08/01/2016 BBC News at Six

There's no such thing as a safe level of drinking -

says the first new guidance on alcohol for 20 years.

Today's tough new message recommends several alcohol-free days a week.

It sparked a mixed reaction from drinkers.

It is helpful, but people wouldn't take any notice.

They will drink whatever they want to drink.

I'm fine, two or three pints is nothing -

We'll be looking at just what the risks are in regular drinking.

Inside the young offenders' centre where seven staff have been

suspended following a BBC investigation into allegations

Urgent help for people trapped in Aberdeenshire floods

An increase in illness among migrants as they face freezing

And doing the locomotion - the Flying Scotsman steams back

And on Reporting Scotland at 6.30pm: We're live in Aberdeenshire

as the north-east takes stock of some of the worst

And we take to the air to see for ourselves how the flooding has

brought disruption to the road and rail network.

Good evening and welcome to the BBC News at Six.

There is no safe level of drinking - that's according to new guidelines

on alcohol issued by the government, the first in 20 years.

The latest recommended limits apply to both men and women equally

People should drink no more than the equivalent of seven pints

of average strength beer - or seven standard glasses

And people should also have several drink-free days a week.

Pregnant women shouldn't drink at all - that advice now brings

England, Wales and Northern Ireland into line with Scotland.

Critics say the advice smacks of "the nanny state", as our

It has certainly stirred up a big debate over how much it is sensible

to drink and whether people need to be told to cut back on the alcohol

they order at the bar or buy in the shops. The official line now is that

there is no such thing as safe drinking. The risk is significant of

over drinking to people's health and their longevity. We are advising a

low risk amount, up to 14 units in one week, spread over a few days. A

key question for most drinkers, how much is it reasonable to consume in

a week? There will no longer be any difference between the recommended

maximum amount men and women might drink in a single week. The new

guidelines for everyone will be no more than 14 units over that time.

That looks like about seven pints of beer and lager or about seven medium

sized glasses of wine. If you drink higher strength brands, in both

cases, that will mean fewer drinks over the week. On this basis, for

beer towards the lower end of the strength range, it is three fewer

points a week for men than the old guidelines. Lucy Rocca often drank a

bottle of wine a day but, after drinking 31 day, she ended up in

hospital and she quit. She thinks tougher guidelines are needed. I

came of age in the 1990s so I was subject to the Bridget Jones

culture. Women of my generation have been told or sold this myth that

wine is a treat, it is good for you, a convivial thing to do with your

friends, and the health harms have been played down, even to the extent

of promoting red wine as being good for us. The guidelines will apply

across the UK. We asked drinkers in Swansea for their views and whether

they thought the government was going too far. It is helpful but

people will drink what they want to drink. It is up to the individual

what they drink. People tend to drink more thinking they are fine,

two or three drinks is nothing, but in actual fact it is not. It will be

before there is any firm evidence as to whether these new, tighter

guidelines makes any difference to people's behaviour or their health.

So the guidelines say there's no safe limit for drinking alcohol -

and many people will be asking whether this ends the idea that

moderate drinking can be good for the heart.

