11/02/2014 Look East - East

Berkshire. Now it's time for the news where you are.

Good night. We were seconds from death, the

driver to swerve to say his `` save his family as a car came at him on

the wrong side of a dual carriage way. I did not know who the car

would hit. I was thinking, it is going to hit someone. I am at

Westminster, where I have been speaking to the MP Tim Yeo about 50

selection. Was he invisible? `` his D selection. I was not invisible if

you read the national papers. The soldier who lost both his legs and

an arm, making a new career as a furniture designer. And we are at a

wetland centre in Welney, where they are having to use some ingenious if

it's to feed the hundreds of swans who have come to winter here. ``

methods to feed. First tonight, a driver has told

Look East about the moment his family was seconds from death when a

car was driving towards him going the wrong way on the A14 at 50 miles

an hour. An 80`year`old woman was eventually stopped by the police

after driving for several miles in the outside lane on the wrong side

of the dual carriageway. Stephen Wood, who lives in Bury St Edmunds,

had his wife and two children in the car when he swerved to avoid a crash

with just seconds to spare. Driving the wrong way down the A14.

A frightened passenger filmed the red car heading straight towards

oncoming vehicles. This is the terrifying view that confronted

police, and a man driving his young family. We were within an inch of

our lives, for sure. That is what we are struggling to deal with. It is

not going to affect me, I am not trying to say that, but the thought

of nearly losing my children through someone else's action... Stephen was

with his family going shopping. He had just overtaken a car in the

outside lane. He pulled in after seeing other motorists flashing

their lights. These people were waving their arms, windows open,

everyone is waiting, you think, hang on, something is out of the

ordinary. You do a double take. You do not expect to see the front of a

car coming towards you. There was no time to brake. It was in a flash.

And you were just seconds away. Seconds. And that was crucial for

you, the flashing and waving? Absolutely crucial, yes. If it had

not been for their actions... It does not bear thinking about. No.

This point, there have been numerous 999 calls. This is the moment the

police finally stopped the vehicle. It was a fairly nervous time, if I

am honest. We were potentially going to deliberately crash into her to

bring her to a stop, but fortunately she stopped before colliding with

our vehicle, and she was about 30 cm in front of us. The driver from

Essex told drivers should try to get off the road several times. Police

said she was suffering from mental health problems and would not be

prosecuted. Two years ago, 50,000 immigrants

came to live in this region. They are the ones we know about, but many

more came here illegally. One of them is Chris Swanapool, who came

here from South Africa on a false passport. He says in 20 years he has

claimed nothing from the state. But now he has decided he wants to go

home. Just another face in the crowd, a

man who has learned to pass unnoticed, and he has had to,

because Chris Swanapool should not be walking the streets of Britain. I

am an illegal immigrant. Simple as that. I have been here for 20 years.

I know I came here illegally. He has been living the license 1994 stopped

he has a false name on his passport. I have never claimed anything of the

government, nothing whatsoever. Unfortunately, the system has failed

me. They do not want to know people like me. The reason is, a crackdown

on it illegal immigrants like Chris. It has become a lot harder. I cannot

do today what I do ten or 15 years ago. He was earning good money, but

nine years ago, his true identity was revealed. He was not deported,

and he has been on the run ever since. I have slept rough most of

the time. I might get a wee Keir Orde two weeks there with people I

know about under the bridge. `` a week here or a week there. I am not

proud of it, to be honest. The South African is desperate to leave but he

cannot even do that. For five days he has been trying to hand

themselves in. Even as we were filming, his immigration appointment

was cancelled. Right now I am going to get on a bus

and I am going to Heathrow at sports, because I have tried over

the last few days to get in touch with immigration and I have had

absolutely no help from them, other than you will have to wait. He wants

people to know he is 's are. On his back, all he owns in the world. This

is my home. I do not know where I am going from here. Where is the heart

and human society? The ministers are running things by numbers.

Tonight we believe Chris Swanapoel is still in London. The Home Office

told us today the onus is on him to prove his identity, and that might

explain the delay in sending him home. We'll let you know what

happens next. It's just over a week since the MP

for Suffolk South Tim Yeo was deselected by his local Conservative

association. He spent 30 years in Parliament and was a Government

Minister in the 90s. Now the dust has settled. Tim Yeo has been

speaking to Look East. Let's go live to Susie at Westminster.

