03/04/2017 Look North (Yorkshire)

Tonight, a former Barnsley teacher becomes one of the youngest people

to die from dementia, aged just 40.

The BBC understands detectives are questioning the Yorkshire Ripper

And a decent enough day across Yorkshire today.

Five years ago, Gareth Wilmot was living a full, active life

He was pursuing his dream of becoming an actor.

Aged just 35, his life changed forever when he was

He's thought to be one of youngest people to die from the condition.

His family have spoken to our reporter Ali Fortescue.

Very outgoing, very bubbly, larger-than-life.

A person that lit up a room when he walked into it.

This was Gareth shortly after his diagnosis five years ago.

At first, doctors said he had depression because he was so young.

But as his condition deteriorated, he was diagnosed

with frontotemporal dementia, and aggressive and rapidly

There were times when it was absolutely frightening from seeing

Gareth on one day to seeing him the next, it was a different person

and that was the illness taking more away from him.

If we went he would want to sit and hold your hand all the time

As a mum that was quite nice to know that those little

Last week at just 40, Gareth passed away, becoming one

of the youngest people ever to die from dementia.

Dementia affects a huge number of people.

There are currently 850,000 people with the illness here in the UK

and one in six over the age of 80 have dementia.

And for younger people, the figures are lower.

Only 4% of dementia sufferers are under 65.

It is incredibly rare for somebody to die so young.

Young onset dementia isn't very well understood within the media,

We estimate currently there are 42,000 people living

Parts of Gareth's body have now been donated to Alzheimer's research

and his family will carry on campaigning to raise awareness.

They've asked guests at his funeral on Thursday to wear any colour

but black and remember their eldest son as the fun loving young man

And that's really going to be difficult for all of us,

not just us, but for his brother and sister as well.

That is an ending, isn't it, you know, but it's not for those

Ali Fortescue reporting there from Barnsely.

Next tonight new powers to tackle paedophiles who target children

on social media have been welcomed by police in Yorkshire.

In the last five years, there were almost 3,000 recorded

offences of adults meeting a child after grooming them.

Of those, 220 were in Yorkshire - and it's becoming more common.

Five years ago, 23 offences were recorded

But there have been concerns police are unable to intervene early

enough in many cases - now it's hoped new powers

will change that, as Charlotte Leeming reports.

For parents, this may well be a familiar sight.

A generation growing up in a world of mobile phones and social media.

But that virtual world can be extremely dangerous

With online grooming on the rise, the law is still playing catch

But a new law has come into force today which will give police

greater power to crack down on groomers sooner.

Up until now, they could not arrest someone until they'd physically

met up with a child, but this new legislation means that

anyone contacting a child or sending them sexually explicit messages

Adele Goldman is an expert on safeguarding children and works

with schools and councils to highlight the risks of grooming.

She worries that there is still not enough awareness of the problem.

I don't think as a country members of the public,

parents understand quite how big an issue it is.

There is not a single case I deal with involving child sex abuse that

has not started with some contact or grooming online beforehand.

Offenders face two years in prison for any sexual messages sent

to under-16s and they will be put on the sex offenders register.

It will give police a lot more power to stop abusers.

We lead a lot of our lives on social media and perpetrators see that

as an opportunity to groom young people, so this piece of legislation

It will certainly help protect young people.

Friends Sam, Ollie and Harry are like most modern teenagers,

spending a lot of their time online, especially in the school holidays.

The new law will help to protect them, although they are pretty savvy

when it comes to looking after themselves online.

Did you know about the dangers of someone you didn't

know being able to get through to your chats?

Yes, because I have seen stuff on YouTube before about it,

Yes, but you can still get in touch, they can still request to follow

you, it's juts you have to accept it or not.

What would you do if someone you did not know tried

If it did get to the point where they were sending me stuff

that was inappropriate I would tell my mum or report them.

This new law has been welcomed by children's charities fighting

There has been criticism that it has taken two years for the government

to trigger the legislation, but now it is here, there is real

hope that our children can be as safe online as they are off-line.

