30/11/2017 London News

do.

That's all from the BBC News

Welcome to BBC London News.

I'm Sara Orchard.

London is facing a "rat epidemic",

according to a report

produced by the Tories

on the London Assembly.

They say councils in the capital

have received 180,000 complaints

in the last five years.

Tim Donovan joined pest

control on a visit

in North London this morning.

Nice to meet you. Pest control, not

exactly a welcome visitor to a

house-warming. But when Jess bought

this place last month she found it

wasn't quite vacant possession.

They

were coming in through a hole in

here. We blocked it off.

They got in

through the sewer, so Jess stalk the

pipe with wire.

We are not living

here at the moment.

That shift of

the problem upstairs to the

bathroom.

This is what tends to

happen. They come up and chew

through it and before you know if

you have rats. There is a fresh

dropping here.

Sorry! Hoping to

highlight the problem was this

street in Harrow over the summer.

Since when the woman who filmed it

says things have improved. The

Tories on the London assembly say

there have been 180,000 complaints

made about rodents over the last

five years, up 10% last year alone.

Rats bother a lot of people in

London. They want the streets to be

cleaner. We should look at the end

again. More rubbish on the streets.

None of us like that. Sadiq Khan is

in charge of London. He needs to do

an awareness campaign and he needs

may be to have a word with some of

the borrowers where rats are worst.

The poison is being laid.

I'll just

put down some tracking dust.

That is

the dust that reveals important

stuff under ultraviolet lights. It

shines up nice and bright. You will

see footprints.

You don't think you

will be coming into a house and

dealing with a rat problem. It's not

very nice to deal with.

How would

you describe London's rat problem?

Chaotic. It is, yes. For me it is

fantastic. From my clients, Billy do

feel for them.

Jess is hoping to

move in before Christmas.

The Metropolitan Police

want to speak to a man as part

of an investigation into 25 sexual

assaults on young women

and girls in South London.

The assaults took place over

the last year, and the youngest

victim was eight-years-old.

Ayshea Buksh has more.

These attacks have mainly happened

in Lewisham and Greenwich. There

have also been incidents in

Brockley, Bromley and Southwark.

This man appears to be targeting

young schoolchildren. There have

also been incidents on women in

their 30s.

The suspect tech tax

victims by grabbing their intimate

parts. -- attacks victims. We are

treating this with the utmost

seriousness. A number of victims

have been traumatised. It is very

important for the -- for us for the

public to help us by looking at the

CCTV and perhaps providing us with

some names of those they think are

on that CCTV. The CCTV today is an

offence that took place on Wednesday

in Brockley. We need to speak to

that person, so do you know who he

is? Get in touch. Around a third of

our victims are adults. Our oldest

victim is 35 years old. Youngest

victim is aid. We do see a number of

offences committed against teenage

schoolchildren. We have an incident

room open here. Specialist support

services on hand. All information

will be treated with the strictest

confidence and sensitivity. Please

call us.

The police are working with

local schools and teachers to catch

this man.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan,

has added his voice,

condemning the President

of the United States,

Donald Trump's decision

to share far right videos

of his Twitter account.

The Mayor repeated his call

to Prime Minister Teresa May

to cancel the President's state

visit in 2018.

More than 1.8 million people

previously signed a petition to stop

the President's visit.

Today is the deadline for Grenfell

survivors whose immigration status

was uncertain, to register

for a 12-month amnesty.

The Home Office announced that it

would allow undocumented residents

who have been directly affected

by the fire, to be granted

a temporary period

of lawful residence.

A mother and son from Barnet have

graduated from the same university,

in the same subject,

on the same day.

Samiya Lerew and her son Edwin

studied politics at Birkbeck,

University of London.

They credit each other

with providing invaluable support,

even if there were a few odd

moments on campus.

They've been talking

to Marc Ashdown.

Mother and son -

but also fellow graduates.

We have had siblings, we have our

brothers and sisters here before. We

have not had mother and son. This is

quite rare.

They have never seen a

mother and son being friends and

students at the same time.

Born in Somalia, Samiya moved

to London in her twenties,

but had to abandon plans to study

to look after her mother.

40 years later, when Edwin got

into university, she had an idea.

I thought maybe if I went it

wouldn't be too bad.

I think the

word was around that we were

studying with each other.

I could

keep half an eye on him and he could

look after me.

Absolutely.

Did you

tell into took his shirt in?

Was I

ever that kind of parent?

No.

Mum is

there. Basically.

So are there certain

advantages - like not having

to send bags of washing home.

It certainly made things, I don't

know...

Does not do your washing? I

don't think she does. There were

times I wondered who is the parent?

He was the parent, I was the child!

And how about sharing classes?

What advice then for other parents

thinking of a life on campus?

She would be at the front, I would

be at the back. That wouldn't be by

accident!

Did I embarrass you,

Edwin?

No. I strategically dodged

the rest of the classes she might

have been.

Always shooting of my

mouth in class. Tutors got to know

me eventually.

That doesn't mean we

don't study with each other. If

there were ever gaps in my knowledge

she could fill them because she

lived through history as it was

unfolding.

What advice for other

parents thinking of a life on

campus?

Don't be so condescending or

bossy to your child, daughter. Be

their friend. Be there for them.

Yes.

One final question.

It might be awkward.

Who did better?

Academically he did better than I

did. Yes.

It was hard. I couldn't

have done it without her.

Now, parts of London saw

snow flakes earlier.

Will it settle?

Here's weather with

Elizabeth Ritzzini.

Hello. I don't think it will settle.

Great excitement outside just now in

central London. Southern areas as

well. We had a little shower

tracking down from the north. You

can see it on the Braegger. You can

hardly see it. Most of the snow is

further north. You will see some

flurries later on this evening. For

the rest of the afternoon is looking

mostly dry. Brightness towards the

West. A bitterly cold north-westerly

wind. Temperatures between three and

five Celsius. It will be colder than

that with the wind-chill. That wind

will turn north-easterly. That will

feed the showers into Essex in

Hertfordshire, even part of Kent,

maybe even into central London. But

only for a short while as we had

through the first part of the night.

Then it will turn increasingly back

to rain. Showers still as we head

through the second part of the

night. Most of that will fall as

rain. Whatever ice. Temperatures in

towns three degrees in the morning.

The error will be milder but it will

still feel cold tomorrow. That is

because of the northerly wind.

Showers in the morning clearing into

the afternoon. Some brightness and

sunshine. Still cold when exposed to

that went. Temperatures between five

and seven. A westerly wind through

the weekend. It is looking milder,

mostly dry and rather cloudy.

That's about it from me

Riz Lateef will be here

with our 6:30 evening programme.

There's more on all of our stories

on the BBC London website.

But for now, from us all,

a very good afternoon.