I met Tim Yeo in his office this morning and he told me he had no

regrets about how he had conducted himself as an MP or about the

de`selection progress. This is not about one man. This is about the

direction of the Conservative Party. In a moment, we will be

hearing from Mr Yeo, after this report.

One word sums up the problems, visibility. For the last couple of

years, his local party kept hearing the same complaints. Criticisms were

coming in from across the constituency. They do not see him

connected in what is going on. People expect a lot more from their

MPs these days, and when Mr Yeo first entered politics, MPs had the

time to pursue outside interests. Nowadays, some even call themselves

glorified social workers. The expectations on them, I think, are a

lot higher. But at Westminster, Mr Yeo's dismissal has led to a bigger

debate. Just days earlier, one of his colleagues was deselected. There

wasn't a `` there was an on access fault `` unsuccessful attempt to

remove another colleague. People like him Yeo, it is record Tim Yeo,

`` people like him... He angered traditionalists. He is in control of

the Conservative Party and they are taking the party in a liberal and

left direction, which is at odds with the party membership. The rise

of the UK Independence Party is worrying many in our region. Some

believe tacking to the right is the best way to respond, others say it

will make it even harder for the Tories to win the next election. Mr

Yeo is leading a very scared and invited party.

I that point a divided party to the Yeo. Was he deselected because he

was on the wrong side of the divide. I do not think the party is divided.

I think the party, at all times, is a bit of a coalition itself, and

encompasses quite a range of views. There are a number of issues about

which I feel and felt very strongly and spoke out very clearly on, which

probably are not shared by a number of the activists in the party, but I

think those views are Barat `` broadly reflective of where the

average converts the data `` Rod Lee perfective of where the average

observer to the voter is at. Their main point was your so`called

invisibility. That is interesting. I have had hundreds of letters and

e`mails, and many of them have said, to whom was I invisible? Not if you

were a reader of the national papers were listening to the radio, where

my regularly expressed views about energy and climate change on the

State committee and on other issues were being reported, so I am not

sure to whom I was actually at invisible. What was it that you are

invisible in the constituency itself should mark there were that you

lived in Kent as opposed to Suffolk. `` itself? There were complaints

that you lived in Kent as opposed to Suffolk. I am there pretty much

every week of my life. You are surrounded by new MPs, people who

are supposedly much more visible and speak out on local issues. Is that

the problem, the change has come in the job and you have not moved with

it? The job has changed, and Suffolk has some outstanding new and young

MPs, who when they were first elected in their term I'm a they

should have shown their `` in their term, they should have been in their

constituency. Perhaps I was more invisible to them than they were to

me. David Cameron back to you. What effect does this have on him? This

is a wider view than just a charter issue than just one person. The

danger. `` this is a wider issue than just one person. If it turns

out that the UK Independence Party gets more votes than the

Conservative Party, I have no doubt there will be some pressure from

some of our activists or the Conservatives to adopt a more UK

Independence Party like policy. That would be a mistake. You have been a

Minister, you have been chairman of a very influential committee. It

must be very disappointing to have ended your political career in this

way. I am trying to be upset but I am not succeeding. It has been one

of life great's events. I will reflect and explore what other

options there are. You will be your successor? What kind of person will

take over from you? I expect they will be very different from me. Or

has been some mention of Boris Johnson. I do not know. I have not

talked to him since then but I am sure he would make a formidable MP.