It's understood detectives are questioning the Yorkshire Ripper

The Sun newspaper claims a team of police officers have visited

the 70-year-old serial killer in prison, where he has agreed

There is some flash photography in this report from our home affairs

Peter Sutcliffe, one of the most notorious killers

For almost six years, the lorry driver from Bradford held whole

He murdered 13 women and tried to kill seven others.

Most of his victims were prostitutes.

He was eventually jailed in 1981 but it's understood he's

being quizzed by detectives investigating 17 further

Mo Lea was hit over the head with a hammer near Leeds University

in 1980 and is almost certain she's one of Sutcliffe's

99.9% of me knows it was him, because I saw him,

but what the West Yorkshire Police have left me with is a very toxic

0.1%, which makes you think well, if he didn't do it, who did?

West Yorkshire Police say they have taken statements from women

who may have been attacked by the Yorkshire Ripper and these

offences form part of the historic cases being reviewed by the force.

What's clear is that more than 35 years after he was jailed,

Peter Sutcliffe still occupies large amounts of police time.

Sutcliffe, who's now 70, is currently in Frankland prison

in Durham having been moved from Broadmoor secure

And you can hear more from Maureen Lea who featured

in Spencer's report on BBC Radio Leeds' breakfast

A brief look at some of the day's other stories.

Part of the M621 in Leeds was closed for a time during this

evening's rush hour, after a fire in a nearby scrap yard.

Large plumes of smoke could be seen across the city for a time.

It took 15 firefighters around an hour to get the blaze

A new railway station has opened on the outskirts of Bradford.

Low Moor today became the third new station

to open in West Yorkshire since December 2015.

It will provide hourly services to Bradford,

Leeds and Halifax as well as four daily services to London.

A former soldier from Yorkshire is en route to Everest for a second

time after abandoning his first attempt to rescue a fellow climber.

42-year-old Leslie Binns left his home in Rotherham this morning

Last year he was only 500 metres from the summit when he saved

the life of an Indian climber who almost fell to her death.

He's planning to plant a 'Welcome to Yorkshire' flag on the summit

We wish them all the very best. No white scenes in Yorkshire, right?

Absolutely not! It has been pretty mild today. What a lovely day. Most

of us all a bit of sunshine today. Unfortunately we are switching gears

of it tonight. We have some rain tonight. That leads us to what will

be a cloudy start tomorrow but however that rain will clear us

pretty quickly, fingers crossed. That's have a look at the bigger

picture. Very nice today but here comes that weather front from the

West introducing rain and thicker cloud and it will continue to do so

overnight. It looks like a fair amount of rain on the graphics but

what we can see is patchy rain, quite light at a bit heavy on high

ground, so in that sense the usual story, really. Lowest night of nine

or 10 Celsius, so not that cold but cooler in rural areas. Tomorrow a

great start across Yorkshire but West Yorkshire, North Yorkshire

brightening up nicely and we can knew that trend towards eastern

parts. Sunshine by 3pm in the afternoon. In the sunshine the

temperatures are responding nicely at 13 or 14 Celsius. I think it will

feel a little bit cooler than today with a northerly or North easterly

breeze. As I mentioned, a subtle story and that is all down to the

area of high pressure and actually, that sticks around over the next few

days. What it does essentially is keep well if runs away, keeps low

pressure away, so settled story over the next be macro days. Some sunny

spells and feeling mild out there as well. I

is remaining settled. It will feel fairly warm and dry as well.

Good evening. Some rain spreading in across the Atlantic overnight. As it

does so we will see some fresh Atlantic air following on from

behind. The pollen levels will drop but the temperatures will also drop.

Some rain to go with the cloud. It is moving its way from west to east.

Drying up in not an island and eventually it will dry up in most of

Scotland. The fresher Atlantic air is following on behind. In major

towns and cities it will be five, 6 degrees. Across England and Wales

there would be extensive cloud cover. It will be a pretty grey and

wet start to some parts of Wales and the South West of England. Not much

rain by eight o'clock in the morning. Pretty grey, misty and

murky for some. Head further north and not much rain to be had.