08/11/2013 BBC Newsline

We will keep you updated on the Typhoon as it heads towards Vietnam

Good evening, the headlines on BBC Newsline: A murder attempt on a

former police officer as he's about to take his daughter to school.

A leaked report says pressures on the A at the Royal and Mater

Hospitals are unsustainable. Also on the programme: Belfast

Beatlemania - remembering the Fab Four 50 years on from their first

concerts at the Ritz cinema. And join me live for the weather -

I'm at Mount Stewart in Newtownards where the garden is illuminated for

this weekend's festival of lights. A former police officer was about to

take his 12-year-old daughter to school this morning when he

discovered a bomb under the family car. The police say his vigilance

prevented them being killed or seriously injured. As Mervyn Jess

reports, the murder attempt was at Kingsway Park near Tullycarnet in

east Belfast. As the security operation drew to a

close this afternoon, people in forensics suits and police tape were

the only indication of a tragedy that was narrowly averted. The alert

began at breakfast time this morning, a suspicious object was

spotted underneath this sports car. The daylight security operation got

under way. The former policeman was about to take his daughter to school

when he spotted a device under his car. He is a family man. His

12-year-old daughter was with him and in close proximity and clearly

it is a stark element to this whole thing. This was somebody going about

their daily business, getting up on a Friday morning, taking their kids

to school which all others do on many occasions and yet they could

have been facing tragedy had they got into the car and the device

exploded. The attack has been condemned by the first and Deputy

First Minister is in Armagh. It is to be regretted there are still

Neanderthals out there who think this is an appropriate way to

advance what they believe their cause to be. Small unrepresentative

groups believe they have the right to plunge as back into the past.

They are living in cloud cuckoo land and they need to wake up and

recognise the futility of the actions they are involved in. This

incident comes after the discovery of several letter bombs and the

location is not far from an identical booby-trap bomb attack in

Kingsdale Park when a serving police officer was targeted and his partner

was injured. Once again, the bombers have shown they can come into areas

viewed as relative resave the security force personnel and place

potentially lethal devices. The police say serving and former

officers need to remain vigilant and are appealing to the public to keep

an eye out for anything suspicious. A man has died in a house fire in

County Down. He was found dead in a bedroom by

firefighters after neighbours had raised the alarm. It happened on the

Islandmoyle Road in Cabra, near Castlewellan. It's thought the blaze

was started accidentally. A leaked report seen by BBC Newsline

says pressures on the accident and emergency departments at the Royal

Victoria and Mater Hospitals are unsustainable. An independent

inspection says the issues faced by staff in the Belfast Trust are

probably worse than anywhere else in the UK. Our health correspondent

Marie-Louise Connolly reports. The inspectors found that pressures

on staff are at times overwhelming. Leading to poor clinical care and

safety concerns. They say the challenges facing the emergency care

system in Belfast are significant and serious. They put that down to

the closure of the City Hospital A department and the subsequent 35%

increase in patients turning up at the casualties unit. The report

recommends establishing a dedicated emergency care team to deliver

change and are reviewing the number of consultants working in a and he.

Compared to other reports, this one is significant as the College of

emergency medicine sets the standards for all emergency

departments across the UK. Staff were working under intolerable

conditions, understaffed in the broader workforce as well as

consultant numbers. It reflected and defending which over a number of

years and it has culminated in pressures. Under serious pressure,

there were some good news when it picked up some awards for best

practice and senior executives are aware more needs to be done, they

say they cannot do it alone. We need to find new and innovative ways to

ensure patients do not need to come to hospital. We also need through

the commissioner a recognition that the demand is there, but staffing is

a challenge and there needs to be a further expansion of staff. The

union says they are not surprised at the findings. There is no doubt the

staff are under pressure in A but more importantly that means patients

are getting services provided for them that are not standard and

that's not acceptable. The health plan transforming our

care is not making a difference anticipated including implementing

seven-day working and the public not mistaking the initials A for

anything and everything. The biggest test on the system will be the

looming winter pressures, only then will the Bay of fast health trust

have any indication that they are winning the battle. -- the Belfast

Health Trust. A man has pleaded guilty to the sectarian murder of a

Catholic teenager in Ballymena seven years ago.

