27/11/2013 Midlands Today

A third bomb ` new claims about a third explosive device planted on

the night of the Birmingham pub bombings. It is fundamentally

significant because it had a controlled detonation so it is

nearly intact so it will have DNA on it.

Commuter frustration over regular delays on London Midlands. I want to

see improvements, not explanations. Six prisoners on the roof of

oak`wood Jail, the second rooftop protest in weeks.

And the last chance for Bulley, the Staffie who has been in kennels for

nine years. And I will have the details of the

weather later on. Good evening. There are new claims

tonight about a third explosive device on the night of the

Birmingham pub bombings, 39 years ago. It comes as police re`examine

thousands of pieces of evidence. At 8:16pm in the packed Mulberry Bush

pub in the city centre, the first bomb went off. It claimed ten lives.

Four minutes later, at the Tavern in the Town nearby, a second device

exploded, killing 11. Now a retired senior policeman has given a

detailed account of a third bomb, timed to go off at 11pm in Hagley

Road. It failed to explode. A more thorough investigation of that

device, he says, might have kept six innocent men out of jail and helped

bring the real culprits to justice. Here is our special correspondent,

Peter Wilson. Heading into the past. On the night

of 21 November 1974 Eric Francis was the night duty inspector for the

whole of Birmingham. Two bombs had exploded in crowded pubs bringing

carnage and horror to the city. But the retired policeman is guiding me

to the scene of a little`known third explosive device, set just off the

Hagley Road. Six Irishmen from Birmingham were jailed for the

bombings. Known as the Birmingham six their convictions were quashed

in 1991. Eric believes that the third bomb proves more than ever

their innocence. You are convinced that the third

bomb proves they could not have been responsible? That is correct. That

they simply did not have time to come back out of town, plant this

bomb and then go to new Street and plant up `` catch a train? No. Eric

Francis claims the time is on the IRA bombs meant that the real

bombers had at most an hour before their devices went off.

The third bomb partially ignited at 11pm, three hours after the

Birmingham Six had caught a train. He says senior officers were not

interested in the third bomb. Not whatsoever. They were set on one

thing. I think they genuinely thought that these were the men.

But tonight campaigners for the 21 victims of the pub bombings say the

third bomb is vital. Brian and Julie Hambleton lost their sister Maxine,

killed in the Tavern in the Town. It is fundamentally significant

because it had a controlled detonation, which means it would

have been pretty much intact, so it would have DNA on it. And the fact

`` as long as they can find that, it could go through the forensics

team. West Midlands Police have spent 18

months going through 10,000 documents relating to the case

looking for new evidence which they say would mean the case could be

reopened. In terms of further enquiries, once

we have gone through all of the documentation and we understand

exactly what is in there, what forensics opportunities there are as

a result of the work being done, we will then be in a position to

accurately make a decision on whether we should put resources into

resuming the investigation. If the investigators can find any

significant new forensic material, the police will have you decide

whether or not to reopen this 39`year`old murder enquiry.

Coming up, independent MEP Nikki Sinclaire talks about why she has

chosen to reveal her previous life as a man.

Energy firm NPower is to cut 1400 jobs across the country. Unions are

concerned about the Fenton base in Stoke`on`Trent, which employs 600

after driver shortages caused major service problems last winter, London

Midland trains are still experiencing regular delays.

NPower is looking to restructure their operations in the UK. Some of

it will be reason `` outsourced to India. The union concerned says it

expects these job losses will lead to the closure of the base in

Stoke`on`Trent, in the Fenton area. It employs around 600 people, mostly

employed in the administration of customer accounts. For a while there

have been concerns about the security of those jobs but it seems

the announcement we are expecting tomorrow has been pre`empted by the

GMB union. Has there been any reaction so far? In the last few

minutes I have spoken to Tristram Hunt, the MP. His reaction is this `

he says this is a real low for Stoke`on`Trent's economy, these are

the kind of jobs the city needs. `` real blow. He says he will be in

talks with NPower tomorrow morning. Thank you.

After driver shortages caused major service problems last winter, London

Midland trains are still experiencing regular delays.

