08/07/2011 South East Today

Welcome to South East Today. Tonight's top story. A former Kent

Police officer claims police investigating the M25 road rage

murder in 1996 were put at risk by leaks to the News of the World.

Lorries packed on the M20. Weeks of delays. What next for Operation

Stack? Also in the programme is as the last ever space mission

launches we talk to Piers Sellers about the end. The Kent magician

that dreamed up a new act that could land him up in Las Vegas. And

20 years on, it is still perfect. How you too can visit the real

locations made famous by The Good evening. A former senior Kent

detective says that leaks of information to the News of the

World about a murder investigation her was running may have put his

officer at risk. Nick Bidis was investigating the murder of Steven

Cameron in 199. He clay claims the News of the World named their chief

suspect, Kenneth Noye, before it had become public knowledge. He

believes police officers were being paid for that and other information.

1996. A murder on an M25 slip road. 21-year-old Steven Cameron had been

stabbed to death. Detectives suspected Kenneth Noye was

responsible and while that information had been shared with

Interpol and the Met police, it wasn't public knowledge. The former

head of Kent CID beliefs someone in the police leaked that fact and

other information to the News of the World. There were leaks, and

definitely there were people who were telling the media, making

phone calls to the media, and giving them information. Do you

think they they were receiving money forthat? No doubt they were

receiving something. If it wasn't something, it was favours. I don't

know, we never got to the bottom of it. Not only did the world's action

potentially let Kenneth Noye know police were on to him, it is

claimed it put officers at risk. were putting officers into

dangerous situations, don't forget. Kenneth Noye was a known killer.

What I didn't need was publicity about that. The vast majority of

journalists respected that, and were co-operative. But the News of

the World weren't. The police are investigating allegations the News

of the World paid officers for confidential information. In 2003,

Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson editors of sunand News of the World

respectively were asked by MPs about that very subject. We operate

within the code and the law. If there is public interest, the same

holds for private investigators, is illegal for police officers to

receive payment. But a former News of the World journalist who won a

tribunal against the newspaper says claims about payment to police and

hacking of voice mail messages may just be the start of it. So far it

has been centred round voice mails and messages,, they went further

and could obtain people's medical records. People's financial

statement, they could get their iet miceed phone bills which they did

with Rio Ferdinand once. Criminal investigations and two public

enquiries into how the News of the World operated are under way. John,

have Kent Police have had anything to say about these ail

investigations, that information was leaked during their

investigations? Yes, they have. But first we really should point out

that Nick Bidis isn't saying that these leaks came from within Kent

Police. In fact at that time, he says, both Interpol and the Met

police knew that Kenneth Noye was their suspect. So the leak could

have come from anywhere. Kent Police say they have a zero

tolerance towards this sort of thing, and anyone who compromises

and investigation by leaking information to the press could face

serious disciplinary, if not criminal action as a result. Thank

you. And later in the programme, we will hear from the Bishop of

Rochester about how he hopes that the News of the World scandal will

be a turning point in press history. It has seen the M20 turned into a

giant lorry park, leading at times to weeks of delays and frustration

for drivers in Kent. Operation Stack is a problem the authorities

have struggled to resolve. A today a meeting has taken place to

discuss other options to manage the backlog of traffic on the M20 when

cross-Channel sailings are disrupted. Between April last year

and May this year op operation stack had to be implemented three

times. The year before the lorrys were parked on six different

occasions and between r between 2008 and 2009 it was put into force

ten time, including the longest ever implementation of Operation

Stack, which lasted for nearly three weeks. Operation Stack is a

police and multi-agency response to congestion caused at the ports.