Michael McIlveen who was known as' Mickey Bo' died after being beaten

and kicked in an alleyway. 24-year-old Jeff Colin Lewis from

Rossdale in Ballymena was convicted of the murder in 2009. The

conviction was later quashed and a retrial ordered. Today he admitted

his guilt and will be re-sentenced. Two other men are already serving

life. Northern Ireland Electricity has

been told it can't raise its prices by as much as it wanted to over the

next five years. The decision follows a lengthy dispute with the

Utility Regulator. Our economics and business editor John Campbell

explains how all customers are affected.

They own the lines and the pylons that get the electricity from the

power station to the socket. The engineers were busy in the blizzards

earlier this year, over the next five years it wanted to do more than

this sort of emergency work. It had plans for a major overhaul of the

grid but consumers would have had to pay. For every ?1 on the Bill, 20p

goes to an IEEE. The company's plan would have seen consumers playing

?25 a year extra. The regulator said it was too much and the competition

commission agrees. It says they can put up prices by ?5 a year. So, good

news households and for manufacturing businesses which use a

lot of energy. We will still see increases but they will be tiny

compare to what they wanted. The vindication also for the former

regulator, he was the man who took a tough line saying the ruling was a

vote of confidence in the office of the regulator. This is good news for

consumers who have been hammered by constantly biting bills. It is a

little bit of good news, prices are still going up and it is 20% of the

bill, most of what you pay goes to the power generating companies and

they are not part of the ruling. A new peace fence is to go up inside

the grounds of a Catholic church in east Belfast. The wire netting

structure at St Mathew's is being erected to stop missiles being

thrown along the interface. Kevin Magee reports.

The homes of residents in Newton aren't and East Belfast are already

separated by a number of peace walls. Now there was a plan for a

new offence to be built on land which has been requisitioned by the

Justice Department in the grounds of Saint Matthews Church. The aim is to

prevent missiles being thrown between the Newton Abbot Road and

the nearby streets. Politicians in the area say it is regrettable but

necessary. People do not want to live surrounded by walls and gates

and CCTV but we have to deal with the reality. People could lose their

lives to stop there are two communities, the communities both

suffer equally. It is a practical solution for a practical problem.

Doesn't the plan to build a new barrier running counter to the First

Minister's aim to dismantle all peace walls over the next ten years.

It does not remove our commitment, we do have the 2020 three goal of

bringing down all of the peace walls, nobody ever thought this

would be an easy or simple challenge, we was stretching

ourselves to do it. We will do it with determination. The Department

of Justice says the fence will be designed to open or close depending

on the level of tension in the area. A suggestion was made by the

Taoiseach Enda Kenny at a Sport and Reconciliation conference in Armagh

today proposing an All-Island football team for charity. The Irish

FA has issued a short statement. It said that "the idea is not, and will

not be, on the Association's radar." The Belfast-born broadcaster and

journalist John Cole has died. He was 85. The former BBC political

editor covered many key moments, particularly during the Thatcher

era. Mark Simpson looks back on his career.

Beyond the party dogfighting, Britain has a dilemma...

He was the face and The Voice of the BBC at Westminster during the

Thatcher years. We are she was, he was, including

the morning after the Brighton bomb. Life must go on as usual. The

conference will go on. The conference will go on, as usual.

Mrs Thatcher's most senior ministers believe they have to keep in step

with European integration... It was an extraordinary time in British

politics, all being expertly analysed by an ordinary boy from

Belfast. John Cole went to school at ERA and

wet -- moved through the ranks of the Belfast Telegraph and the

Guardian before joining the BBC. He never forgot his roots is.

Doctor Paisley, May I bring you back to the point I was making? You was

famous not just for what he said, but how he said it.

I appeared in radio for having dashed downstairs to Radio 2.

Although many people mocked his accent, they did not mocked his

judgement, his access, his understanding and predictions.

And for John Cole himself, that is all that mattered.

I do not care about them doing my voice, as long as they take my

politics seriously. His politics was taken seriously and

he will be remembered as one of the finest journalists of his

generation, on both sides of the Irish sea.

John Cole, who has died aged 85. A man was injured in a crash on the M1

in Belfast during the morning rush hour.

Four vehicles were involved in the collision near the Black's Road

junction. The motorway is now open again but the crash caused

disruption all day. This night 50 years ago a certain

band were playing Belfast for the first time. None other than the

Beatles. It is etched in the minds of those who were there. Some have

been speaking to our reporter, Julie McCullough.

