13/02/2017 South Today

A ten-year-old boy has died at a shopping centre

after a heavy piece of furniture fell on him.

The cost of care, a Hampshire man calls on

the government to give more financial support

And we go from four Celsius last week to a

I'll have the weather for the week ahead shortly.

A ten-year-old boy has died after an incident

at the Oracle shopping centre in Reading.

It happened at the Topshop store this afternoon.

Our reporter David Allard joins me now.

This very sad incident has happened on the first day of half term.

What we know is that South Central Ambulance Service

were called to Topshop on the upper mall of the Oracle this afternoon

We're told a 10-year-old boy suffered serious head injuries

after an incident involving store furniture.

We don't know exactly what happened, some reports suggest some sort

of barrier fell on him, but that's not been confirmed.

The boy was taken from the Oracle to the Royal Berkshire hospital

Thames Valley Police tell us at this stage his death is being treated

as "unexplained but non-suspicious" and they are making

With incidents of this nature the Health and Safety Executive may

well carry out their own investigation too.

This may bring back unwelcome memories of an incident

at the Hugo Boss store in Bicester village in 2013, when four-year-old

Austen Harrison died after a large mirror toppled onto him.

In that case the store was fined more than a million pounds.

As to this tragedy at the Oracle, we expect more details to emerge

Dealing with the loss of a loved one to Alzheimer's is traumatic enough.

But meeting the spiralling costs of care for that person

Now a Hampshire man is setting up a petition calling

for a parliamentary debate on the issue.

Peter McManus had to find nearly ?400,000 to pay for the care

We met at Oxford where we were both undergraduates in the early '60s.

Three years later, we got married and started a family.

In her 60s, Margaret began to lose her memory.

She went for a brain scan and that confirmed that in fact

Margaret went into a home, it cost ?4000 a month.

Repeated assessments always gave the same answer,

Margaret was said to need social care, not medical care,

meaning Peter was the one who had to pay.

So, she lacked mobility, she was doubly incontinent, as is usual

with Alzheimer's, all this time, of course, she had to be fed.

She couldn't do anything for herself.

which are fairly typical of advanced Alzheimer's,

despite having all those, she still wasn't considered

to have a primary medical need.

No one is denying the system is unfair.

In 2011, the government's Dilnot Commission said there

should be a ?72,000 cap on care costs.

These measures would have shielded around 100,000 older people

from large bills, especially those with complex care needs.

But in the face of huge cost, the government

has delayed bringing in the changes until 2020.

She was in care in total for just under eight years.

And the total bill ended up just under ?400,000.

Today, Peter launched an online petition in the hope of

forcing a Parliamentary debate on the issue.

It is something that the Alzheimer's Society also says is deeply unfair.

You know, the strain of having a wife or husband or a

mother or father with Alzheimer's is a terrific strain in itself.

Add to that the strain of wondering how on

earth you're ever going to cope with paying up to ?50,000 each year,

Well, a little earlier Chrissy Sturt joined me to look further

into the questions raised by all this.

I started by asking if Peter having to pay a huge amount

to cover his wife's care is an extreme example?

Laura, it is actually becoming more common.

It costs up to ?1500 a week to keep somebody with dementia in a care

home so you can see how those costs can quickly rise

and the better care somebody is receiving, the longer

they are likely to live, meaning that families end up paying

out much longer than perhaps they first anticipated.

Now, the Alzheimer's Society has told us that they are

They have heard of lots of similar cases.

They say no one should have to spend everything they have for their care.

The proposals made by the government-backed

Dilnot Commission have fallen by the wayside, it is essential

that the government must now show leadership

and provide much-needed new money,

alongside working to create long-lasting plans which

And, Chrissy, is there any help that people can get?

Yes, today we've spoken to financial advisers who

specialise in helping people meet elderly care costs.

They have told us that it is possible to purchase a

care fee payment plan which comes with certain tax breaks and makes

But ultimately ministers are going to have to look again at the

recommendations of the Dilnot Commission.

