27/02/2014 BBC Oxford News

-- treasured past. There is a first look

Good evening. An inquest in Milton Keynes has been hearing how a

prisoner was found hanged in his cell despite being on suicide watch.

30`year`old Kevin Scarlett, who was serving a sentence at Woodhill, had

a history of self`harm and complex mental health problems. Jessica

Cooper reports. Kevin Scarlett. Described as a

challenging inmate with a personality disorder and a history

of self harm, he had spent most of his life in prison. The inquest was

told Kevin, who was on remand at the prison, was placed on a scheme to

closely assess at risk prisoners. After attempting suicide, he was

moved to a specialist help unit to be closely monitored. But three

weeks later, after showing signs of improvement, he was moved back to

the main prison because the risk of suicide was deemed to be low. Kevin

was abusive towards staff and was on a basic regime in the prison. He had

no TV and would spend hours alone in his cell. Less than a fortnight

after Kevin was moved from the close monitoring unit, he was found

hanging in his cell. Today, his family's legal team questioned why

he was put in a double cell with more ligature points. A prison

officer told the hearing that no other cells were available. The

coroner told the jury sitting here at the Civic Offices that they must

consider whether the prison was aware of the risk of Kevin taking

his own life and whether adequate steps were taken. The hearing is due

to finish on Monday. Police have made another arrest over

the murder of a teenager in Oxford. Connor Tremble died after a stabbing

in Iffley fields earlier this month. A man from Carterton has been

arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder. Two men have already been

charged over this case. A woman who drove her car into an

elderly couple's home in Bicester has been given nine points on her

licence and fined nearly ?450. Cheryl Stokes, who's 19, badly

damaged the conservatory on the house in Chaucer Close after

crashing through the garden fence last August. She's admitted careless

driving and failing to stop. There are worries the proposed high

speed rail line, HS2, will not only damage large parts of countryside,

but could also threaten the existence of entire species. One of

the country's rarest mammals, the Bechstine bat, is at risk of dying

out if the railway line goes ahead. Conservationists now want to see big

changes and some have been campaigning in London today. Nikki

Mitchell reports. The colony of endangered Bechstein

bats here on the Buckinghamshire`Oxfordshire border

could be the most significant in England. They're tiny creatures with

a preference for roosting in naturally occurring holes in ancient

trees. Bechsteins won't set up home in any old bat box, which is why HS2

is considered such a serious threat. It's going to cut straight through

their territory. It could really seriously knock them out of this

area. They do use these large areas and a number of woods to feed and to

breed. So this is where the HS2 line will go then?

Yes, just on the other side of this existing railway line, but it's

going to be about 100 metres wide so it's going to be much more of a

barrier. The problem is we have woods which the bats feed in on the

far side. They then travel along mature hedgerows like this to

Finemere Wood where they roost. Today was the last day people could

lodge their objections to HS2 on environmental grounds. Conservation

groups took their various demands straight to Number Ten. The

importance of extending the tunnel is that we'll be safeguarding

irreplaceable ancient woodland. Ancient woodland covers only 2% of

the UK. You can't recreate that. What we're asking the Prime Minister

to do is to extend the proposed tunnel by ten kilometres and save

ten hectares of ancient woodland. The HS2 development will be at least

ten times wider than what's here at the moment. HS2 Ltd has told us

today that bats are protected by law so anything that affects them will

be approved by Natural England. It's also proposing to build a series of

green bridges right across the line. They'll be landscaped with plants

and hedgerows to protect the bats' flight path. And then a little way

up the line, they're going to build a physical barrier to stop the bats

from flying into trains. But conservationists say their latest

research suggests some of Hs2's proposals may actually do more harm

than good on this part of the line. They want more green bridges built

and planted up well before construction even begins.

Sending clothes and shoes to landfill in Oxfordshire is costing

our local authorities more than half a million pounds a year. It's

claimed more than 8,000 tonnes of unwanted clothes are being dumped

annually. Helen Catt has more.

Bags of donated clothes arriving at a depot in Reading. Each of these

sacks contains 150 kilos of textiles. They'll be shipped abroad

and resold to raise money for charity. If you put an old pair of

shoes in the textile bank, they will be sent to India. Any old bras you

have or be sent to west Africa. T`shirt items tend to go to Africa.

We have a market for everything you have all`star But not all unwanted

clothes end up in a place like this. In Oxfordshire, 8,000 tonnes of

textiles a year are sent to landfill. If the items on these

sacks he had not been sent to recycling banks and had been thrown

in the bin instead, the county council will have had `` would have

had to pay to send them to landfill, over ?600,000 every year.

In Oxford today, an event to encourage us to make do and mend.

Councils in the county have also signed up to an action plan to stop

so many clothes being thrown away. We are looking at the end of life of

clothes. Once is being produced, purchased and worn, what can we do

with it, how can we keep it out of landfill? In straitened times, many

councils are having to cut their cloth too. The funding behind events

like these is being reduced, but it's hoped the recycling message

will still cut through. That's it from us. Here's Alexis

Green with the weather. Good evening. There is the risk of

snow overnight tonight and through the morning, more so during the rush

hour. The Met Office have issued a yellow weather warning for that. The

rain hits the colder air over the country, turning to snow in a few

places, mainly over hill top areas. At lower levels, it will fall as

rain or sleet. Chilly temperatures, hence the risk of snow. The rain

band will continue through the rush hour tomorrow, still the risk of

snow showers over the Cotswolds and the Chilerns. Mainly falling as rain

later in the day as temperatures start to rise but temperatures will

really struggle. We are looking at a high of just five or six Celsius

with that northerly wind. Fairly unsettled conditions as we head

through towards the weekend, sunshine and showers

looking too bad at the weekend. Bash Street. I have got some wintry

weather to talk about tonight and that has been a rare occurrence

during this current winter. There will be a touch of frost and it

could lead to icy patches across Northern Ireland and south-west

Scotland. There is snow in the forecast as well. The Northern

lights have been making an appearance in the evening. They had

been reported in Essex and reporters in south Wales as well. But the

light show is coming to an end as this arrives. This will be quite

lively in the South West with strong gusts of wind in Cornwall and the

Isles of Scilly. Further north the winds are lighter and it brings the

risk of ice. In the South temperatures stay above