According to the latest official figures, in the last few weeks one

in five trains have arrived late. Many commuters using the service say

it is not good enough. In a moment I will be putting some of your

comments to London Midland but first here is our transport correspondent,

Peter Plisner. A tale of two commuters, both using

London Midland services and both still suffering delays. Gary Hughes

travels from Birmingham to Coventry every day. Commuting every day is a

bit hellish. When it works it takes an hour but when it doesn't it can

be anything up to two and a half hours.

Meanwhile Nick Drew commutes from Birmingham to Worcester. There have

only been a couple of times when it has been really really late or

cancelled. There is just that niggling slight delay, it gets quite

wearing. London Midland had a serious shortage of drivers 12

months ago. Year on you would expect things to be better but according to

official they are actually worse. Latest punctuality data shows that

only 80.2% of trains are arriving on time, down 2.4% on the same period

last year. We never even get an apology. My train was 15 minutes

late because of the delays caused by the previous delays. With delays

increasing we asked London Midland's managing director to meet our

commuters but he refused. Instead the company said its head of

communications. In the last few weeks it has not been good enough, I

hold up my hands to that. A lot of that has been to do with the storm

and infrastructure problems. So what did our commuters think of

their meet`the`manager session? I want to see improvements, not

explanations. It is a difficult franchise to run and I will wait to

see how the service improves. With the worst of the winter weather

still to come, many passengers will probably agree.

I'm joined now by Francis Thomas, head of communications at London

Midland, who we saw in that report. Thank you for coming in. We had

hoped to put viewers' questions directly to the managing director.

Why wouldn't he come on the programme to answer them? I don't

think it matters who from the executive team answers the

questions, the important thing is that we talk to our customers.

Patrick gets a lot of requests to do lots of things and sometimes he asks

one of his deputies to go on a programme. We have had a lots of

comments, this one from Matt Bill. It is typical of the complaints.

Really terrible service, often cancelled because of lack of staff,

seriously overcrowded at peak times because of cancellations. We are

doing a number of things and let me reassure all of our passengers that

first of all we don't like running a service that is not on time. We are

getting over the problem of driver shortages. We have 53 drivers in

training and we have put 17 new drivers in training this year. We

have had ten months of really improving performance at the last

month, the E figures were largely down to infrastructure problems,

which were not helped by the storm. That is the case for all train

operators but you seem to fare a lot worse for customer complaints. I

don't think we do more than others. We do a lot more to talk to our

customers and we are very proud about that. You can take a long time

to come back on complaints according to the latest figures. You are

losing drivers, you train them and then they go elsewhere because they

are better paid. Wouldn't it be better to pay them more? Nobody wins

in a bidding war. The drivers who run commuter services in the West

Midlands eventually progress onto longer distance services. That has

always been the case. Thank you for coming on, hopefully next time we

can speak to the managing director and put more of our viewers'

questions to him. We are always happy to answer our customers'

questions. An underground cannabis farm has

been found by police at Drakelow Tunnels near Kidderminster. 400

cannabis plants worth up to ?650,000 were discovered. A 45`year`old man

was arrested. The tunnels were used to manufacture machine parts during

the Second World War and there has been a campaign to preserve them.

Sutton Coldfield MP Andrew Mitchell faces a huge ill if he pursues a

libel action against the Sun newspaper. The Court of Appeal today

ruled he can't reclaim ?500,000 of legal fees if he wins. The libel

case follows last year's incident when Mr Mitchell was involved in an

angry exchange with police in Downing Street.

It is just coming up to 19 minutes to seven. Our top story.

New claims about another explosive device planted on the night of the

Birmingham pub warming is. `` meins.

`` bombings. And football coach Frank is up for

an unsung hero award. He is no oil painting but Bulley

would love to find a home after nine years in kennels.

There are calls tonight for a privately run jail in the West

Midlands to be shut down, after another day of protests by inmates.

Six prisoners began a rooftop protest this morning at oak`wood

Jail, just weeks after a similar protest at the jail, outside

Wolverhampton. Here is Joan Cummins. More than 1600 category C prisoners

are held at the privately run jail near feather stone. Today six

inmates decided to stage a rooftop protest. The prisoners have been

playing cat and mouse with our television cameras. They have mostly

disappeared now and it is unclear exactly what AI protesting over but

today's protest follows another last month and it came at the time a

report said the prison was failing in virtually every aspect. The

prison's mission statement says it aims to become the leading prison in

the world. GE for S says it is simply experiencing teething

problems. `` group for security. As with any institution there can be

some early challenges in the operation of the establishment.