What that means for us if you track back 2008 it cost �2 million to put

it on. Every time I do that, on behalf of Kent Police, it means I

am committing resources to doing that, when we put it on we move

officers from local policing officers out to the motorway to be

able to put it on. So what from the options? Kent County Council wants

to build a lorry park at Aldington. Earlier this year they were dealt a

blow after the Government announced it wouldn't pay for it. The

Campaign to Protect Rural England has suggested an ambitious plan to

build a lorry park in the sea off the Kent coast but reclaiming land

at Dover. The MP for Folkstone & Hythe has suggested a network of

smaller scale parks alongside the M20. I think something we will take

to ministers is whether there should be a review of a lot of the

planning rules that have ruled certain sites out this is a piece

of national infrastructure so maybe we should look at national planning

guidelines and see if that can speed the process up and bring into

play other parking sites. business correspondent was at the

meeting and he is in Dover for us now. Mark, did anything specific

emerge from this meeting today?. think three main points. One is

this idea that planning regulations could help create a permanent lorry

park or a number of temporary ones to relieve the problems. Secondly,

once any strikes or bad weather is over, it is how do we get it on to

the ferries as past as -- fast as possible. How do you pay for

Operation Stack? And this idea that perhaps foreign hauliers could be

charged, a tax for that, and a number of ideas round that are in

front of Government at the moment. Really, those are the three main

points. Thank you. Representatives from the group that met today will

be pressurising the Department of Transport for a decision, they plan

to meet again before the end of the year. Coming up in a moment. The

Open starts next week. How our local boys are preparing for the

Now today saw the final launch of a space shuttle from the Kennedy

Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida. It will be the 135th and

last mission o of the 30yeerd year programme. Aus naught Piers Sellers

was there to watch Atlantis take off. He joins us live now from

Florida. Pierce, good of you to be be with us. You have flown in three

shuttle missions. You must have had some mixed emotions today. I did. I

did. I was very glad to see a safe and successful launch of my

favourite shuttle. And it is a tribute to everybody here they have

managed to get it more or less on time. Maybe just over a minute late.

Did you have your heart in your mouth a bit, when the clock stopped

at 31 seconds, thinking, perhaps it is not going to go off today?

could imagine the moans in the cockpit. This happened a few times

we have stopped at 31 seconds, and you know, generally that it is for

the day, because it is too little time to sort it out. The ground

team fixed it and moved back into the count. You have been in space

and there aren't many people who can say that. What does it feel

like launching in the shuttle? is quite a ride. When you launching

you get this huge push in your back and then everything in the cockpit

is thrashed round, it's a very rough ride for the first two

minutes. You look out the window and the sky goes from tpwhrue black

quickly and as you go out of of the atmosphere, you get mashed back in

your seat for another six minutes, more and more pressure on your body,

up to 3G, right up to eight-and-a- half minutes, at which point you

are going five miles a second, which is very fast. That the point

the main gins cut off and you go from being pushed into your seat to

zero G. Everything is floating. Thank you for being with us. Thank

you. A man from Kent and his wife have been sentenced in connection

with Europe's biggest illegal veterinary medicine visit. Ronald

Meddes and his wife Regine Lansley sold unauthorised medicines from

warehouses in Kent and Belgium. The trade netted more than �6 million

and the scam came the light after customers -- customs made large see

shuefrs drugs at Ashford and Dover. Special rail fares for London 2012

Olympic spectators have gone on sale. Tickets are designed to be

flexible to allow passengers to change the time they return, should

an event be rescheduled. Two Sussex police officers who risked their

lives after an explosion at a fireworks factory have been

rewarded for their courage. Sergeant Dan Pitcher and PC Dave

Upjohn were called to the Ringmer fireworks fire in 2006. Both men

pulled a seriously injured man to safety, as the factory was about to

explode. We weren't expecting anything else to happen, so very

proud. Likewise, and as I said, our thoughts go out to especially in

this instance to the family of the two firefighters that died as a

result of the fireworks factory, and without a doubt we are humbled.

The Bishop of Rochester, one of the most senior figures in the Church

of England has said that he hopes revelations surrounding the News of

the World will lead to a change in the way the press operates. In the

public's demands for salacious stories. The Right Reverend James

Langstaff is calling on the public and newspaper editors to think

again about the type of stories they run and the methods they use

to get them. Our social affairs correspondent reports. Expose says

and gossip. Crime and tragedy. It is all there in the tabloids but

the closure of the News of the World is leading to some people

hoping there will be an effect on the newspapers and society. A move

towards less of a hung foretabloid- style scandal Some of the anguish

and scandal over the present situation is that it is vulnerable

people it seems who have been targeted, who have had their phones

hacked. And that, if society begins to react against that, that could

be something good. But the News of the World became the biggest

selling Sunday paper because people liked its exclusive, revelations

insider knowledge and style. Only how some journalists got their

scoops it is argued is what should change For nearly 170 years the

world was the world's most successful newspaper. It gave the

British public the entertaining, light-hearted titillation they want

on a Sunday. That is good. We shouldn't want to stop that. We

should, however, want to stop newspapers doing things which are

immoral and illegal. People today mostly thought there would be

little change. Obviously there is thicks going on in the background,

that like obviously you don't see every day and whatever, and it has

brought it out in the open, but yeah, it's going on everywhere

isn't it. It doesn't matter to me. It is just a comic any way isn't it.

