05/01/2018 London News

Now on BBC One, it's time

for the news where you are.

Good evening and welcome

to BBC London News,

with me, Louisa Preston.

The family of a grandmother killed

by her former partner has

described him as an "evil

and calculating" killer.

Theodore Johnson murdered

Angela Best at his Islington home.

He had been jailed for

two previous murders -

one committed on day release

from a psychiatric centre.

Today he was jailed

for a minimum of 26 years.

Frankie McCamley has the story.

An inspiration to her family,

Angela Best was someone

who would help anyone who needed it.

But it was this kind of nature

that led to her murder.

As she made her way to this

flat in Tufnell Park

to help her former partner,

she was brutally killed with a claw

hammer, before being strangled

with the belt from a dressing gown.

Today, Theodore Johnson

was sentenced to at least 26 years

behind bars after changing his plea

at the last minute from

guilty of manslaughter

to admitting to her murder.

This convicted murderer

tried to play the system,

as he has successfully done

so twice before.

He used diminished responsibility as

the cause for his murderous actions.

He knew exactly what he was doing

when he planned and executed

the horrific murder of our

beautiful, beloved Angela.

The 64-year-old already had

previous convictions

for killing two other women.

In November 1981, the garage

worker was convicted

of killing his wife,

Yvonne Johnson, by pushing

her over the balcony

of their ninth-floor flat.

Then in March 1993,

he was convicted of killing his

partner, Yvonne Bennett,

by diminished responsibility.

23 years later, Johnson

killed his most recent

partner, Angela Best,

after their relationship broke down.

I have just spoken to one

of Theodore Johnson's former

colleagues, where he worked

in Tottenham as a mechanic.

He didn't want to come on camera,

but said he was shocked,

couldn't believe what had happened,

but he was also angry,

questioning how Johnson was able

to kill for a third time.

He will have been probably subject

to multiple interventions

from police, probation,

health and mental health services,

possibly substance misuse services.

There are a number of different

agencies who have to examine

what action they took

and whether they can defend

the decisions they made.

Sat in a wheelchair in court

after trying to take his own life

by jumping onto railway tracks,

Miss Best's family heard how Johnson

met Angela while on day release

from psychiatric hospital,

keeping their relationship a secret

from the authorities.

Leaving today, though,

they say this is the start

of their life sentence

of grief and pain.

A former executive at

an international entertainment

company who used a hidden pen camera

to film up women's skirts

has been spared jail.

Andrew MacRae, former vice

president of ticketing

company LiveNation,

took almost 50,000

images of strangers.

He was caught when an off-duty

police officer noticed a pen-shaped

camera protruding from a laptop bag

he placed between a woman's legs

on a platform at Clapham Junction.

Former Ukip and Conservative MP

Bob Spink has avoided

going to prison after tricking

elderly people into

signing electoral forms

backing local candidates.

The 69-year-old from Essex was given

a suspended sentence and 150

hours of unpaid work

for the electoral fraud.

The head of one of London's busiest

A&E departments has urged

patients not to visit

unless it's absolutely necessary.

North Middlesex Hospital's

chief executive has been

speaking to Victoria Hollins

about the pressure her

staff currently face.

Staff at this emergency department

know what it means to be busy.

They've seen on average 500 patients

a day over the Christmas period.

Yesterday the number peaked, at 599.

It's a challenging time of year

for the new chief executive.

We are under pressure at the moment.

There is always pressure every

winter but we anticipate

the pressure and start planning

for it in October, so we overbook

for extra staff, we put

on a range of shifts,

we open up extra capacity

across the hospital

so we can take more people.

This isn't exceptional,

but with a growing, ageing

population with more complex needs,

each winter gets busier.

We are really urging people to try

and use alternative services

unless they really are needing

absolutely emergency care.

Please use GPs, please use 111,

or some alternative.

On any measurement, this

is a very busy hospital.

Over the Christmas period almost

every bed has been full,

and with the weather getting colder,

the pressure is only

going to increase.

So the question every day is how

you go about freeing up bed spaces.

The solution can come

from unexpected places.

So are you on the mend, Frank?

I'm getting there...

Frank couldn't be discharged

from North Middlesex Hospital

because he hadn't got any shoes -

they'd been lost after he was

brought in by the ambulance.

The finance director

heard about his plight

during the daily beds meeting,

so offered up his own.

Did you manage to get them on?

Cos I'm only a size eight, you see!

But they were a big size eight.

It helped to get Frank

and frees up a bed.

It helped Frank and frees up a bed.

The shoes have enabled me to get

home now, so, yeah, that's great.

I shall be passing them

on to either a charity,

and it probably will be a charity,

but maybe I might even go out

in them, one little dance.

I'm absolutely overwhelmed

by the response this relatively

small and spontaneous action has

had, and I would like to

emphasise that our staff,

who number over 3,000,

will do something like this every

day which will go unnoticed.

More imaginative ways to free up

beds could well be needed.

Winter pressure is

unlikely to ease soon.

That's it for now from me,

but let's get the weekend weather

with Helen Willetts.

Not a great start, we have showers

with us at the moment. They will

keep going through the night.

Gradually we will find them

diminishing towards the north with

temperatures falling close to

freezing, with some fog developing.

If you're travelling tonight or

tomorrow morning, it could be quite

dense towards the north of London by

that state. But it should start to

clear away with temperatures rising

a little tomorrow. But we will

notice the chill. We will keep a lot

of cloud during the day. They risk

of showers only slowly easing. The

big change is the pick-up of the

north-easterly wind to make it feel

colder tomorrow and through the

weekend. 6-8dC. A bleak day, but the

showers will ease tomorrow night.

It's much colder tomorrow night and

sunnier on Sunday but still the risk

of cloud to the south and a stronger

north-easterly by that stage so

quite a biting wind. Here's the

local outlook until