Wherever the Beatles went on the autumn tour in 1963, the crowd went

wild. Belfast was no different. I was one of the thousands of people

screaming and yelling. We don't know what we were screaming out, we were

joining the crowd. What we thought was so funny was all the wee girls,

either thinking or pretending to think because there mate had

fainted. The Beatles played two shows in

Belfast that night, and schoolboy Christopher Hill, now a professional

photographer, was at one of them. He brought his camera along.

Everyone in school wanted to be part of what was the phenomenon of 1963,

the Beatles releasing singles like she loves you, I want to hold your

hand, which was in the top of the charts between them for 15 weeks.

Christopher has never published these photographs, but he sold many

of them afterwards to schoolgirls in Belfast. And he was able to get such

good shots by standing on the shoulder of his friend, Chris

McCabe. As I recall, there were some protests about that from certain...

Politicians and church leaders, who felt that the Beatles were breaking

all that was unacceptable. Well fast was a very strict place and the

Beatles brought a degree of fun and broke down some barriers because

they were very innocent in the songs.

When they came to Belfast, there was no waterfront Hall or Odyssey

Arena, so many of the bands had to play at the Ritz Cinema, now a

hotel. Today, this area is busy with traffic, but 50 years ago it had

been cordoned off and was filled with fans, all screaming and hoping

for a glimpse of the Fab Four. Even the RUC had to be brought in to keep

them under control. Among the crowd that night was

13-year-old Margaret Flynn. She could not get a ticket but felt

she had to be there. I remember singing all the songs

while we were waiting, singing along with the crowd. It still sticks in

my mind because it was such a memorable thing.

While Margaret didn't get to see the Beatles in 1963, the fab four

returned to. Fast the following year -- the Fab Four returned to Belfast

the following year and the excitement was just

I don't know how much screaming there will be in Londonderry

tonight, but there will be lots of singing at a special musical at

Ebrington. Keiron Tourish caught up with rehearsals for a very special

performance. 200 children have been in rehearsal

for this special musical. It is called Longboat, and is a fairy tale

about overcoming diversity and division. It is just about to say we

are all the same. We have different challenges. -- it

is called Lenanshee. You can see that in action in this production.

The story was gifted to the production by Sir Richard Stilgoe,

and he is here for opening night. He has also been what running workshops

for children with special needs. There is too much theatre where

people say you have to be an expert and clean for this. Nonsense,

especially if you are a child. You are a child and want to pretend.

That is what it is, you can be of any ability and still give enormous

pleasure to yourself and other people.

I have seen new friendships develop. We have seen children from across

the city coming together. These children will never have a stigma

about a special school setting again. A final word to the stars of

the show. I have learnt a lot about the

children from the schools who supposedly were not as capable as us

and they were just unbelievable. I underestimated their initially. I

thought it was really amazing, to take part and it has build my

confidence and self-esteem. It is about having fun and really enjoying

myself. There is no doubt this musical has unearthed some stars of

the future. No doubt. Fundraising for this

year's BBC Children In Need began very early this morning on the north

coast. The One Show's Rickshaw Challenge came to Northern Ireland

for the first time. The relay team is cycling nonstop to London. The

700-mile journey started at the Giants Causeway and stopped off at

Moorfields Primary School outside Ballymena to pick up some much

needed cash and sustenance and to meet the fans. Part of the Pudsey

entourage, the Presenter Matt Baker said everyone was having a ball.

The team are going incredibly well. So far we have had no weak links at

all. There are ten riders in all, five couples, so basically you have

the child who will benefit from Children In Need in the passenger

seat and they are parents, as well. It is not just the child Children In

Need supports commit is the whole network. Just to see how proud

parents are of their other halves, it is remarkable.

And you can see Matt and Alex on the One Show live from Larne straight

after us. Ireland's rugby players kick off

their Autumn international series tomorrow against Samoa - and it's

the beginning of a new era. Stephen Watson has more.

Yes, Joe Schmidt is the man who supporters will hope can lead

Ireland out of the doldrums. The Kiwi, who coached Leinster to two

Heineken Cups and last season's Pro12 title, takes charge for the

first time when Samoa visit the Aviva Stadium. And he looks to have

breathed new life into the Irish Camp. Gavin Andrews reports.

