24/06/2014 BBC Oxford News

The man accused of murdering Didcot teenager, Jayden Parkinson,

was violent towards his previous partners,

Ben Blakeley, from Christchurch Road in Rdading,

denies murdering his former girlfriend, 17`year`old Jayden.

Today, the prosecution's cl`imed he pushed a different girlfriend

down the stairs when she was seven months pregnant.

Victoria Cook spent the day at the hearing in Oxford.

The prosecution told the jury today that Ben Blakely had

had a number of girlfriends that he was violent towards in the past

It was in 2007 when he was dating Kirsty Penford that she clahms he

She was seven months pregnant at the time.

Richard Latham QC said he only allowed her to wear make`up to

He would regularly threaten to kill her when in a temper.

He went on to say that, in 2011 he was violent towards another

Significantly, he said, he tried to strangle her.

The jury was told that Ben Blakely often confiscated mobile phones

This afternoon, a member of staff from One Foot

Forward, a youth hostel where Jayden was staying here in Oxford city

centre, described meeting J`yden two weeks after she moved in.

She told the court that Jayden's boyfriend wouldn't let her have

a shower or use the toilet at the youth hostel.

This statement prompted Ben Blakely to shout lies,

The jury heard that, not long after this happened, Hannah Ryan helped

Jayden Parkinson take a pregnancy test and that came out positive

She then recalled the phone call that Jayden had made initially

Jayden was repeating what Bdn said to her

so that Hannah could understand and hear what was being said.

She told the court she was saying, 'what's that?

If I am pregnant, you're gohng to push me off a bridge?

If you lay a finger on me, I will call the police'.

Ben Blakely denies murder and the trial continues.

They're known as 'beds in sheds ` makeshift

and often dangerous illegal homes being built in back gardens.

It's been a problem in placds like London and Slough for xears.

The City Council says it's demolished three such buildhngs

in the last six months, and it's expecting more to follow.

Our political reporter Helen Catt has more.

An illegal home being demolhshed in London.

It's a scene we're starting to see repeated in Oxford.

The City Council believes there could be several hundred 'bdds

in sheds' like these hidden in back gardens across the city

Because they haven't been btilt in accordance with building

regulations, there will be electrical safety

issues, ventilation problems, adequate arrangement of rools.

Everything that could be wrong, we are finding in beds in sheds

The big problem for authorities is finding them in the first place

One was discovered under construction in this street in

Headington but from the strdet it would be almost impossible to tell.

Just a few feet square, but intended for living in.

The owner was eventually forced to demolish it himself.

But with house prices 11 tiles the average salary in Oxford, it's easy

At the moment we are seeing a really desperate shortage

of affordable housing so people are left with few options.

Unfortunately there are unscrupulous landlords out there who are taking

advantage of these people and letting out substandard,

unacceptable, illegal properties, and people have no option btt to

The Government has taken its fight against unlawful houses to

the air, analysing data collected from a spy plane it sent up in March

It hopes its actions will stop families in Oxford ending up

Thousands of cars built in Swindon are being recalled

Honda says it will contact owners of vehicles thought to have

A total of two million vehicles are affected worldwide.

Among them are five models built at its Swindon plant

It's only a few months since flooding caused widespread

disruption in parts of the Thames Valley.

As well as affecting hundreds of homes and businesses, many sporting

With pitches flooded and fixtures cancelled, they were out of

But, as Adina Campbell reports, with help, they're now getthng back

Getting some much needed hydration from the sprinklers.

But it's fair to say, the m`in pitch here at Aylesbury football club has

For nearly 16 weeks, footballers were unable to play any homd games

because of damage from the winter floods, causing the club to lose

But repair work has now started to get things back to normal,

thanks to more than ?6000 of cash from a Government lottery ftnd.

There was a lot of sewage on the outside pitches.

There was a hell of a lot of repair that needed to be done, so

Almost ?25,000 of funding h`s been awarded to sports groups in our area

including Henley Town Footb`ll Club, which has received ?2000.

And nearly the same amount of money has been given to

Bletchley Rugby Club and thd Town Cricket Club have also got

But an even bigger amount of money has been given to

This was how it looked back in February, the main pitch

A lot of these clubs are the heart of their local colmunity,

so it is the vibrancy of everyone playing there, the very

talented or the people trying to get fitter for health reasons.

The Academy team here and other squads within this club are now back

to normal training sessions but without the thousands of pounds

of funding from Sport England, this pitch wouldn't be in use.

We have regular bulletins tomorrow during BBC Breakfast from 6:00am

here on BBC One. Join us thdn if you can.

Next up, the weather with Alexis. Good night.

Good evening. A lot of more cloud than last night.

With it, the chance of a shower but they will be very hit and miss.

Cloud is increasing from the north overnight with

Similar to last night, but feeling fresher and less humid.

We start tomorrow with one or two showers but they will be few

and far between and we will see them pop up as the day wears on.

A mostly dry day with some sunny spells tomorrow and a high

Temperature slightly lower than today where we reached 22 Cdlsius.

Staying settled until the end of the day on Thursday.

Friday, sunshine and showers with the odd thunderstorm.

with the summary. Turning more unsettled as we head towards the

weekend. Good evening. After what has been a

glorious few weeks of summer sunshine for many of us, things are

about to change over the next 2 hours. We are seeing the change

marked by the weather front on the satellite image. To the south of

that, 25 degrees, in Bournemouth for instance, but in the north and east,

cooler, fresher air. That sets the scene for tomorrow. A cooler day. We

will have hazy sunshine on offer, although cloudier skies than we have

been used it over the past week Tonight we have thicker cloud

bringing more two spots of drizzly rain for some southern areas. Many

parts dry, but we have the rain heading in towards the far

north-west for the early