Our Medical Correspondent Fergus Walsh has been weighing

Everything we do carries risk. For those who drink 14 units of alcohol

per week, the guidelines showed that carries a lifetime risk of death of

one in 100, higher than the one in 240 lifetime risk of dying in a

traffic accident. But it is tiny compared to the one into risk of

smokers dying from their habit. Perhaps an hour of TV a night, a bad

diet, a couple of bacon sandwiches a week and being a few kilos

overweight. All of those have a greater risk to your long-term

health than these low levels of alcohol. It is the increasing

evidence strongly linking alcohol with cancer that has led to these

guidelines. Let's look at two common cancers. 110 in every 1000 women

will get breast cancer. If you drink up to 14 units, that number goes up

to 130 per 1000. Drink double the recommended amount, it goes up to

150 per 1000. For men, 64 in every 1000 will get bowel cancer, whether

they drink nothing or stay within the limit, but if they drink 21

limits, the old limits, that number goes up to 84 per 1000. Seven types

of cancer associated with alcohol consumption and there are 13,000

cases of cancer per year that are due to alcohol, so the evidence is

clear and we need to communicate it to people so they understand the

risks. Is all alcohol bad? Not quite. The guidance shows drinking

up to seven units per week, half a small glass of wine daily, does have

a tiny protective effect, probably lowering the risk of heart disease,

but it is really only a significant benefit for women over the age of

55. So, for those opening a bottle of wine or down the pub tonight, the

key message is, the more you drink, the greater your overall health

risk, especially from cancer, but smaller amounts of booze spaced over

the week will be, for many of us, a health risk we are prepared to

accept. The private security company G4S has

suspended seven members of staff at a secure training

centre for young offenders It follows allegations -

uncovered by Panorama - of staff using unnecessary

force and foul language, and of a cover-up at

the Medway Centre in Kent. Our Social Affairs correspondent

Alison Holt has more. This is the Medway Secure Training

Centre in Kent. At the moment, home to more than 150 young people aged

between 14 and 17. This centre is run by the security firm G4S and it

is meant to offer teenagers sent here by the courts the support that

they need to turn their lives around. But behind the high fences,

a BBC Panorama investigation uncovered disturbing allegations

about the way that some children are treated here. An undercover reporter

was able to secretly filmed the reality of daily life in one unit.

The footage, to be broadcast on Monday, reveals a number of staff

only in, goading, even slapping trainees. 114-year-old is shown

struggling to breathe as he is being restrained. Doctor Andrew McDonald,

an expert in behaviour management, says it is shocking to see staff

acting in this way. These people are role models so what they are doing

almost make it legitimate for those young people to also be violent and

aggressive. From its central London headquarters, G4S says, once it was

told the allegations, it moved quickly to suspend seven staff and

to work with the police and other authorities. The head of the

security firm's children's services maintains they will do all that they

can to ensure a thorough investigation. These are shocking

allegations, they shouldn't happen. People who behave in that way have

no place in our business at all. Will you apologise to these

children? Whatever they have done, they were in your care for

rehabilitation. They need to be treated properly, fairly, with due

care. If we have fallen down in that, clearly that is not acceptable

and quite obviously we would apologise for that. There is

currently a government review of the youth justice system as a whole.