Prison campaigners showed that the prison shows private jails simply do

not work. I do not think it is a safe environment for prisoners or

staff. An investigation has been begun into this latest security

breach, with the managing company promising lessons will be learned.

West Midlands MEP Nikki Sinclaire is one of our most colourful and

unorthodox politicians. Politically she has fallen out with UKIP and

formed her own party. Now she has written of the threats of exposure

that led her to reveal she had an operation to change from a man to a

woman. I will be talking to Nikki Sinclaire in a moment but first

political editor Patrick Burns has this assessment of her career so

far. The Liberals, Labour and the

Conservatives do not leave in democracy...

A victory speech like no other. Nikki Sinclaire telling the other

parties exactly what she thought of them. You are nothing better than

fascists and dictators. But just six months later she had parted company

with her own, over UKIP's links with the European Freedom and Democracy

grouping in the European Parliament, which she said included homophobes

and racists. Back home her passionate opposition to High Speed

Two became one of her trademark local issues, now as an independent

MEP. So too the gypsy encampment on green belt land. She stood in

Meriden for the Solihull and Meriden Residents' Association at the last

general election, securing 1.3% of the vote. Or so in 2010 came

allegations about expenses and allowances which led eventually to

Nikki Sinclaire and three others being arrested by West Midlands

police on suspicion of conspiracy to do fraud the European Parliament.

Almost two years after her arrest, Nikki Sinclaire remains on police

bail. She strenuously denies any wrongdoing.

Undaunted, she launched her campaign for an immediate referendum on

Britain's future European Union membership, raising well over the

hundred thousand signatures required to force a Commons debate. The

motion was defeated but not before it had triggered the biggest revolt

against a Conservative Prime Minister on the European issue. No

wonder Nikki Sinclaire sees this as her defining theme. She plans to

stand for her new We Demand a Referendum Now Party in next May's

European elections. Nikki Sinclaire is here now. Good

evening. We are going to get onto the politics in a moment but I am

interested to know why you have chosen to reveal now that you have

had this operation to change from a man to a woman. You have written

about it openly in the book. There are many reasons but there were

threats to disclose my medical history and I wanted to be the

person to tell it and not get a call from a newspaper saying we are going

to run this tomorrow, what is your quote? It took me a long time to put

down in words what happened and how I felt about it from the age of

three. A lot of people watching might find it quite difficult to

understand what you went through and what it was inside view that made

you feel you had to have this operation, that it was not a

choice. It is not a choice. Probably 98% of the people watching this

programme never question their gender. Unfortunately a very small

minority of us from a very early age, three in my case, obviously I

could not understand exactly what it was but I knew there was something

fundamentally wrong with me and it looks `` it took me many years to

solve that Rob Lunn. At what stage did you decide to do something about

it? I could not do anything about it until I was 16 and I went to see a

doctor and she told me to go away and grow up, she said you will end

up living in London as a drug addict and a prostitute. In the 1980s they

said they could not see me until I was 21, which seemed like a life

sentence. Having gone through the operation, did you feel that you had

come home in some way? I just felt like myself. Probably people won't

understand it but until changing at 203I was pretending to be someone I

wasn't. When I get up in the morning I am myself and the only things I

think about are, what are my objectives today? What reaction have

you had since you came out with this revelation? We have had actually

know reaction, not a single question. Twitter and social media

has been fantastic, hundreds of wasn't of messages. I have only had

two or three even slightly negative. There is a you go of poll in the

book saying that 60% of people would see it as no difference but in the

West Midlands that goes up even further. `` YouGov. Without the

backing of a major party you don't stand much chance in the European

elections. I don't agree, I am the only Emmy `` the only MEP in the

country who has a mobile surgery. I have met many thousands of people in

the mobile surgery and in the European Parliament I am listed as

the most active of all seven MEPs so I have really been representing them

and I think that will show. I was the one, not UKIP, that forced that

debate in Parliament. With food banks, with HS2, with debt belief,

or roll affairs I have been at the forefront, International human

rights, which does not get in the media. `` rural affairs. I have

visited prisoners of conscience in Bahrain, for example. Thank you very

much for coming in. All this week we have been hearing

from the finalists in the search for the BBC Midlands Sports Unsung Hero.