Who cares? I think it is disgusting what has happened, you know, them

getting into phones and things like that. I don't think it is right.

But I do think it will change people's minds about papers now.

probably won't change. It will make no difference. I will blow over and

something else will happen, so, it won't be the last of it. Everyone

wants it to change. It will be sales figures which ultimately

It is just gone 6.40. The former senior Kent Police officer says

leaks to the News of the World may have put officers at risk. Nick

Bidis who was investigating the M25 road rage murder in 1996 claims

that the paper named their chief suspect, Kenneth Noye, before it

had become public knowledge. Also in the programme. The Kent magician

who has dreamed up a new plan for getting to Las Vegas. We will talk

to Richard Bellars in the studio. Still larking round. How you can

visit the locations of the Darling Buds of May 20 years on. Six months

ago he tried to trick the legendary American illusionists Penn and

Teller on their programme Fool Us but he narrowly failed. So he is

brave or foolish to give it another go tomorrow in a bid to be their

support act in Las Vegas. In a moment he will explain why he is

doing it again and how his trick came to him in a dream. Please

welcome from Tunbridge Wells Richard Bellars. My skills in the

art of brainwash. Against your Poker Face. Go back to one and

repeat that process. Look at that card. Remember the card. Close your

eyes and close the deck. Have you got one in your mind? In a nice

loud voice which card are you thinking of. Ten of hearts. No way!

Richard is with us now. Why, why did you want do it again? It was

more to gain the respect from my peers really. Going on and not

fooling them to that extent was not embarrassing but I knew I could do

better. So you have dreamed up a trick I kind of, it was, haunting

me a bit the last one, so I had some dreams where I was dreaming up

a routine, and woke up and figured I had to make it a reality. 1.00 in

the morning, scribbling ideas and it came together. Like all the best

practising noefrs things you started small, didn't you. I was

this big when I started! In height as well as, you were going to show

us. Yes, this thing. This is the first trick you learned I loved

sweets as a kid. I never used to buy cards, I used to buy sweets.

The idea is, we will do it on this one. Pop it on there. The idea if

you close your hand round that band to make a fist and I put this on

this side of the band, there is technically no way past your hand

or through the band. Houdini used to get out of locks and escape from

just about anything. How did do you that? That was the first trick I

learned as a kid. I did it at school. Got more sweets. So it is

all about the sweets You do it if your own hand. You see as you rub

it, it vanish completely. Hang on, where has it gone? Look at that.

He's good. He's good. You are a dab hand at card trick, because I know

you brought your pack along. We were so impressed last time, that

we want to see some more. Yeah, sure. Last time I did a trick, you

picked a card and I found it and stuff. That is the standard way.

I'm going to try a different way this time. Normally you would take

one out and hide it. This is different. I am going to spread

them out. Look at a card. Once you have seen it look back up but keep

a Poker Face on. So pick a card. Look, see and come back up. Both of

you. OK. Got one. Yeah. I am going try and get both. Yours is red,

yes? Let me finish or black. Yourzs red. Yes. I am getting confused. It

was one of the higher cards. A diamond. Was it a picture card.

King of diamonds. Yours was black, yours is a lower one. A club. Yes

Really low. Two Two? It was. There is no two of clubs. Hang on, what

has he done with them? So, Penn and Teller, you want to get to Las

Vegas, do you think what you have done this time is going to take you

there? I have a better chance, because I wrote it from scratch. It

is not something they could have seen before, they can work it out.

They are clever guys but I have given myself the best chance.

luck, tomorrow night. We will be watching. Now, over the weekend

many of the competitors at the year's Open Golf will begin to

arrive in Kent. Joining the world's best professionals will be two

local golfers looking at their first chance to take on the likes

of Rory McIlroy. Andy Smith has never practised so hard before. He

knows the next few days could change his life forever. A few

months ago his career appeared over, a serrys you operation forced him

to stop playing. His sponsor pulled out and he started doing odd job,

but a friend paid for him to try to qualify and he set off with a bag

of borrowed clubs. What happened next surprised almost everybody

Matt in the shop here rang me, in Greece and said, "Have you heard?"

I said what is going on. He said "Andise got through." We fell to

pieces. Andy will travel down on Sunday, determined to enjoy every

moment I am probably there because I had no expectations this time and

didn't know what was going to happen. So it is just, a seriously

good feeling. Francis is equally as excited by the prospect of Micking

with the world's best player, especially as he will do so almost

literally on his doorstep. His father owned a golf club near the

course. Last week I was there, and I thought I was pretty much done,

come back this week and I thought "Blimey they have done loads more."