If Brian O'Driscoll was the heartbeat, then this man was the

brains behind Leinster's success. He inherits and Ireland side reeling

from a dismal Six Nations, but already the signs are good. I think

we are a work in progress, but the work ethic is superb. You will see

some continuity, you will see some ability to utilise the ball and

space, and hopefully that will, you know, lead to a good performance. If

I can just ask people to cross the fingers, we are going to be working

really hard. And that work is based on a tried and tested approach.

Certainly from our perspective as Leinster guys come he has brought

pretty much the same template and his methods of coaching and manners

in coaching the team. I think the other guys are slowly picking up on

it and doing quite well. With a new coach it is always

exciting. You go to training sessions and you are trying to

impress and learn from all these new voices. The intensity of the

training sessions, they are probably shorter but they are really high

tempo, really highly paced, and he picks up on the smallest things. You

can be sitting over dinner relaxing and he can come over and say, look,

your body angle in this, I noticed this... He notices the fine details

that perhaps before we run a little bit slack on. At this level the

small things add up and hopefully it will make us into a better team.

And they will have to gel fast against a Samoa side ranked one

place above them in the world, who laid down a significant challenge.

In local football, Linfield will look to consolidate their lead at

home to Warrenpoint Town tomorrow, with their closest challengers,

Crusaders away to third-placed Glenavon. Tomorrow also sees

Portadown and Ballinamallard meet again for the first time since that

surprise eleven-nil scoreline in September. But the Mallards boss

insists they bear no scars. As far as I am concerned, they are

gone. We know it is going to be tough because Portadown are a

cracking outfit, pure quality in the team. We are at home this time and

obviously the boys wanted to balance out the last time. We only have one

defeat in five league games, so we are playing well.

Kilcoo and Crossmaglen meet again this Sunday in a replay of their

Ulster Club Championship quarterfinal.

I am looking forward to it, the boys are working well during the week.

Hopefully all of the injuries are now gone and hopefully we can be a

little bit better. That should get us over the line.

We are playing the Ulster Championships -- real star champions

and we have to bring our a game. Corssmaglen are a good side, we are

a good side, as well. We are certainly not going into Sunday's

game with any inferiority complex. That is just a remainder that

Ireland against Samoa is live tomorrow on BBC Two.

The beauty of the National Trust property Mount Stewart in

Newtownards is normally best appreciated during the day. But on

this Autumn night the darkness holds its own magic. Geoff Maskell is

there to bring us our weather forecast Geoff.

there Good evening to you. Welcome to a

very special night at Mount Stewart, the very first festival of light.

All of the trees eliminated, hundreds of people around, and a few

fact spoil you you look in detail at what is going on bash it has taken

15 men 1000 man-hours to lay six kilometres of cable in order to

light up 200 different trees, and the results are absolutely

spectacular. There are lots of people enjoying the night tonight,

and if you are heading out this evening it will be quite a chilly

night as we go through this evening. We will see temperatures dropping

quite low overnight, maybe approaching freezing in many

places. That means we have a very real chance of a bit of a frost by

Don tomorrow morning. It is a chilly start to the day on Saturday and as

we go through that we get a more established part of sunshine and

showers that we have seen quite a lot in the last few days. Again, we

have a bit of an East West is step -- East-West split with the weather

and the best of any break this will be in the eastern coast. Even there,

you will still see the possibility of showers as we go through the day.

The showers are much more prevalent on the north coast and out to the

West. Wherever you are, though, on Saturday, it will be quite a chilly

day. I think we will struggle to see temperatures much about six or seven

Celsius through the day on Saturday. A reasonable amount of bright as

through the day, and I think that means that this guys will clear

markedly overnight and we will see temperatures dropping sharply again.

Definitely the chance of a frost again on Saturday night going into

Sunday morning. Sunday itself has a bit of a change on the way. We are

going to see some rain, but I think it will start off reasonably dry on

Sunday morning. Certainly for early remembrance Sunday parades in the

morning. That front heads towards us later bringing rain to all parts by

the afternoon, around 30 millimetres of rain during the day. A wet day on

Sunday. Looking ahead to next week, clearing up on Monday and then

sunshine and showers. The picture for the next few days is sunshine

and showers, except Sunday when we will see some rain in the afternoon.

That was BBC Newsline,