28/02/2017 South East Today

Here in the South East tonight: Family of a Sussex man found dead

in Thailand tells of their fears that he was murdered.

And disappointment for Brighton, losing their top-of-the-table clash

We'll be live at the Amex stadium with reaction.

Ladettes a cloudy and drive started the day tomorrow, turning wet the

afternoon. -- it is a cloudy and drives start.

The brother of a man found dead in Thailand says he fears he may

have been murdered and wants more done to investigate what happened.

Andrew Apperley, from Eastbourne, sent messages to his friends

and family before his death claiming people wanted to kill him.

The 38-year-old travelled to a Full-Moon party on the island

of Ko Pha Ngan and was reported missing four days later.

British police are liaising with Thai authorities over his death.

Andy Apperley's tragic death in Thailand has

The body of the 38-year-old chef and landlord from Eastbourne

was discovered last week on a beach on the island of Ko Pha Ngan.

His brother, though, believes messages sent by Andy prior

I've got to investigate as his brother.

I've been looking at the computer for days and days, running a social

media campaign and I'm not going to go away.

This has gone global so this is not going to go away,

Andy Apperley sent a series of increasingly incoherent messages

to friends before he disappeared, including one that

said OMG, had a mad night, all the guys wanting kill me.

In another message, he said tripping out,

My mum has lost her husband three years ago and now

It's created a big loss in our lives and he leaves

Andy, who had been staying at this hotel on Ko Samui, told friends

he was going to a party on the neighbouring island.

Thereafter contact with him was lost.

I knew he was going to a party so I was not worried but then the

next day we started to pick up more messages

and we had a phone call from the Foreign Ministry

saying his possessions were still in the hotel.

Then we started to act on that immediately.

Andy's body was found last Wednesday morning, floating in the sea

Foreign Office officials are supporting the family

The family are now considering flying out to Thailand,

frustrated that so little has been said to them almost a week

Our reporter Lauren Moss is here with me now.

We heard there in Pier's report that the family are calling for more

The authorities are conducting their own investigation into the death. As

part of that, his body has been taken to the Thai mainland where a

postmortem will be carried out. Those results are likely to

influence any investigation. A investigation is set to be arranged.

The company which runs Southern Rail has warned profits could be hit

by up to ?15 million as a result of nearly a year

Go-Ahead has apologised for the disruption caused

by the dispute with the Aslef and RMT unions over

The RMT has announced another 24-hour walkout

A former police chief has urged the Government to ban drones

from entering controlled airspace around major airports

Lord Stevens, who's a former Metropolitan Police Commissioner,

told the Lords it was an answer to the problem of near-misses with

It comes as the Government launches a consultation on drone regulation.

A Sussex motorist whose ?40,000 Jaguar car was stolen

from his driveway has branded police "unbelievable",

after he claims he was told to investigate the crime himself.

Kevin Standing's car vanished from outside his home in Patcham

He claims Sussex Police told him "swathes" of crimes are not

being investigated - in order to save money to cope

Our News Correspondent Mark Norman reports.

As luxury cars go, the Jaguar XF is right up there.

And you actually look out the window in the morning and

you can't believe what you are seeing.

And there ought to be a Jaguar sitting here

So you phoned the police, you expected them to come

I assumed that you would report it and at some point the patrol would

turn up and take details and have a look where it was.

But they didn't turn up so Kevin called them yesterday

morning and found out they weren't going to investigate because there

It made me wonder why I paid my Council Tax.

A lot of that goes towards the police.

When you need them they are not there.

And then the third body blow, as it were, you

get this letter in the post today?

this arrived in the post this morning.

This will be the last contact you will have from Sussex

This crime is now classified as closed.

It basically says to the car thieves in Sussex, please carry on stealing

cars because there's very little chance you're going to get caught.

Sussex Police told Kevin that they would keep the number

plates on their computer system and they told

They told us that they focus their efforts on the crimes which cause

It would seem to imply that if you haven't got any

obvious leads you're not going to follow it up.

I don't think we should be afraid of saying that.

If there are there not any lines of enquiry

I think it is proportionate and it is beholden on us that we

serve all of the public by making sure we investigate whether there

are risks, where there are victims and that the enquiry

is proportionate and effective as a result.

So, no tracker in the car, no CCTV, no investigation.

Kevin's insurance company are now dealing with this claim.

Football and the top two in the Championship have gone

head-to-head at the Amex tonight, with Brighton hoping to take another

big step towards promotion to the Premier League.

It started well - Brighton took the lead after 14 minutes

Glenn Murray was pulled to the ground

but got up to fire in his 17th goal of the season.

But in the second half Newcastle drew level

with a big slice of luck - Diame deflecting the ball

And then with two minutes of normal time left,

Perez was left unmarked in the box to score the winner for Newcastle.

Our reporter John Young was at the game and joins us now

Not what most of the crowd there would have wanted.

I think that was heard to say, that was not in the script. The huge

match, huge atmosphere and disappointing result. Things were

going according to plan but then came to a shuddering halt ten

minutes from the end. Let's have another look at that goal. Call it

bad luck, the comedy of errors, bad goalkeeping, call it what you like.

It is not what the Brighton fans wanted to see. Many left before the

match was finished. Some were philosophical and some less so. Here

were the broadcaster Bob Betts. -- broadcasting bits.

The bus and defended well. Good first half. Quite flat in the second

half. Not really good. I'm sure some of the other views

were more robust but it is not all doom and gloom as there are another

12 games to go. Yes, let's put this into

perspective. If you look at the fixture list, that is giving each

year. Newcastle have the tough fixture list ahead of them and their

Seagulls have more straightforward matches to come. No panic.

Meanwhile, it was a bad night for all of our other league teams.

Charlton Ahtletic lost 4-3 away at Shrewsbury and Gillingham went

While in League Two Crawley suffered a 2-1 defeat at home to Exeter.

That's it from me but before we go let's get a check on the South East

Quite changeable over the next couple of days. There was some

brightness earlier. We started Seymour cloud around and all of us

were seeing some rain for a time in the afternoon. We start tomorrow dry

with rain by the afternoon and have this chilly westerly wind. Tonight,

more rain for a time. That he sees its way eastwards and behind it

temperatures are hovering above freezing thanks to the winds only

dropping the rain will potentially be heavy

at times in the afternoon. It is going to be feeling cooler with the

wind and the rain. On Thursday we will lose that rain. It is breezy

and mild. Here is the outlook Good evening. We are about to head

into March, the days are getting longer, but are they getting any

warmer? Not really. We will get there in the end, but we will have

to be patient, not very springlike at the moment. Some showers

scattered around across England and Wales will tend to diminish in

number, a few left behind, wintry showers across the north of

Scotland, snow at low-level is, ice as well as temperatures fall close

to freezing. A cold night with a touch of frost in a number of

places. Plenty of sunshine across southern areas first of all, but it

will not last, rain spilling from the south, the best brightness and

eventually further north across the UK. Mostly fine afternoon to come

across northern areas,