Today we meet Frank Holliday, who helped form Droitwich Spa Football

Club 34 years ago. As Dan Pallett has been finding out, he is still

going strong. He is in his element. Frank Holliday

loves his football club. You can see they are all enjoying

it, so it is good. It is good to see the friendships and the success the

club has. Frank helped to form Droitwich Spa

Football Club 34 years and has been involved ever since. And it's grown

to boast 450 players across 27 squads. He just loves his sport. But

Frank's involvement goes far beyond the football. He's opening up the

car parks at 8am every Saturday morning. And once he's got

everything underway in the kitchen he's sorting out the kit bags and

then inspecting the pitches he marked out earlier in the week.

A dog or an animal has decided to bury something in the middle of the

ground. In fact nothing much gets done

without Frank's help. He's even built a link with a German club and

introduced a boot recycling scheme. He has dedicated his life to the

football club and everything going on around here is testament to Frank

because not only is he coaching people he is organising the whole

thing. It was grey and miserable when I visited Frank but it didn't

bother him or the players. But just how long can he carry on?

I am 69 and three quarters at the moment so I am still in my 60s,

just. As long as I can. Everyone at Droitwich Spa Football Club will be

glad to hear it. Getting on a bit, not the

best`looking and hardly a great mixer. Bulley the Staffordshire bull

terrier cross is the dog it seems nobody wants. Staff at the rescue

kennels where he lives have been trying to find him a home for nine

years. And now is probably his last chance, as Sarah Falkland's been

finding out. There are over 80 an unwanted dogs

at Hillbrae Kennels but none have been overlooked as often as Bulley.

He has spent nine years here. He used to go to the front of the cage,

take me, take me, but now he doesn't bother to get out of bed. It is as

though he senses that nobody is going to take him, which is quite

sad, really. But could his own dog blog be his saviour? It is the

brainchild of Julia Kaminski, the dog walker. She has been compiling

daily blogs the Bulley in the hope of finding him a home. Everybody

loves the idea of Bulley being in front of a fire for Christmas with a

roast chicken dinner. If it does not come for Christmas, as long as it

comes some time, that is the main aim. He has a huge character, he is

a really unusual dog, full of fun, he loves toys. He is quite happy dog

considering he has been in kennels such a long time. Bulley now has

nearly 2000 followers who log on every day to wish him good morning

and good night. For weeks all kinds of gifts and toys have been arriving

from all around the world, even from Australia. Look on it is a new

winter coat, but I don't think it will fit you, mate. Maybe one day,

though, Bulley's blog will read like this. Can you believe it? I am so

excited. I have finally got a new home.

And you can find out more about Bulley and his blog on Facebook `

it's at www.facebook.com/bulleysblog. And if

you are thinking you could give him a home, remember, Bulley doesn't mix

well with other dogs. Although the cold is returning

temporarily I think we could see them rising by the end of the

weekend. You can see what is going on at a glance by looking at our air

mass charts. Come Friday the cold air replaces the warm and then we

see the return of the milder air by the end of the weekend. We are

grappling with the cloud at the moment. The thickest cloud will be

to the southern counties, parts of Worcestershire and Gloucestershire.

Light at wrecks of rain or drizzle later in the night and also fog

patches. `` light outbreaks. This cloud is still with us through the

course of tomorrow but the winds are very light so there was not much to

stir it up. We hope for an improvement by the afternoon.

Temperatures are still up to nine or 10 degrees so still fairly mild.

Under the thickest cloud there could be a spot of rain. Then we see this

cold front sweeping in on Friday, bringing colder air, rain and

showers and wind. The headlines from the BBC ` 35 days

to go before Bulgarians and Romanians can start looking for work

here. New claims about another explosive

device planted on the night of the Birmingham pub bombings.

Now, a final chance to get your hands on a ?12 million fortune. An

unclaimed Euromillions raffle ticket, bought in Ladywood in May,

will expire in just over four hours. Camelot went in search of the owner

in Birmingham this week but say nobody has yet come forward. The

winning ticket holder has until just 11 o'clock tonight to claim the life

changing prize. That was Midlands Today. I'll be

back at ten o'clock with more on the continuing problems with London

Midland trains.