26/01/2018 London News

Now on BBC One, it's time

for the news where you are.

Good evening, I'm Asad Ahmad.

The argument that a planned increase

in police stop-and-search in London

will disproportionately target

young black has been addressed

head-on by the Mayor of London.

Sadiq Khan, who supports

more stop-and-search,

says it shouldn't be overlooked

that black, Asian and minority

Londoners are also the main

victims of knife crime.

He spoke to our

correspondent Karl Mercer.

Expect to see plenty more of this,

high visibility policing

with a highly visible mayor,

both with a knife-crime

problem on their hands.

It has risen more

than 20% in London.

In the last year alone,

more than 20 teenagers were killed.

I accept that knife crime is too

high and has been going up too

much across the country

for the last three years.

I accept we have to do much more.

We've already had a couple

of residents come down

and ask what we're doing...

People don't want to be found

with knives on them,

so they're finding other ways

of storing weapons,

and then we would try

to find where that is,

and this is part of that

with a weapons sweep.

Therefore to remove weapons

from circulation,

and we have found a number of knives

in the past few months

in Wandsworth, and one firearm,

so yes, they do work.

He's handed the Met £15 million more

to tackle the issue.

You will see more police

operations across London,

more weapons sweeps like this,

more disruption of people

who may be carrying knives,

targeting known offenders,

an increase of intelligence-led

targeted stop and search.

You know that will be controversial,

and it has been already.

You've had criticism saying

members of the black community,

young black men, will say,

"Here we go again,

we have seen this before,

we are going to be targeted,

and it will increase

community tensions."

None of us should pretend that

the increased use of targeted

stop and search will by itself

reduce knife crime.

What I do know is that we have

a comprehensive package.

When I speak to the victims

of knife crime, bereaved families,

communities, they remind me

that the largest number of victims

of knife crime are black, Asian,

minority-ethnic Londoners.

The mayor has blamed government cuts

for falling police numbers but says

in the coming few weeks he expects

to announce City Hall money to boost

youth services across the capital.

I want to invest that

in services for young people,

in the context of the massive cuts

over the last eight years

around youth services.

Are we talking about

£20, £30 million?

I don't want to speculate

on what the figure could be,

but I'm hoping to find in the budget

in the next few weeks

about £20 million which I'd like

to use for young people in London.

A promise of more money

and of more of this sort of thing,

and a sign of the real concern

at City Hall and Scotland Yard

about one of their highest

profile problems.

Karl Mercer, BBC London News.

There were many concerns voiced

weeks after the

Grenfell Tower fire in June

that the money being donated

wasn't finding it's way

to the people who needed it.

Well, now new figures show

that charities have distributed

nearly 80% of the millions

of pounds raised.

With the figures,

here's Ayshea Buksh.

Well, the latest figures focus

on the money raised

and come from the Charity Commission

for England and Wales.

So back in July,

just a few weeks after the fire,

£20 million had been raised.

But less than £800,000 of that

had been distributed.

Since then, more cash has been

raised but also given out.

So the overall figure

now is £26.5 million,

and 20.9 million of that

has been given to survivors

and their relatives.

So where did the money come from?

Well, many different charities

were involved,

but the big three appear

to be the British Red Cross,

the Kensington and Chelsea

Foundation,

and the London Community

Foundation.

18 other fundraisers also

were involved, including Muslim Aid,

Family Action,

and the Art for Grenfell auction.

But that's not all

that's been donated.

We've reported before

on the hundreds of items -

clothes, toys and household goods

that were collected by volunteers.

The Red Cross says over 200 tonnes

of things were handed in.

That's a whopping 40,000 boxes,

enough to fill three

full-sized football pitches.

We distributed back

to the Grenfell Tower community,

but what we also did is sell

the second-hand clothes in our shops

and then recycle the funding

from that back

into the London Fire Relief Fund,

raising over £200,000 from that.

And not taking any penny

in terms of administrative charges.

Every single penny was then recycled

back to the community.

In response to some of that

criticism as to why things

were not distributed quicker,

a spokesperson for

the London Emergencies Trust

says it was a complex financial

management challenge.

I also spoke to the Kensington

and Chelsea Foundation,

who told me that they are

in this for the long haul

and future generations will still be

affected by this tragedy.

Ayshea Buksh.

Charlotte Franks, we heard money

is being earmarked for the future.

What's meant by that?

Well, the focus now is on how best

those victims of the Grenfell fire

can be supported going forward, and

today 25 charities met with the

Charity Commission, really to

discuss what they have learned since

Grenfell, and also what they have

learned since other tragedies last

year, including the Manchester

bombing and the London Bridge

attack. They also asked in the

meeting at something like Grenfell

were to happen again, how would they

work together, would they do

anything differently, would they

work in exactly the same way? Once

they have come to the conclusion,

the report will be published.

Charlotte, thank you very

Finally, police in Essex

had a bit of a surprise

when they searched

a house in Westcliff-on-Sea.

They stumbled across a four foot

crocodile and lots of snakes.

A man was arrested

for keeping a dangerous animal

without a licence

and animal cruelty offences,

as well as suspicion

of cannabis production.

OK, let's get the weekend weather

forecast from Tomasz.

The weather not looking great, don't

get too snappy! A bright morning,

lots of rain on the way on Saturday,

and I think as far as this evening

is concerned, it is quiet, not an

awful lot happening, just a little

bit of a chill in the air, a touch

of frost early on, but by the end of

the night air four degrees in zone

one, outside just a degree or so

above freezing. So the morning is

looking bright, make the most of it

if you can, and then a bit of rain

comes through, it is just going to

be damp and cloudy. South-westerly

winds continue into Sunday, they

keep bringing mild weather

conditions, so temperatures could

get up to around 13 degrees in one

or two areas, so a bright day on the

way, but overall pretty cloudy. So

let's have a look at the outlook

now, you can see a lot of cloud