26/12/2013 BBC News

Good afternoon. The Christmas misery for thousands

is set to continue, with the Environment Agency warning this

lunchtime of further significant flooding in parts of southern

England. Around 13,000 households are still without electricity, and

power companies are warning some customers may not be reconnected

until the end of the week. Let's go live to one of the worst affected

areas, Byfleet in Surrey, and join Ben Ando who's there. Ben.

Good afternoon from Byfleet where the rubbish bins are floating around

and anxious residents are keeping an eye on the water levels. There is

good and bad news. Of the 24,000 homes that were without power this

morning, nearly half have been reconnected. The bad news is there

was more bad weather to come. It is the calm between the storms.

In Byfleet, heavy rain caused the river to burst its banks. On

Christmas Day, residents watched as water levels rose. They are still

watching. It looks to be going up. Since yesterday afternoon and early

evening, we have kept an eye on it. It is creeping across the car park.

We have to go to work, how can we? We will not be in a proper frame of

mind even when we get there because we are worried. We need to wait for

the water to go down. Some tried to get through. That wasn't always the

right decision. My car is floating water over my laptop. Everything is

dirty. Elsewhere, the problem was power. This family, one of many who

make the best of things with Christmas by candlelight. Extra

electricity engineers have been drafted in, many having their

Christmas break cut short, to work through the night. The storms before

Christmas caused widespread damage across the South of England. At this

caravan park in Kent, more than 70 people had to be rescued by the

coastguard after heavy winds and rain. With more stormy weather

forecast, more floods and power cuts could yet make this Christmas even

more of a wash-out. Shoppers have flocked to high

streets and shopping centres for the traditional Boxing Day sales.

Hundreds of keen bargain hunters queued up overnight to ensure they

were first in line for when the doors opened. Some stores even

opened at 6am this morning. Andrew Plant joins us from Bristol city

centre. Andrew, how's it looking there?

It is looking increasingly busy. The bargain hunting started pretty

early, people queueing from 3am this morning for the doors to open at

6am. Crowds, about 100,000 through the doors. In Birmingham, they are

expecting double that, 200,000. In London, it could be ten times as

many. We took some pictures earlier, Selfridge's in London. People

heading through the doors as soon as they opened. A lot of shoppers will

have researched what they are looking for online. Retailers are

starting their sales online first, people coming to the shops to pick

up what they want. Analysts say it will be big ticket items doing well.

Not just the high street but supermarkets are expecting their

busiest Boxing Day ever. The funeral of a British doctor who

died while being held in custody in Syria is taking place this lunchtime

in London. Abbas Khan was days from being freed when the Syrian

government announced he'd killed himself. His family say they believe

he was murdered. A man has died after being shot

inside a nightclub in London's West End. It happened in the early hours

of this morning, at the Avalon nightclub on Shaftesbury Avenue. The

man, who was 31, was found with multiple gunshot wounds. A man's

been arrested on suspicion of murder.

Hundreds of Boxing Day hunts are underway, nine years after fox

hunting was banned across England and Wales. Supporters are calling

for a new vote on the ban, while animal rights groups believe the law

should stay as it is. From the Bedale Hunt in North Yorkshire, Dan

Johnson reports. The hound, horses and riders

gathered in the Market Square, as they have since the early 1800th.

Most of the traditions haven't changed, plenty of people came out

to take in the spectacle and show their support. There's people 's

jobs who need to be kept up. They're very livelihoods. What they do their

free time with. We try to do everything we can, to keep hunting

going. But they say this will be no fox hunt. Pursuing them with hounds

has been illegal since 2004. But almost ten years on, the debate is

as fierce as ever. This Hunt traces its history back almost 200 years.

Nowadays, it seems the debate over the hunting ban is as much part of

the tradition. A survey carried out for animal welfare charities claims

eight in ten of those questioned want hunting to stay illegal. A lot

of wild animals are still being brutally killed, brought down by a

pack of hounds in appalling cruelty. The government did promise to

revisit the hunting ban, offering MPs a free vote, but it hasn't

happened, and looks unlikely before the next election.

The Treasury has announced it's considering new technology to speed

up the process of paying in cheques, which can take up to six days to

reach an account. It's looking at new technology, such as the use of

smartphones, which customers can use to send a photo of a cheque direct

to their bank. Our chief economics correspondent Hugh Pym reports.

It could become as simple as this: Picking up your mobile phone, taking

a picture of the cheque you have just received, and your bank account

is credited. In other words, no more queuing at a

bank branch. The government is considering legislation which will

make this become a reality. We are determined, as a government,

to make sure that banks are helping their consumers in every way they

can. And if you can introduce a new innovation that will help clear

cheques more quickly, that is very welcome.

But what about security? Can an image of a cheque really be a safe

substitute for the real thing? The banking industry says it does now

have the right technology. Banks have rolled out mobile

banking. All of that infrastructure is in place. They have also been

upgrading their processing systems to deal with the image of the

cheque. Around that, of course, is massive amounts of security. And

moving into a virtual world will actually create a more secure

customer experience than the paper experience today.

More convenient, more secure. It's hoped that cheque imaging will

speed up the clearing process. Time could be saved by not having to sort

out paperwork between banks. The technology is widely used in the

United States. The plan is not just aimed at

consumers who receive cheques, for example, at Christmas, and can't

then get them quickly into bank account so they can go and spend the

money. It is also designed to help small businesses, plenty of them

still use the cheque system. Ministers say this is all about

preserving cheques using modern technology, rather than speeding up

their decline. In cricket, England are once again

in trouble in the Ashes. In front of a world-record crowd. England

batsmen had a tough time on the first day of the fourth Test in

Melbourne. Australia, who've already secured the trophy, won the toss,

and put the visitors in to bat. At the close of play, England reached

226 for six. From Melbourne, our chief sports correspondent Dan Roan

reports. With a one-sided series one before

Christmas, this could have felt like an anti-climax. Try telling that to

the 90,000 who came here, a new world record test crowd. The last

time England were here they retain the Ashes. Now they had to salvage

pride. Alistair Cox has lost three Tests. But here, England batted. The

skipper perishing for 27. Michael Carberry once again got himself in

but then came a fateful misjudgement. Australia were

applying the pressure. It was a matter of when not if Kevin

Pietersen hit out. He got lucky. England's progress was painstaking.

Ian Bell went for 27. Once again, Kevin Pietersen was living

dangerously. Having received treatment having swallowed a fly, he

went on to an unbeaten 50. Ben Stokes failed to build on his

century in Perth. Jonny Bairstow was no match for Mitchell Johnson. 226

six, to close. At times, this felt like a damage

limitation by a team desperate to avoid a series whitewash. England do

retain some hope stuff but as ever, it was Australia's day.

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