08/02/2017 Look East (West)

Two little boys questioned by police over their toy guns have been left

traumatised and stigmatised, according to their mother.

The man accused of killing author Helen Bailey says he didn't do it.

And colder, more wintry weather on the way.

The 5-year-old and 7-year-old questioned by police under

The pair had told their teacher they had toy guns,

so were taken out of class, and the police were called.

Our reporter Usman Azad spoke to the mother and we agreed

The whole experience was utterly humiliating,

that parents saw uniformed police officers coming into the school

The 23rd of March last year was the worst day

The day her two children were identified as being

The mother bought these guns as a gift for her boys.

They were on special for two for ?10, but she never thought

that this would be the reason why the police would be

Her seven-year-old son told his classmates

For the school, it added to a range of concerns they had about the boys,

but the mum says there was nothing to worry about.

The school said to me that he had been speaking Arabic in class

and scaring the other children and that he'd been talking

about going to Friday prayers, with his father to a mosque.

He couldn't possibly have been speaking Arabic,

because we don't speak it as a family, in fact we speak

English at home and he wouldn't have been talking about

with his father because he's never set foot in a mosque.

The boys were reported to the police the day after the bombing

The school raised its concerns under the Government's

anti-radicalisation scheme, Prevent.

The human rights group Liberty argue the duty to report suspected

What it is doing is turning teachers and doctors,

who have themselves said that they don't want this duty

in place, it's trying to turn them into counterterrorist police.

That is not their role and they don't have these

skills or the information with which to make those

We think that the duty needs to be be repealed and there certainly

needs to be an independent review of whether it is in

Central Bedfordshire Council has apologised, and said:

They often have nightmares about the police.

My elder son, particularly, often gets scared at school and has

told me himself that he doesn't want to talk about anything to do

He wants to fit in now and that's heartbreaking,

for me, as a mother, that my child feels he needs

to hide his identity and hide who he is.

The boys are already at a new school, but the emotional

Their mum says she wishes she left the toy on the shelf.

Our reporter Mousumi Bakshi is with me.

Mo, the school was acting on a Government strategy called

It's part of Britain's counter-terrorism effort,

an attempt to stop people being attracted to extremist

groups like Al-Quaeda, so-called ISIS, Al-Shabaab.

Now almost immediately, critics pounced on the scheme,

saying it was alienating the Muslim community.

One senior Met Police officer even went as far as saying it

discriminated against Muslims, and that many people

felt this was a form of state-sponsored spying.

Many people will be shocked that children as young as five

Well, under the scheme, all public bodies and, yes,

that does include schools have a duty to "prevent"

The children in this case are very young,

and clearly mistakes were made but of course there have been some

high-profile cases of children being radicalised in the UK.

You may remember the London schoolgirls who travelled

The Government is sticking with the strategy, saying it

has had some success, but what that measure

Next tonight, the man accused of murdering the children's author

Helen Bailey has told a court she was visited by menacing

strangers in the weeks before her disappearance.

Helen's fiance Ian Stewart denies drugging her,

killing her and hiding her body in the cesspit under

From St Albans Crown Court, Kate Bradbrook reports.

Ian Stewart told the court that in the weeks before Helen

disappeared, they received several visits from two former business

He said on one occasion Joe appeared rude and aggressive

The court heard on the day Helen disappeared, she returned, asking,

-- The court heard on the day Helen disappeared, he returned, asking,

"Have you remembered anything or found anything

He then whispered, "Just think about it".

Ian Stewart said Nick later returned and said,

Ian Stewart said he believed if he told the authorities,

-- The jury heard Helen Stewart and Ian Bailey had

They never had an argument and in 2012 secretly got engaged.

They heard that in early 2016, Ian Stewart had been

having trouble sleeping and was prescribed a sedative.

The prosecution claimed that he drugged his fiancee

Asked today if he took the tablets, he said, "No."

He said Helen had searched the Internet and found

that they should not be taken by someone with his condition.

He said she took the pills on several occasions as she too

Asking if he had secretly poisoned his fiancee, he replied, "No."

Helen Bailey's body was found three months after she disappeared,

Ian Stewart had recently undergone surgery following a cancer scare.

-- Asked if he could have picked up a dead body

or dragged a body on a duvet, he replied, "No."

"Any pushing or pulling was intensely painful.

Asked if he had killed harder for financial

He said he had more money than he could spend.

He denies all the charges against him and his defence case

Now, how to persuade more young doctors to train to become GPs

as a quarter of our GPs are over 55 and approaching retirement.

A new scheme in Bedford is hoping the opportunity to specialise

Doctor Jasmin Ali, one of the first to sign up.

She is able to split her time between the GP rota and building up

With this scheme, it gives you a bit of balance between not

being expected to be in a GP practice for five days.

It gives you that leeway, if you like, to balance out the way

you would want your profession to progress.

Here at this surgery, they do have enough GPs.

But they hope that the project will help with general recruitment.

The question is whether it's worth the trade-off of GPs not working

to clinics all week to try and help with recruitments.

While there are national GP shortages, it's even worse

They've got 250 GPs now, but still need another 30.

I think that it needs to be attractive to medical students,

more incentives to young doctors to come and train in general

practice and a raft of things too - make the job more doable,

less administration, less regulation and more time

It is hoped the new scheme will not only help to attract new GPs,

Emma Baugh, BBC Look East, Bedfordshire.

As you may have seen on the national news,

MPs have backed another bill to start the process

But earlier today, a leading Cambridge scientist told politicians

the future success of genome research is under threat

Dr Julia Wilson from the Sanger Institute told

the Science and Technology select committee that their

But the status of their EU workers is worrying.

I would say the Wellcome Genome Campus is the Manchester

There may only be two or three experts in a particular area around

the world and we will attract to recruit them.

I would say we have about 30% non-UK staff on the wider campus,

you're probably touching 40% of staff who are from the EU.

And they no longer feel welcome, so that is a threat.

I'll leave you with the weather from Alex.

The weather is turning much colder and more wintry

For tonight, a much colder night than last night.

Yes, there will be quite a lot of cloud around and perhaps just

A lot of dry weather and turning very cold.

So down down to freezing quite widely.

So, tomorrow's weather, we get off to a cold and frosty start.

An easterly wind is going to establish itself tomorrow

and that is going to make it feel bitterly cold.

Temperatures no higher than 2 Celsius.

Some showers that are likely to turn wintery.

As I say, 2 Celsius our expected high for tomorrow.

Factor in the wind chill and it will feel very cold indeed.

Those showers are going to be fairly isolated

but they could move further West during the afternoon and evening.

Here is the outlook and it's looking increasingly wintry.

A lot of dry weather for Friday but also some snow flurries and that

Good evening. Over the next few days I suspect it's going to feel like we

have been plunged into the deep freeze. Cold weather on the way and

not necessarily crisp cold weather, with blue skies. A lot of cloud,

there was some sunshine