13/04/2017 London News

Good evening and welcome to BBC London News,

Serious failings have been found in children's

Ofsted inspectors have rated the services as inadequate and said

there's insufficient scrutiny at all levels.

Officers and councillors say they were unaware that children

were being left in harmful situations, but the authority says

it will make it an absolute priority to improve things.

Here's our education reporter, Marc Ashdown.

Tower Hamlets looks after 333 vulnerable children,

Ofsted says too many children here are being left in situations

Inspectors found widespread and serious failures throughout

There was insufficient scrutiny at all levels.

Officers and politicians across the council didn't know

New managers uncovered a deeply worrying picture,

yet there was still insufficient rigour in challenging

Ofsted said children living with abuse wait too long for help.

And there was a failure to consider whether children had been trafficked

The last Ofsted inspection was in 2012.

Children's services were found to be good with outstanding features.

Since then, inspectors say there's been a significant

22 children were taken into care in January.

Three very young children had to spend the night in a police

station as there was nowhere for them to go.

I blame the previous administration, but the current administration

has not tightened up what they inherited.

There's evidence senior members were not going to committee

meetings, evidence of reports being lost, data not being provided.

That needs to be tightened up so we can ensure our young people

I deal with a lot of vulnerable women facing domestic violence.

It is significant that the lead member, the chief executive,

They say clearing up the mess left by the previous

Lutfur Rahman administration, of which Councillor

She maintains the current mayor inherited a flagship service.

You have been in there for two years.

It takes time to turn organisations around.

Looking at the Ofsted recommendations, if I had known

then what I know now, we would have knuckled

The headline is this is an improving service.

There are areas of positive development.

But it clearly criticises the way we have been doing

More than 3000 children in this borough require some kind of help

Ofsted has made a raft of improvements to ensure the most

vulnerable young people are failed no more.

Dramatic footage has emerged of the moment a bus passenger

Just to say we're about to show the amateur video of the struggle,

which could be uncomfortable viewing for some.

It happened in Stoke Newington on Tuesday.

An eyewitness told the BBC that the two men had been arguing

The attacker ran off after being disarmed, and the passenger

It was a brutal murder more than 30 years ago that's

Clara Kirton was found dead in her Southwark flat in 1985 -

a broken beer bottle one of the only clues left at the scene.

Now police are offering a ?20,000 reward to help catch her killer.

Sonja Jessup has been speaking to her son.

There's a photograph of my mother with her brother.

This is how Brian Kirton would like to remember his mother,

Not how he found her that day in November 1985.

Clara had been murdered in her own home.

This frail 86-year-old grandmother the victim of a violent attack.

There's never a day goes past now where I don't remember it.

A police hunt has been launched for the vicious killer

of an 86-year-old woman in south London over the weekend.

Mrs Clara Kirton was attacked at her home...

The case then and now has baffled detectives.

It is thought this was a burglary which went horribly wrong.

Drawers in the flat were thrown open.

Police believe she may have known her killer,

who panicked and then attacked her when

Police appeals at the time focused on a broken beer bottle and a bloody

trail of footprints left at the scene.

Detectives today have no new evidence.

They're offering a ?20,000 reward for information.

We've looked at forensic opportunities.

We still have some unidentified fingerprints.

If anyone wants to put somebody forward, we could easily eliminate

Brian Kirton says the death of his mother has devastated his family.

But he's never stopped hoping her killer can be caught.

I know somebody out there knows something or knows somebody.

I would love to see justice for my mother.

Now, if you're thinking of visiting the cinema over Easter

and enjoy watching films, Brexit may have a bigger

A Booker prize-winning novel now turned into a film,

made by a company which has received about ?170,000 from

Money that boss says is vital for development, finding ideas,

seeing if they will work, help in the early stages.

It gave us some space and time and an extra energy,

I think it would have happened anyway, but it certainly

made it a lot easier, having this EU grant.

The Creative Europe Fund has nearly 1.5 billion euros to distribute

across the continent between 2014 and 2020.

So far, over the last three years, 56 million euros has gone to the UK,

Most public help for films comes in the form of tax breaks.

But exclude that and this money has accounted for about 9% of public

London is the creative industries, and to have that European funding

directly going into that art - and it's not subsidy, it's not good

money going after bad - it's absolutely central

And for the success of this great capital city.

But others are welcoming the Brexit separation,

deploring a subsidy culture which they say tends to help

It can't be the purpose of any grant or subsidy body to be funding either

multimillionaires who could actually fund themselves on their gold cards,

The media class in the UK is treating Brexit and the loss

of EU funding, or the potential loss of EU funding, as if there's been

In fact, in the short-term, there's been one specific Brexit benefit.

As a direct consequence of Brexit, I've moved my next film

Brexit meant the currency went down about 11%,

so we're getting a lot more bang for our buck.

The government says it's invested more than ?400 million in UK film

last year through tax breaks and grants.

But once it's no longer paying into the EU, will there be more

To mark two decades since her death, a new memorial garden has opened

at the former home of Diana, Princess of Wales -

Called the White Garden, it's filled with flowers that

are inspired by memories of Diana's life, style and image.

Formerly the Sunken Garden, it can be viewed from a public

walkway and will be at its best until September.

I'll say goodnight and hand you over to Nick Miller to find out

what the Easter weather will be up to.

Not much sunshine, not much rain. There are some sunny moments on the

way for the first day of the long weekend, which gets off to a fine

start tomorrow. Tonight, quite a bit of cloud, some clear spells.

Temperatures heading down into single figures. Some spots may be

cooler than this as we start the day tomorrow. Tomorrow, just like today,

there will be quite a bit of cloud in the sky. There will be breaks,

allowing some sunny spells to come through. When the sun shines it

feels pleasantly warm. The temperature degree or so higher

compared with today there's a chance of light rain late tomorrow evening.

Not as much as gardeners would want. For Saturday, some sunny spells

especially during the first part of the day. Later, more cloud. There

may be the odd shower around. Saturday is the coolest day of the

weekend. For Sunday, Easter Day, a good deal of cloud around. It's not

out of the question there could be a spot of light rain from that cloud.

We will keep We will keep you updated. Now with

the National Outlook, Tomasz Schafernaker.

Good evening. It's not exactly cracking whether this Easter. I

think the main message is there's going to be a lot of dry weather,

just a little bit of rain from time to time. Not so bad overall across

most of the UK, wherever you are hopping to and from. From today we

have a fair bit of cloud around. We had some cloud around earlier on

today. It's going to stick around through the course of the night. A

few spits and spots of rain here and there towards the south, clearer

skies, may be turning quite chilly