He still has to serve his term of London Mayor. I am keen he does that

properly. If that is whom they choose, I shall be delighted. A key

very much. Mr Yeo will stay until the next election, but a new

candidate will be chosen by the summer. It will be interesting to

see who they select. More than 230 personnel from RAF

Honington in Suffolk have been sent to help with the flooding around the

River Thames near Windsor. They had been on stand`by for two days and

left earlier this afternoon. MPs from Norfolk and Suffolk have

been meeting the Transport Minister today to keep up the pressure to

make the whole of the A47 a dual carriageway. The A47 Alliance says

the changes could bring in ?42 million a year. The A47 has been

included on a Government short list for roads which could be upgraded in

the future. Still to come: How to keep young

people safe when they are on the internet. And it is great weather

for swans, what not so great if you have to feed them! `` but not so

great. The new boss of the East of England

Ambulance Service has been meeting the Health Minister today. Dr

Anthony Marsh has been in the job for six weeks. He was brought in

after serious concerns were raised about the way the service is being

run. It was criticised for not meeting response times, particularly

in country areas. In December an inspection by the

Care Quality Commission found that complaints and staff sickness were

both down but ambulances are still not getting to 999 calls quickly

enough. When I spoke to Dr Marsh, I started by asking him about the

meeting. It was a great opportunity for me to

update the Minister and local MPs and the improvements that we are

already taking forward to transform the organisation, that also to set

out the key priorities for recruiting staff and bringing

forward the ambulance replacement programme. Did you point out that

the big improvements came from the report in December which was under

your predisaster's watch? Improvements have been taking

forward, that is right, and the previous Chief Executive has made

good progress, but we are very clear that we need to continue to make

further improvements. There are still some patients who are waiting

too long for ambulances to arrive and occasions where paramedic

response cars are waiting too long for amulets is to back them up, so

there is a lot more work to take forward in the Ambulance Service,

and I am determined to bring those about. It is country areas which are

still a problem for you. It does not look as though it can be solved in

the immediate future. That is fair. The particular problems are Norfolk,

Sussex `` Christophe Nick and ethics, and rural areas within those

areas. We need to protect the rope committees, you are absolutely

right. This 400 additional staff will not be available and

operational until June, so we have taken some interim measures which

will help us improve the service whilst we recruit those first new

staff, and of course, it will take 14 months to recruit his 400

students. So you are telling me it is going to be a couple of years

before people in country areas can be Aaron and see that an ambulance

can arrive on time? We will be able `` guaranteed they will have an

ambulance arrived on time. We have to completely eradicate those

delays, and it will take two years for us to recruit those paramedics

and for them to be fully registered. Your predisaster was

given about a year to turn the service around. How long have you

got? I have not been ebbing anytime. I am going to do the right thing for

patients and staff in the East of England.

Thank you very much. A few years ago, cyberbullying or

Sexting didn't exist, but now they are part of our lives. And there is

growing concern about internet safety. 75% of teenagers own a

smartphone and more than 50% of homes have a tablet computer. But

lots of us just don't know enough to protect our children from the

dangers that exist online. As he grew older, you are going to

have so much more access to things like Facebook. `` as you grow older.

Young people faced with more social media sites than ever before,

different ways to catch up with friends and share photographs, but

what happens when your information and pictures in the been the wrong

hands? That is what your 11th People's at this high school have

been learning about as part of safer internet Day. `` 11 year students.

They can lie about their age. They can put pictures on the internet.

People can say people should die in comments and people well say that

they are glad they are dead if they commit suicide. It is not just about

restricting access to certain sites I'm a parent need to be up`to`date

with the latest trends. In a lot of cases, the students will know more

about the internet and technology than their parents will, so it is

very easy for them to pull the wool over parents eyes. I think parents

worry about who they will meet and they imagine that there are lots of

people that young people should not meet out there and think `` and I

think it is a worry for parents. The biggest concern for students will be

the lack of privacy. They need to understand that once they have

shared something that they maybe should not share on a platform that

can be accessed by anyone, they cannot get that privacy back. A

national survey has found that only 19% of parents have spoken to their

children about sending sexually explicit photos, and only 39% about

protecting their personal information. Less than one in five

parents have spoken to their children about what they should do,

about the reporting cyberbullying or about sexual excitation, so we have

to make a bigger effort as a society to make sharp people know how to

deliver the messages `` sexual exploitation, so we have to make the

correct as a society to help people know how to deliver the message. If

you want to find out more about keeping children safe online you can

go to saferinternet.org.uk. Three years ago, Alex Stringer, who

lives in Essex, was severely injured in Afghanistan. He lost an arm and

both legs. But now he's making a new life for himself as a designer.

Today his latest creation was unveiled at a recovery centre set up

by Help for Heroes in Colchester. It's a picnic table for people with

disabilities. A young soldier named Alex Stringer was injured here in

Afghanistan. A device is triggered off and it resulted in the loss of

my legs. This photograph of Alex was taken by Bryan Adams, the rock

musician, and it described the soldiers as having cheated death.

