19/12/2016 Midlands Today

earlier this evening. There will be more on that and

It's been confirmed that almost 400 prisoners have now been moved out

of Birmingham Prison, since riots on Friday.

Specially trained prison officers took back control of the jail

late on Friday night, after more than 12 hours of chaos.

Stairwells were set on fire and paper records destroyed

during trouble in four wings of the category B prison,

Today the Justice Secretary ordered a full investigation

New footage emerged today of gleeful inmates running amok on the four

wings of HMP Birmingham seized by rioters.

For 12 hours or more, a prison in the grip of anarchy.

Outside today, I met a man whose brother and cousin are inside.

I'm really worried about them, because they were walking around

It was really tense because most of them are locked down.

They are letting a few people out only at a time for food.

Periodically, vans emerge, the risoners thumping

-- Periodically, vans emerge, the prisoners thumping

on the sides as they go, part of a series of

Originally, we were told 240 inmates were to be transferred.

We now believe that figure to be closer to 400.

It appears the rioting started with inmates clambering onto safety

One was unhappy because of a problem with a health care appointment.

So-called tornado squads of prison officers emerged late on Friday,

spattered in paint, having restored order.

Just six weeks ago, a board of independent monitors warned

about the growing prevalence of Mamba and other new psychoactive

Drugs has always been in jail, as you know yourself,

but it seems that Spice has made it a difficult task to get

It's exposed a lot of cracks in the system.

This has been coming for at least two or three months.

They believe it has been ignored, and it has culminated

Evidence is being gathered for a police investigation into the riot.

Four wings were so badly damaged they are currently unusable.

Bob Hockenhull can bring us more on this now.

Bob, the Justice Secretary made an announcement

Liz Truss admitted it'll take months to resolve the problems

She said levels of violence like that seen in HMP

Birmingham are unacceptable and insisted her planned reforms

including recruiting 2,500 extra staff

across the country will help reduce trouble

It is important to remember that these problems have developed

over a number of years, and it will take time

and concerted effort to turn this situation around.

While these reforms take hold, we are continually working to reduce

risk and ensure stability across the prison estate.

During the Commons debate, Labour accused the Government of losing

The Shadow Justice Secretary Richard Burgon said there had been warnings

of a crisis since 2010 and cutting thousands of prison staff had

A convicted paedophile from Birmingham has become

the oldest person in Britain to receive a prison sentence.

Ralph Clarke is 101 years old and last week was found guilty

of carrying out a string of sexual offences against young children

Today he was sentenced to 13 years in prison.

On the surface, he's a frail old man but Ralph Clarke was a serial sex

offender who abused three very young children 40 years ago.

After suffering in silence for decades, last year they found

the courage to tell the police and to come to court to face the man

That guy sees it as his God-given right, and it wasn't.

He has damaged so many lives, so many lives in such a massive way

Even now, he cannot see he has done wrong.

He's evil and he deserves to be in prison.

To be honest, they have got me a thank you card here.

All it says is they are so happy to be believed.

That's all they ever wanted, for people to believe them

and for them to listen to him in court and know he is

He shook his head today in court when his crimes were detailed.

His victims were in tears as they saw him for one last time.

Ralph Clarke used fear and intimidation to control

He took full advantage of their very young age and the situation in order

Judge Richard Bond said, even though it was a deeply

upsetting experience for the victims, the case

He said those who were sexually abused even in the distant past can

rest assured that any complaint will be treated with

And the victims, who I spoke to just after they left court,

said they were glad Ralph Clarke was going to jail.

He should have been in prison 40 years ago.

People like him should never come out, never come out.

We have been in our own prison for the last 40 years.

Clarke can't be released on licence until he has

served half his sentence, when he will be 108,

so it is likely the man who abused three little children decades ago

will die in jail, the oldest man ever sent to prison.

After almost 90 years of production, one of Wolverhampton's major

employers is to finally close this week.

Goodyear has been making tyres at the Bushbury Lane site

At its height the factory employed 7,000 workers.

But in June last year the company said it was closing the plant

Police have named a man who was stabbed and killed

23-year-old Ibrahim Ismail was found on Moseley Street in Highgate

A postmortem examination revealed wounds to his chest and back.

Detectives have launched a murder inquiry and are

It's been a day to remember for campaigners working to secure

the future of Dudley's former Hippodrome theatre.

The keys were handed over to them as the council agreed

It was a particularly special moment as the theatre opened its doors 78

Here's our Arts Reporter Satnam Rana.

The scene was set - an audience awaiting,

The real work can start to finally see that building restored

to its own natural beauty, and once again entertainment

The main prop - a bunch of keys, unlocking the future

Campaigners have fought hard to save the Art Deco building.

Now they've been given a five-year lease by the council.

Wonderful, because we can now start work in there, clearing it out,

and we now need to get the next stage going.

The next stages are, of course, fundraising.

We need to raise funds for feasibility studies,

we need to find out what needs to be done to get the building repaired.

We've got to get the services connected.

And then we've got to look at what we need to put inside it

In its heyday, the theatre was a magnet for great entertainers.

George Formby was a regular, and comedy duo Laurel and Hardy

The venue closed seven years ago, having been transformed

So what's made the council hand out the five-year lease?

We simply haven't got the money to be able to invest in this.

But what we've done is worked with the Friends Of The Hippodrome

to at least give them the opportunity to raise that

revenue, to bring acting life back to the Hippodrome,

In all, ?10 million is needed to reopen the building.

Plans include a side extension and a glass frontage.

In five years' time, it's hoped that the curtain

will once again be raised here at the Dudley Hippodrome.

But this time, not just as a theatre, but also a multi-use

venue, hosting both sporting and cultural events.

We'll be back in Breakfast tomorrow morning from six here on BBC One.

Until then, enjoy the rest of your evening.

I'll leave you now with the weather for the week

If we can say one thing about the weather for the week ahead

Quite cloudy conditions on the whole but turning windier and more

It is not all doom and gloom as we go towards Christmas.

There are some brighter spells in the forecast as well.

Some drizzly rain around at the minute.

The high-pressure that has been keeping those weather fronts at bay

is slowly moving out of the way and we do have some low-pressure

Tonight, plenty of drizzly showers around.

They will slowly fizzle out in the early hours.

A few patches of mist here and there and lows

As we look forward towards tomorrow, we will continue on a grey note

to begin with but then some brighter spells coming in, in between.

Then looking ahead we have got some more cloudy conditions coming

A band of rain moving across the region as well for a time

and then lows of around two Celsius so we may see a patchy

This is what is happening on the pressure charts.

Isobars squeezing together so we expect windier conditions.

Some more fronts coming across which could bring

On Wednesday, once the rain has moved through, we have some drizzly

conditions around but later on in the day some slightly brighter

Thursday and Friday, a similar picture, lots of cloud around.

The rest of the weekend, some rain around, windy, but with dry and

bright spells. Heavy weather is brewing, it will

not reach us just yet. It will take a good few days before the stormy

weather reaches us. At the moment, it's just potential, nothing is

certain, but it will be different to what we've had over the last few

weeks, it's been so calm. We have a jet stream raging out of North

America making a beeline for the UK. It has peaked at jet level height,

blowing in excess of 200 mph, and it might whip up to max storms we are

watching. Friday had coming close to northern Britain, and then another

one