While the number of young people being locked up in England has

fallen significantly in recent years, the majority who spent time

in custody reoffend within a year. Campaigners say we are failing these

troubled children. The training is insufficient, there is not enough

education, and the results are appalling, both in terms of

incidents like this, but also in terms of the fact that the children

leave prison and still commit crime. The Panorama investigation will feed

into this wider debate. At Medway, it raises serious questions about

the failure to identify and to prevent this sort of behaviour among

staff in the first place. You can see the story

in full on Panorama, Teenage Prison Abuse Exposed,

on BBC One, that's on Monday, In Germany, Cologne's police chief

has been sacked as more details emerge about the sexual assaults

and other violence in the city Among the 32 suspects identified

as linked to the crimes The attacks have sparked a big

debate about Germany's open-door policy towards migrants

and refugees. Our correspondent Jenny Hill

is in Cologne for us now. Good evening. It is more than a week

since the attacks and a sense of outrage here is simply not going

away. People are angry with the police, who they accuse of putting

political correctness first, with the media, who they say should have

reported what happened here sooner. There are also fundamental questions

now about Germany's open-door refugee policy. What happened in

this square on New Year's Eve may yet have profound consequences for

this country. On New Year's Eve in Cologne, nearly

100 women were sexually assaulted. The authorities now admit that some

of the men who attacked them may Today, Cologne's police

chief was sacked TRANSLATION: There are suggestions

that the wording of a police report was changed for political reasons

so it didn't mention refugees. A Yazidi from Iraq,

he fears reprisals. Anti-refugee violence

was already on the increase. New Year's Eve has

inflamed a sensitive TRANSLATION: I believe these

were new refugees because people who have been here a long

time wouldn't do this. It's really sad, these people come

to Germany and commit these acts. There are calls for more

CCTV in public places. A poll today found

one in three Germans TRANSLATION: I don't feel that safe

after what happened at New Year, but I think if you can defend

yourself you should be OK. I know there is a large influx

of immigrants but if you go about it with a trusting heart and make sure

you regard these as single Today in Cologne, city

authorities pledged to rebuild trust in the police

but officers have yet to charge anybody over the attacks

and many wonder what it will cost to keep

Germany's doors open. Heavy rain caused severe overnight

flooding in Aberdeenshire although water levels are now

beginning to recede. Homes were evacuated

when the River Don burst its banks. Residents - including

elderly people and babies - were moved from properties

in Inverurie as some water levels From there, our Scotland

Correspondent Lorna Gordon I am told the fire and rescue teams

here are pumping about 8000 litres per minute of the flooded streets

back into the River Don, a couple of hundred meters down the road. While

the weather has now cleared and the rain has stopped falling, it has

been a pretty miserable 24 hours for the hundreds of people, both here

and across Aberdeenshire, who were forced out of their homes because of

flooding. A street in Inverurie in the middle

of the night. Fast moving flood waters rising quickly, trapping

people in their homes. Rescuers took two boats to reach those who were

stranded or who had left it too late to easily leave. Mike was among

them. They were brilliant, yeah. The force of the water was taking my

feet out from underneath me. It was really horrible. The speed it was

coming down the road was tremendous. In among the waterlogged land and

flooded streets, it is hard now to spot the River Don. After days of

relentless rain, one family brought in a pump to try and defend their

and their neighbours' homes. We have been trying to pump it for the last

four days. You have to try and do something to keep the houses, to

stop them getting flooded. Last night beat us. Our car was parked

just here and the water was over the fields. When we opened doors, water

was coming into the car. So quickly did their street flood, there were

only minutes to try and move precious possessions to safety

before families here had to escape. It was devastating. You make

sacrifices in life to provide a home. Home is where the heart is. My

heart is broken. Big-time. For some that we met, it wasn't even clear

when they would get back into their homes to assess any damage. At this

moment in time, as they say, so near and yet so far. Still a bit too

deep. You just don't know what you will be walking on. The streets are

being drained, water levels are coming down, but helping those

affected by the flooding here back into their homes will call for hard

work for many months to come. this is it is 16 minutes past six.

The first new guidance in 20 years on alcohol says there's no such

And coming up we will be on the East Lancashire Railway to see the return

of a British legend, the Flying Scotsman, at nearly 100 years old,

steaming again. Coming up in the sport on BBC news we will be at St

James's Park were leaked to Exeter city are preparing to take on one of

the biggest names in world football, Liverpool, in the third round of the

FA Cup this year. Medics working at refugee camps

in the Balkans say they're seeing a marked increase in the number

of refugees falling ill because of the bitterly

cold weather. Temperatures have fallen to as low

as minus 11 degrees Celsius Our Global Health Correspondent

Tulip Mazumdar has followed migrants making the journey

from the Macedonian border, through Serbia to the Croatian

border from where she sent this She sent this report from the town

of Shid. Winter has arrived. And the freezing

temperatures are taking their toll. Need a doctor? Doctor, doctor, yes.

This man, Ibrahim, has travelled from Syria. He is cold, exhausted,

and suffering from a painful chest infection. What's the problem with

the baby? Lunch Mackie is not the only one. One-year-old Arizu is also

suffering because of the cold. She is given medicine through a machine

to help ease her breathing and feels much better. The next morning, more

people arrive at the border in Macedonia, ready to walk across the

frozen no man's land into Serbia. Despite these cold conditions or

maybe because of them, people are determined to continue their journey

of further north, around two kilometres that way is Serbia, but

as you can see, and there is this little boy trying to make the

journey now, the ground is icy and the journey even more treacherous in

these conditions. This family has already travelled around 2000

kilometres from Syria. TRANSLATION: Wrote we are on a journey of death,

he says, we can end your but I am worried about the children. The

cold, the disease, the hunger. Yet they press on ahead with hundreds of

others, determined to get to Germany, where their father is

waiting for them. Five miles into Serbia and the family has made it

safely to the next refugee point. But this two-year-old is not well.

