine, except in the north-west

of the UK. The reason for this weather pattern is the jet stream,

the fast-moving ribbon of air that has been much further south. It has

brought the rain much further south as well. Really, later on this

month, it is going to move. It moves to where Richard before this

time of year. The result is that it will change the rain area. It means

we will get the rain where we need it most. Where we don't, many parts

of the UK will not only be drier, but much warmer. We are not there

yet. That is from next week. Before then we have a transition period

where we have more rain. The rain is settling in now across Northern

Ireland. It is going to turn wet. Quite a muggy night. Dry for

northern Scotland, but cooler and fresh air. The name rain should

have cleared away from Northern Ireland but it will stay wet in

central and southern Scotland. The rain in western and southern

England will be replaced with showers. They could be heavy and

possibly thundery, driven by brisk wind. Once again, the north-west of

Scotland is going to be dry. Central and southern Scotland will

be wet, a lot of rain and the rest of local flooding. We will seek

sunshine and showers in Northern Ireland before the rain pushes back

in. Across England and Wales by the afternoon we are left with sunshine,

showers, some heavy and thundery. Maybe not to the south of London,

but the temperatures will be tempered somewhat by the strong and

gusty south-westerly wind. That win will be lighter by Thursday. The

rain from overnight should have cleared. We will have some showers,