They involve big sums of money, ?6 billion over five years,

huge sums of money, daunting for any government.

A third person has been arrested after a man was shot

He's now in a critical condition in hospital.

Armed police were called to the incident in Athena Avenue,

just before one o'clock this morning.

A 37-year-old man and 38-year-old woman are being held on suspicion

Tonight, a 31-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion

The leader of West Berkshire council has been seriously injured

and his wife has been killed in a car crash.

Roger and Zelda Croft from Thatcham were travelling in France

Mr Croft is in a stable condition in hospital.

His deputy, Councillor Graham Jones, will assume the role of council

A so called "Dad's Navy" of former sailors is being sought to fill key

posts on Portsmouth's new aircraft carriers and other ships

because of a shortage of skilled personnel.

With its ships, submarines and aircraft, the Royal Navy needs a lot

But it's been facing a skills shortage and to plug the gaps,

some people over the age of 60 could be allowed to serve.

Here in Portsmouth, the home of the Royal Navy,

people I spoke to today said they don't think that's a problem.

I think it's sad that they haven't got

the people that are coming in the bottom as

engineers to do it but obviously the experience

All those old seaman that are drifting

around at the moment doing nothing could be back on warships doing

If they were trained appropriately, they knew what

They've got skills and experience, yeah.

The Royal Navy and Marines have a current strength of 29500 men,

The Navy should have 6940 engineering

An advertising campaign was launched last September to try

The Navy is offering trained ex-regulars

It says there will be opportunities to

serve on the new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers and

And with the imminent arrival of the first

of the new aircraft carriers, the Navy's engineers face a very

Steve Humphrey, BBC South Today, Portsmouth.

Onto football and Bournemouth were hoping to end a run of bad form

with their first win of 2017, at home to Manchester

Unfortunately, the visitors took the lead on the half hour

as Raheem Sterling tapped in a cross.

Bournemouth then had a Josh King goal disallowed

after the ref spotted him pulling John Stones' shirt.

In the second half, Tyrone Mings deflected a shot

Final score Bournemouth 0, Manchester City 2

We're back tomorrow with bulletins in BBC Breakfast and there's more

We're welcoming some milder weather.

That is right. A chilly week last week. This week is a little less

cold. It is good news for those who do not like the cold weather.

Overnight tonight, expecting a fair amount of power. This week generally

a lot of cloud. There will be some brightness here and there. The

chance of patchy light rain as well. Tonight will stay mainly dry with a

good deal of cloud bit where we have clearing skies, the lighter winds by

dawn, temperatures will fall around to freezing. Some patchy frost is

possible tomorrow morning. That cloud will disperse birthing to

allow this sunshine before the cloud thickens once again and we will see

outbreaks of rain moving from the south-west. The wind is fairly light

tomorrow, Devon to 11 Celsius. Outbreaks of rain will continue

tomorrow evening at overnight tomorrow night. Some clearer skies

but temperatures will be fairly high. Quite a mild night to come

tomorrow night, maybe Mr fog patches first thing on Wednesday morning.

Tomorrow night, down to around six or seven Celsius. To start the day

on Wednesday, quite a lot of cloud and we will start with that theme, a

cloudy start, drier interludes. Temperatures will be to high as ten

to 11 Celsius. You can see the winds are surely changing direction from

south easterly airflow to a more southerly and south westerly airflow

as we had to the week. That means storing in some other air from the

Atlantic. High pressure is not far away. The high pressure continues to

building through Friday and into the weekend as well. Thursday, we are

looking at a fair amount of cloud, brighter spells but mainly dry with

the high pressure dominating our weather. That high pressure will

stay with us through because of Friday daytime, some brighter spells

but also the chance we could have some patchy rain. Temperatures on

Friday, nine to 10 Celsius. Through the weekend, it should be mainly

dry, the Knights will be chilly. The chance of frost in the morning. It

will be meld each day. Temperatures will stay in double figures

throughout the at the weekend it will be mild.

Largely dry, perhaps a wind -- windy at