02/08/2017 London News

Volunteers in east London have teamed up with police in a way never

seen before in the UK as part of their fight-back

Together, they search for weapons hidden by gangs and their haul

includes some shocking blades found yards from a busy high

And this evening, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner told BBC London

she wants the idea rolled out across London.

They may not look tough but this is the latest front in London's

These volunteers are helping police search the local area for knives,

bats, machetes and other weaponry stashed here for easy access

by gangs who don't want to get caught carrying them.

And the searches are yielding extraordinary if terrifying results.

If you're in a group and you're having a gang fight, for example,

and you're wielding this around, it's going to be

But also, if you're wielding this around there is some

You're going to easily cause injury to someone stepping into the path

It is everybody's problem, if they work together, they will find more

knives, the search will be more thorough.

Violent gangs in Tower Hamlets are known to stash some

of their weapons in green spaces around the borough.

This 15-inch machete was found by a member of the public who has

been enlisted by the police to help them cover these huge areas

and take some of these weapons off the streets.

The very first bush we attempted and tackled, we came across the main

foundation wall and lifted the bush up and there it was,

To my surprise it was actually a knife.

This pilot scheme has been organised in Tower Hamlets by local

Well, it is quite well known that there is a problem with knives

Other ways of hurting and damaging people and threatening people,

frightening people, which is just as bad really.

The last year has seen knife crime in the capital surge by a quarter,

injuries up by a fifth, with more than 2000 young people

Tonight a sign from the Met Police Commissioner that we could see

You'd like to see this rolled out across the whole of London?

This is people who are saying, we know that some people

are stashing knives and we believe they may be near to my home,

I don't want that and I don't want them to be able to go and pick one

up and just attack somebody I love, so I'm going to go out there

Normally police ask us for our eyes and ears

Now they are asking for that little bit more.

So the Commissioner welcoming what's been happening in Tower Hamlets.

But she also had more to say about knife crime.

Louisa Preston has been following what been said.

She definitely did and knife crime is a priority to her, especially

within the black community. She pointed out she believes some people

in ethnic communities do not have the confidence in the police. There

is an issue there and only highlighted recently by the deaths

of two black men within five weeks of each other who had contact with

the police. Both of those are being investigated by an independent

enquiry but in the BBC London radio interview she said it was extremely

worrying that young black men are disproportionately the victims of

knife crime. We have a problem in this

city with violent crime That hugely disproportionately

affects people from minority They are utterly disproportionately

the victims of that. That makes me angry and it

makes my officers angry Every week probably I hear a story

of one of my officers saving the life of a young black man

who has been stabbed. You heard their and after the

tensions in East London we have seen after the death of those two black

men she was asked about the Notting Hill Carnival and if she was

concerned about it and she said no, the Carnival is always a challenge

to police, there is too much violence that goes on but she has no

particular worries about it this year and she also mentioned the

budget and budget cuts and she said clearly that if there are more

budget cuts it will lead to a small Met police which makes her job a lot

more difficult. Very direct words. Thank you very much.

A doctor from Romford has been charged with over

Manish Shah, who's 47, will appear at Barkingside Magistrates Court

at the end of the month to face allegations including one

The NHS has set up a dedicated phone line for anyone "who may have

concerns or questions" about the case to call.

Mobile phone footage taken inside The Mount Prison

in Hertfordshire shows riot officers using flash grenades to try

and regain control after two days of disturbances.

Order has now been restored but today there's been criticism

Inside The Mount Prison in Hertfordshire this week prison

officers are drafted in to restore order as prisoners take control.

According to the leader of the organisation which represents

prison governors, a crisis is now building in prisons caused

by a toxic mix of population pressures and staff shortages.

The situation is bad, and until we get sufficient

staff in our prisons, the situation we are

So we will continue to try and control the situation

in our prisons but we will not be delivering in a significant number

of our prisons good quality rehabilitative regimes.

In an open letter that is sharply critical of the government's

handling of prisons, Andrea Albutt said her members had

seen nothing tangible from ministers to ease the burden on staff.

She said a government decision to separate the running of prisons

are only speaking out now. and not cost-effective.

Well, we would like to think they are our allies but where have

We have all been effected by it, it is not there members

getting used as punch bags, it's ours.

The Ministry of Justice said it is aware of these ongoing

problems in prisons, that is why it is taking immediate

action to increase prison officer numbers as well as create the Prison

and Probation Service which will ensure that both policy

and operation work closely together to deliver these

And following a report earlier this year that found Pentonville Prison

was overcrowded and violent, it is clear these reforms

Over 300 years after opening its doors, Britain's oldest wine

merchant has decided it's time to modernise its shop

Berry Brothers Rudd was founded in 1698 and for much of that time

it's supplied wine to the King or Queen of the day.

But, as Sarah Harris has been finding out,

the shop is having to adapt to cope with a changing world and customers.

For hundreds of years this was the place in London to come

Berry Brothers Rudd is the oldest wine merchants in the country.

Kings, admirals and artists have passed through its timber doors

Centuries ago some believed it to be the place to come to get in shape.

One of the quirks of coming to buy your wine from your London

merchant back in the 19th century was that customers would weigh

One of the famous clients was Lord Byron, the poet,

and he was concerned about his weight.

And he went on that not so famous diet of white wine

and dried biscuits but, you will be surprised to learn,

He started out at 13 stone, nearly 14 stone, and five years

Good wine in moderation is still known for its health benefits even

if weight loss is not one of them. Geordie's family have kept the best

vintages here for generations. He says most customers now

are looking to know where their wine comes from and would rather have

quality not quantity. When people come in,

if they're buying a bottle invariably they are buying better,

possibly less but better, and that wine is something

that's important to them and they want to be involved

in the story as well. Online sales put many retail outlets

out of business but a new shop here is making tasting and buying

wine a leisure activity. They don't really come just

for buying a bottle of wine, they are looking for an experience,

to explore new regions, So for many Londoners it seems

coming to sample your own wine in person is not so much of a chore

but a retail experience though if you are expecting to lose weight

like Lord Byron you According to the record it did work,

very odd! That get the weather forecast and some heavy showers. Yes

but that the word is underway, still a few showers tomorrow and quite

windy for the time of year. Still some rain clearing through as the

night goes on and then it is clever by the end of the night but staying

breezy with temperatures not going down too far. Quite a bit of cloud

in the morning and there will be a few passing showers, going through

quickly because the strength of the wind with some gusts in excess of 30

mph but in the afternoon it will be mainly dry with more Sunnis both and

quite pleasant out of the breed in the sunshine. Especially on Friday

with the lighter wind and sun is both -- out of the breeze. The

temperatures will be a bit higher. At the weekend is looking mainly

dry, variable Sunny spells with the wind easing and it will be

pleasantly warm. Don't look too surprised! What about

pleasantly warm. Don't look too surprised! What about the national

picture? Good evening. At this time of year

the climate tells us to expect the wettest weather in the north and the

driest in the south but that is not what we have seen today and southern

areas had quite a deluge, a dismal scene from a weather watcher in

London compare to this beautiful sunset in Shetland and it was the

far north of Scotland that had the lion's share of the sunshine.

Further south a lot of cloud and particularly of southern England a

lot of rain with some heavy bursts and we will see some wet weather

through the night in the south-east and East Anglia. That will clear to

the east and after that beautiful day in northern