12/05/2017 London News

New figures have revealed the hundreds of weapons seized

in schools across London in the past 18 months.

They include samurai swords, knives and even air pistols.

Most of the cases involve teenagers, but some weapons were found

Friday prayers at the East London Mosque.

Hundreds came to honour another victim of knife crime.

Prayers were heard around the body, stabbed to death

Afterwards, his family pleaded for change.

Please make sure you look after your children, pray for my son.

This is what these kind of crimes do to individuals,

Thousands of people today at his funeral were crying

He is one of 16 young people stabbed to death so far this year.

There is new evidence the problem of knives is coming

New figures show an increase in the number of weapons

Over the last two years, there were 533 weapons found

in schools in London, ranging from samurai

swords to airguns, and included bricks and rocks.

215 were taken from 13 to 15-year-olds, but four were taken

Sometimes the younger children are used to carry for older

children, so they are learning from their siblings,

These cases are very worrying, because if you don't catch

the younger children now, they will go on to continue to be

That is the challenge for police, finding the weapons

Last week we went out with undercover police,

A lot of kids carry them in school bags.

It is not until another classmate tells the teacher

That is where this sort of approach comes in.

A response unit from Lewisham tackling knife crime.

This is one way of easing the problem, but it

also risks alienating the young people affected.

Another option is weapons arches, one of the tactics being used

at Newman Catholic College in Harlesden, where they are

This school is not having problems with weapons.

The headteacher says trust between pupils,

teachers and the local police is key.

Psychologically, the children know that the teachers are everywhere,

we welcome them in the morning, we are at the bus stops,

we bring people to assemblies, we can do safety arches,

so they know that safeguarding and all of the issues have a really

high priority in our lives and in their lives.

Charities say a lot of the young people who carry weapons do it

because they feel unsafe, so what might help?

It is giving young people a space to be heard.

Young people say they are not heard, so they give up.

They are not being heard, they feel there is no space for them

One of the programmes we deliver, they have that space.

Violent crime is very rare, but to keep it that way,

weapons have to stay out of classrooms.

More now on that cyberattack on NHS computers.

As we've been hearing, hospital services have been hit

Yes, it has been hit hard, the number of hospitals are growing. If

you hours it was at eight hospitals, now we know 15 hospitals have been

hit right this attack. We have a full list, ...

The QE2 hospital and Northwick Park have also been affected. GP

surgeries have also been affected, but we don't know how many. What is

the advice to patients? If it is not an emergency, do not go into your

accident and emergency, call the non-emergency line, 111. This is

affecting non-emergency operations and switchboards, so add new

hospital their switchboard is down. We also know that ambulances are

being diverted to neighbouring hospitals. One doctor said he is

using pen and paper, one patient who was due to have an operation today

said he had been waiting for months, he was frustrated by this. The

system is still down, and every hour that goes by, there is more

disruption, and that means patients are going to have to wait until they

know when they can use their local hospital.

A virtual-reality company in London has raised

$500 million of investment, one of the biggest amounts ever

A Japanese bank is backing Farringdon-based Improbable,

valuing the start-up at more than $1 billion.

The firm was founded just five years ago and builds large-scale virtual

"worlds" and simulations, mainly for gamers.

Hundreds of would-be Cilla Blacks turned out

They were auditioning for the lead role in a new show about the singer.

Cilla The Musical at the Dominion Theatre will tell

the story of the late star's rise from cloakroom attendant to major

That's it for now from me, but let's find out what the weather's

It looked reasonable where I was, and it does across King's Cross. It

is not especially cold. A fair amount of cloud first up, but I am

hopeful the odd light show will pass away. The showers in the afternoon

are light and largely connected, or collected, across northern and

western parts. If you are stepping out for Saturday evening, there will

be a couple of hours of wet weather. The frontal system clears away

eventually and leaves us with a lot of dry weather around. Don't be

surprised north of town to see a scattering of showers. Most of them

will be light. Should a long on that south-westerly breeze. I would urge

you if you can to make the most of that weekend whether prospect,

because, as you can see, by Monday we are looking at something wet and

windy. A bit of a mixed bag earlier on

today, some of us were cloudy with