Medics wrap him in extra warm clothing for the next leg of the

journey. The kindness of strangers is overwhelming. After an overnight

bus journey north, the family can finally get on board the train to

Croatia but more people follow in their footsteps, the desperate and

the weak. A coroner has said senior Army

officers knew about the use of unofficial punishments known

as beastings which were used Private Gavin Williams,

who was 22 and from Hengoed in South Wales, died from heatstroke

after being made to do intense exercise on one of the hottest

days of 2006. Duncan Kennedy is outside

the court in Salisbury. This inquest has in effect been a

public inquiry for Gavin Williams's family. The coroner said that Gavin

died as a result of unofficial, unlawful, Army punishment. The army

said today that as a direct result of this case it had no changed

disciplinary measures. For Debra, the mother of Gavin, it is the end

of a 10-year fight for justice. For Gavin Williams's mother, Deborah,

his passing out parade was the proudest day of her life. Yet just

over one year later he would be dead, killed by an unlawful system

of Army punishment. Today Mrs Williams, standing next to her

solicitor, made it clear that the unofficial exercise regime known as

beasting had led to his death. What happened to Gavin was wrong, plain

and simple. He was killed by the way in which his fellow soldiers chose

to punish him unlawfully. To beast him, for nothing other than a silly

prank. Private Williams was punished at this barracks in Wiltshire in

2006 for setting off a fire extinguisher. In army slang, this

was beasting, he was made to do strenuous marching and exercises on

one of the hottest days of the year. These CCTV pictures show the moment

he was taken to hospital, where he died. Sergeant Russell Price was one

of three NCOs who carried out the punishment which included screaming

abuse at Private Williams and making him do squats. The coroner also

dismissed some evidence by Colonel Mark Davis, the senior officer, who

had ordered Gavin Williams to be brought to him hot and sweaty. Today

the army admitted an unlawful system of punishment existed in the

regiment. We acknowledge that there was a culture of unofficial

punishments in two Royal Welsh at the time of Gavin's death. This is

not acceptable and it was not acceptable. The coroner said ecstasy

drugs taken by Gavin contributed to his death but said his life could

still have been saved. For his mother, Deborah, it has been a

10-year fight for justice, exposing an unlawful, and widespread

punishment regime in the British Army. Duncan Kennedy, BBC News,

Salisbury. Now let's take a brief look at some

of the day's other news stories. An eighteen year old man has denied

murdering a Merseyside Police officer who died after being struck

by a vehicle in October last year. PC Dave Phillips was hit

by a pick-up truck which had mounted the central reservation

in Wallasey, in Merseyside. Belgian police have searched a flat

in Brussels that they believe served as bomb factory for the attacks

in Paris in November. Traces of explosives were found,

along with three handmade belts, and a fingerprint of

the suspect Salah Abdeslam, The nominations for the 2016

Bafta Awards have been announced. Britain's Eddie Redmayne

is in the running for a Best Actor Bafta for a second year in a row

for his role in The Danish Girl. Bridge Of Spies with Tom Hanks

and Carol starring Cate Blanchett each received nine nominations

including Best Film. A famous part of railway history

is back on the tracks after the Flying Scotsman

began test runs today on the East Lancashire

Heritage line. It's taken 10 years to renovate

the famous steam train, which was the first to reach a speed

of 100 miles per hour in 1934. Our correspondent Ed Thomas

is at Bury station now. Here she is, looking fantastic. The

Flying Scotsman back in steam. S it has been a long track. They thought

the refit would take one year, it took ten, they thought the bill

would be ?1 million, it rose to ?4 million. Now this British icon is

back on the tracks are going. It is proving that, wherever it goes,

people will follow. The most famous locomotive of them

all, reborn. The Flying Scotsman, back on track and back in steam. Wow

all of them days as a child, standing in the freezing cold,

following this has been worth it. Budget what was it like seeing it?

If your Mac fantastic, really exciting. Absolutely superb, lovely

to see it again. And for Bury as well, it is really nice. From its

birth in 1923 the Flying Scotsman set the pace in the Age of Steam.

The first to Shinnie break the 100 miles an hour barrier, the first to

charge nonstop from London to Edinburgh. Today the men who stoked

the fire took it easy on the Scotsman after a 10-year refit, a

real sense of achievement. It tells us what the British Empire used to

be and what is still left in the country. Given the training and the

apprentices we have today we have to make it as good as it was. The

locomotive was revered, even adored. Showing the people of the United

States carriage loads of goods. This was its world tour from America to

Australia all to promote British business. It's about time! After all

this time, waiting and waiting, it is just mice to sit back in steam

again. Once again the Scotsman is proving it can pull in the crowds.

Take a look. Unbelievable, isn't it, seeing it for weeks and months in

the shed and now it's out on the station. It's a big day. Ready to

go. It might not break any speed records now but it is still the

locomotive that inspired a nation, and it is back for all to see. Ed

Thomas, BBC News, Bury. Hi, we know it has been wet, I want

to draw your attention to the snow in Scotland, this in the Scottish

Borders, more to come in the next few hours. Snow and ice combining

through the night in the northern half of the country meaning

conditions will be nasty if you are travelling. This is the line of snow

and talking about. Henry Slade close to the central lowlands so it could

be -- perilously close. It could be dangerous for the next couple of

hours, then it will not. The next band of showers coming in, northern

England and Northern Ireland against seeing more snow. Cold in the north,

less cold further south, we are getting in my showers, because of

the lack of wind in the north as well as snow and ice we could have

some fog as well as we had through the night. Saturday is a day of

sunshine and showers, the devil is in the detail, when it gets to the

cold air in the North it will bring snow for which could well come back

in two parts of north-east Scotland tomorrow. That's not good news

because it will slow the clean-up operation. Further south heavy

showers, temperatures more respectable, still above what they

could be for this time of year, some gusty winds, Samson Janet in

between, so not a wash-out. It's a similar scenario into Sunday. The

low pressure still meandering around. Get those eyes above the

Northern Isles, it looks windy on Sunday so it will look cold, the

snow for the mountains of Scotland, elsewhere if it were showers

perhaps, again we need to watch for areas where they are slow-moving.

Temperatures between five and ten softeners. We were talking about the

suggestion that it might be colder next week. Good news for many areas

because it will cut off the most warm air that

the first new guidance in 20 years on alcohol says there's no such

thing as a safe level of drinking.