It is very busy. The Open has thrown up unlikely winners. Ben

Curtis was almost unknown when he lifted the title in 2003. Andy and

Francis I know they are unlikely to emulate him but being there will be

the high light of their golfing lives. It is getting close. I am

excited. 20 years ago this summer, pop -- Pop and Ma Larkin and their

brood of children appeared on our screens in The Darling Buds of May.

The series was more popular than Eastenders and Coronation Street

when it aired in 1991. It was predomnandly filmed in the village

of Pluckley. Today a new visitor centre has been opened. It was set

in an idyllic rural Kent of the 1950s. HB Bates wrote the novel

which inspired the series, a series produced by his son. Bates moved to

Kent with his wife and was looking for inspiration for a novel, when

he stopped outside a village shop to buy sweets. Quick, quick! Hand

them round. No extra licks on the way! Out of the shop came this

extraordinary family, with ice- creams and crisps and so on, and

they piled into this great big blue truck and disappeared on the

horizon. That was his first and only glimpse of the Larkin family,

as he called them. That was his inspiration, that was his starting

point. Roger lived with his parent tons farm used as the Larkin family

home. After three years of filming, he became very friendly with the

cast. David Jason restores old motorcycles so we had something in

common. I was restoring an old car at time with my father, he used to

come down, and say "You haven't done much to it this time" or say

"Wow a lot of progress this time." The farm was used as one of the

major location and it was outside this building here that Charlie

first laid eyed on Mariette. Hello. I spot yod first. Now a trail is

encouraging people to visit. The tour will take do you Larkin's farm,

the pub where they drank and the church where they got married.

hope visitor also come and do The Darling Buds of May trail and see

some of those places, but at the same time enjoy some of the new

things that we can offer today, and relive perhaps some of that lovely

romantic period captured in the TV programme. The trail will be

available to download from Kent on 15th July. But what we need is

15th July. But what we need is glorious sunshine. Lara? Yes at the

time on a Friday night the pressure is really on to tell you something

exciting. Don't get me wrong, the weeged isn't looking bad, it is

just not particularly thrilling. Tonight, it will be a wet picture,

but after that things are clearing up. A lot of cloud cover round

though. As you can see, today there has been a fair bit of cloud. You

will have seen that by looking out your window, but we are seeing

clearer spots, so this evening pleasant evening sunshine, the next

couple of hours are looking all right. After that there is trouble

on its way. As you can see here, a bit of shadow along the south coast.

Now that is where we see the next weather system creep in from the

Continent. With it, there will be some rather heavy rain,

particularly round coastal parts, up to 25 millimetres falling. But

by the time most of us are awake, that rain should have stopped. It

is remaining mild, both temperatures down 12 degrees.

Tomorrow morning, still a few showers in the wake of that rain,

they could be heavy and thundery, but after that, just quite a lot of

cloud cover. Temperatures tomorrow getting up to about 21 degrees at

their highest. The odd shower still not far away, so Surrey and east

sus -- Sussex could see a somehow ur. It will be breezy there as well.

Generally, just a rather cloudy picture. Now, by tomorrow night,

any of those showers should have crept away, a fair bit of cloud

cover, meaning overnight those temperatures not dropping too low.

Down to about 12 degrees, and Sunday, well, it is going to be

rather cloudy picture. High pressure, setting out in the

Atlantic, that means things are generally dry, a bit of wet weather

in the north, but here it will be a drier picture, not a huge amount of

sunshine but the temperatures remaining constant over the next

few days and enjoy the dry weather because by Tuesday it is looking

wet again. Let us look at the main headline. The former editor of the

News of the World Andy Coulson has been arrested by police

investigating the allegations of phone hacking. Tonight the Bishop

of Rochester has said that he hopes the public will think again about

the types of stories they want. Lots of you have been e-mailing us.

One says "We get the journalism we deserve, because people do keep

buying these trashy paper, and enjoy the scandal, the stories and

the dirty details. The tabloids were invented in the Victorian era,

it is your enthuse yusm that pushes journalists to go too far." "It is

a seven situation -- sensation list and morally corrupt industry." I

believe Joe Public is to blame. "People have obviously been willing

to buy the News of the World because it has been the best

selling Sunday paper, so a lot of people are getting the journalism