How are you coping with these injuries? The injuries are fine. My

family is there to pick me up and keep me smiling. Alex and his family

receive support here, a recovery centre run by the charity Help for

Heroes 's, and he won the staff's admiration. He is one tenacious

individual. He has some very serious challenges. He wants to become a

designer, and he got work at a centre which creates career

opportunities for people disabilities. I think seeing someone

who worked in the Army, who was having to have a different and

drastic career change, inspired other people to step up a little bit

more, want to work in different sorts of ways, recognise that they

could do more, and certainly, for the younger people who work in our

factory, he has been an absolute inspiration. And this is his first

creation, a picnic table where wheelchair users can sit

side`by`side with their families. Nice and proud. Unlike a normal

bench, it has a gap in the middle of the seat soaked a wheelchair can get

in the middle of the people sitting down. `` in the middle of a seat, so

a wheelchair can get in the middle. It is not going to rot or melt or

get broken easily. People say that you are an inspiration. How do you

respond? I do not see that. People have said that to me but I just

crack on. It is life and you have to get on with it. He is already

working on his next project, and he is hoping to begin studying

architecture. That is a good story, isn't it?

Luckily we haven't heard too many people tell us it's good weather for

ducks, but it is, and it's pretty good for swans as well. Over the

last few weeks, the water levels at the bird centre at Welney have gone

up by at least three feet. But for the staff, it's a big problem,

especially at feeding time. At the wetlands centre here in

Welney, they are used to flooding, it happens every winter, but this

year, the water is much higher than normal, so high that this is the

only way they can feed the thousands of birds to migrate here, using a

floating wheelbarrow. We take fresh water from five counties in the

local area, which is what we are seeing at the moment, and up until

Boxing Day, we were going out in our rain boots and walking along the end

of the lagoon and speeding them, and now we have the floating

wheelbarrow. `` and feeding them. Welney was founded 60 years ago by

Sir Peter Scott, son of the famous Arctic explorer, and it is the

largest wetland centre in the UK, and home each winter to 20,000

migrating birds. These swans are among hundreds to migrate here every

winter, and in fact, ! Is the biggest swan roost `` Welney is the

biggest swan roost in the country. This is the trust stockman. Most of

the year, he tends to cattle, but this year, it has been strictly wet

suit work. I love doing this. I used to work in an office, but being out

here is just amazing. When you are out there in the evenings with the

swans and you have 500 swans flocking around you, it is just

incredible. For some of the usual visitor tracker winter visitors,

this water is all too much, `` for some of the usual visitors, this

water is all too much, but there are still plenty of mouths to feed and

plenty of voyages left for the floating wheelbarrow.

Too wet for swans? The weather going to get any better? No. We have yet

more wet and windy weather coming up in the next two to four hours or so.

Here is the satellite radar from earlier on. The rain cleared off

into the North Sea and some sunshine developed for the afternoon as the

wind eased down, as to the west, that club of showers is starting to

push in a part `` across parts of Wales, and it is heading in our

direction tonight. The seating starts off dry with the odd isolated

shower, but there will be showers through the night. The chance of a

frost developing. After midnight, the clouds increasing from the West,

the showers will creep their way eastwards. As you can see, there are

hints over the high ground is a little bit of sleet or wet snow

mixed in in any of the heavier downpours stopped otherwise, a

mixture of rain and hail as well. `` downpours. Quite chilly, but with

that breeze, I think most places will be frost free by the end of the

night. Tomorrow's weather is all about this next area of low pressure

coming up from the South West. The centre of a news update two parts of

Scotland, but for us, it will give some heavy rain. The tightly packed

isobars, and particularly behind the main rain through the course of

tomorrow afternoon. Some dry rain `` some dry weather through the morrow

morning at least, and going into the afternoon, we will get this band of

heavy rain across the region, and some of it were the quite heavy.

Temperatures six or seven degrees, but factoring in the wind it will

feel much more colder than those that use would suggest. A yellow

warning is out for the wind. There could be some disruptions into the

evening. Widespread gusts of 45`50 mph, and perhaps up to 60 along the

coast. Even how saturated the ground is, we could see some trees falling

over. `` given how saturated. Some pretty gusty winds continuing right

away to the course of the evening. As you can see, gusts along the

coasts. Inland, 50 mph gusts or so. Things will quiet down for Thursday,

a sigh of relief. A lot of dry weather and some sunshine around as

well, so make the most of it, because on Friday, under a deep area

of pressure coming up from the south, eventually bringing in rain

as we go through the latter part of Friday and into Friday night.

Thursday, the best day of the week. It means a cold night, though, with

a widespread frost, and Friday is dry, but there will be rain in the

evening and will turn heavy overnight, accompanied by strong

winds. Blustery showers returning for Saturday going into Sunday.

There is your weather. Thank you very much. I think. That is all from

us. See you tomorrow night. Goodbye.