19/01/2017 East Midlands Today

And now the news for the East Midlands, I'm Dominic Heale.

First tonight, we can reveal that more than a million pounds has been

paid to police informants in the East Midlands over

The figures have been released to us under

Some of that money has been paid to convicted criminals.

But the police insist it's good value for money,

and say it's helping to protect us from serious crime.

Our Social Affairs Correspondent, Jeremy Ball, reports.

It's a cloak and dagger world of secretive deals in the shadows,

The police have a name for them - covert human intelligence sources -

but for the criminals they are helping to convict, there

They are paid by results for giving tip-offs about plans for drug deals

or anything from weapons and stolen antiques to serious organised crime.

Inevitably, they are often insiders who have been

This Derby criminology lecturer used to be a police superintendent.

He placed ads for police informants in newspapers and pubs.

If someone says at a given time, date and place that a crime

is going to occur or where stolen property is, the police can deal

Alternatively, the taxpayer might have to fund a major

surveillance operation, which could take weeks and months

and run into several hundreds of thousands of pounds.

So this is a very cost-effective, efficient way of dealing

Now we know how much was paid to informants

The Leicestershire force made payments of ?244,000.

The highest figure was in Nottinghamshire,

where the police spent ?670,000 on informants.

It takes guns off the street, it gets drugs off the street

and we must remember that informants do not get paid unless they provide

We are talking about public money being used to pay criminals.

People will be uncomfortable about that, aren't they?

It is an uncomfortable area but if it is getting people locked

up, I think that is the right thing to do and I think we need

to be grown up about it. The information that the police

gets, a lot of it, comes from criminals.

The police need to protect their informants so they are not

saying which crimes they've solved or even how many times

But they are convinced those informants are

The chairman of Toyota, which employs more than 3,000 people

here in the East Midlands has warned the company must become

more competitive once Britain leaves the EU.

His comments were in response to the Prime Minister's speech

yesterday outlining the Government's plans for Brexit.

Toyota cars have been rolling off the production line

at its plant in Burnaston, near Derby, since 1992.

The Japanese firm employs 2,600 staff here and it builds one in ten

While the company said today it remains supportive

of its people and its operations, wherever they are, the chairman

of Toyota issued a warning after the Prime Minister's speech

yesterday about taking Britain out of the EU's single market.

In an interview with the Financial Times,

The UK car industry is heavily reliant on exports to Europe

and so most exposed to any risks surrounding Brexit.

There has been a lot of support over the years from Europe for a log

There has been a lot of support over the years from Europe for a lot

of our major industries, including Rolls-Royce,

And I think the government still has some significant

questions to answer as to how they are going to

Responding to Toyota's comments, the Prime Minister's official

spokesman today insisted the government had listened

to their concerns and that the automotive sector was one

They added, "We will be working very hard in the negotiating process

to make sure they can remain as successful as they

A Leicester woman, found dead yards from her home,

has been described as a much-loved mother and daughter.

46-year-old Kiran Daudia was reported missing earlier this

week and her body was found in a suitcase in an

Today her ex-husband Ashwin Daudia appeared in court

Officers searching for a missing man from Leicestershire say

David Noakes went missing on Tuesday morning and was last seen

A body has now been found in water in Jubilee Park and although formal

identification has not yet taken place, police say it's believed

One of Britain's best-known lawyers is behind a new support group

in Nottingham for families bereaved by suicide.

Michael Mansfield QC represented the Guildford Four

Away from the courtroom, though, he and his partner have been

grieving the loss of his daughter, Anna, who took her own life.

Our Health Correspondent Rob Sissons has the details.

Michael Mansfield QC, a colourful, confident, charismatic lawyer.

His most difficult case however has been away from the courtroom.

Making sense of the death of his daughter Anna.

I do think about her most days of the week.

In a sense I feel guilty about that because I think more of her now

than when she was alive and, of course, in one sense that

But it also means that it provides a stimulus for doing the initiative

Michael and his partner Yvette have teamed up

with the Nottingham Right Initiative.

They want friends and family of those who have taken their own

life to talk about it more. It is taboo.

One of the things that we struggle with in society is speaking

about the death and dying and what it means.

The conditions and circumstances, the context that people face that

They are planning monthly support meetings and a big event in March

We do not know why exactly, because we cannot get

She left notes saying that effectively, she thought she had

failed her children. I mean, nobody agrees

with that, but, you know, that is where she placed herself.

The feedback we're getting from the SOS initiatives that we do

is that people feel completely unburdened simply

They want to end what they still believe is a stigma around suicide.

A children's nursery with a somewhat controversial approach to playtime

The children don't play with brightly-coloured,

battery-operated toys. Instead, they're given everyday

household objects to help them become more creative.

For Rhys and Thomas, life is all about play.

Except here at Love To Learn Nursery in Leicester, the toys

We do not tend to have any plastic toys.

You might find the small dinosaurs or little cars,

but everything in this environment is an open-end resource

and what that means is that the children

use their imagination to play and learn.

The nursery is based on the Reggio Emilia philosophy,

developed after the Second World War.

It focuses on giving children free rein to explore

Here in Leicester, it is the first nursery of its kind

and already 27 children have been enrolled.

It seemed like a place more in keeping with his home life,

we did not want things that were too different.

Didn't want bright primary colours and stuff.

I like the different way of learning, not

having all plastic toys, where it makes his brain work more.

The children play with pan lids, drainpipes and household objects.

There are so many tests for children these days, so many targets.

Let the children be little, let them learn and develop in their own pace,

their own schematic learning style. e do all the learning

embedded but through fun and through excitement.

The nursery opened at the beginning of the year and spaces

Sport now and the American tycoon who'd been hoping to take over

Nottingham Forest says an improved offer has been turned down

by the club's current owner Fawaz Al-Hasawi.

John Jay Moores says he is still interested

But that new offer was refused earlier this week.

Today Fawaz Al-Hasawi said he's committed to the club and wants

That's your news. So, it's goodbye from me -

but with your weather now, here's Alex.

It's been a grey and drizzly picture of the last few days, quite damp as

well as lots of cloud around. That is just the start of it, but it does

look like things. To brighten up a little over the next few days

because high pressure has been pinning the cloud over the East

Midlands and the conference steadily going north, taking the cloud with

it. So we should see some brighter weather towards the end of the

weekend. Tomorrow, we have got that cloud and tonight, the cloud moving

northwards. Very cold when we get rid of the cloud, lots of minus one

Celsius but under the cloud, more like five Celsius. Tomorrow,

continue to see the cloud moving north, some writers bolster the

south. In the cloud, we expect to see some drizzle in places. Highs of

around six Celsius with a light easterly breeze. Looking ahead to

Saturday, more of the same, quite a lot of cloud but also some brighter

spells as well and don't be surprised if you see the sunshine.

I'll leave you with a look at the outlook.

looks as though we can, a bit more cloud on Sunday. Now the national

picture. Good evening, it will gradually get

colder in the UK in the next few days, something we don't have to

worry about in Australia at this time of year. Of course it's the

Australian tennis open at the moment and there's a big storm moving

through Melbourne at the moment. Hopefully it will have cleared

through by the time of Andy Murray's match. We have high withers and

light winds and some interesting contrasts despite things being very

slow moving, with the sunshine to the south of the weather zone but

stuck underneath the weather zone, it's been another miserably grey

day. No doubt quite dreary with some patches of drizzle. This is how it

looked in Staffordshire, under the weather front. In the sunshine,

despite the Frosty start, a sparkling day and a fantastic sunset

here in the Isle of Wight. Some areas, in parts of Northern Ireland

that haven't seen much sunshine this