06/04/2017 South Today

Hello and welcome to South Today, I'm Anjana Gadgil.

The top stories this evening: No more going on a term time holiday -

the ramifications as an Isle of Wight

father loses his case at the Supreme Court.

anguish, as the man who climbed into his daughter's bed is found not

And veterans reunited as one of the most terrifying weapons

of the Second World War goes on display in Dorset.

It's a case with ramifications for parents across the country.

Isle of Wight father, Jon Platt, lost his legal challenge

today against a fine for taking his daughter on an

The Supreme Court ruled against Mr Platt, who had won

earlier legal battles against what started as a ?60 fine.

in a case brought by the Isle of Wight Council.

It means, after two years, the case will now be returned

The Isle of Wight has long been on the map as a holiday destination

but in the last two years, it is the foreign holiday plans

of one island family which have hit the headlines.

In 2015, Jon Platt refused to pay a fine for taking his daughter

to Florida during term time, winning his case at the Magistrates

and High Court, arguing despite the holiday her overall

attendance was regular, as required by the law.

I looked at the legislation and it said children must attend frequently

and I made the decision that my child had done.

And the one decision I made was not to pay that penalty notice

and I was taken to court and everything that's happened

His company normally handles PPI claims but since the publicity over

the case they have had hundreds of cases from parents

Crowdfunded money has successfully been used to challenge fines

for term time holidays around the country.

I was shocked at how many people it has affected.

And the situations people are in where they are being refused

time off for their children and the reasons to me seem

Now the process of overturning fines has been stopped in its tracks.

The Supreme Court ruled today regular attendance means

in accordance with school rules, meaning a good overall

attendance is not a defence for unauthorised absence.

Jon Platt said it was a shocking decision.

The issue is no longer, if it ever was, about turn time holiday.

It is the state taking the right of parents away when it

comes to making decisions about their children.

You cannot take your child away from school without permission.

You can't say it is all right if you attend 95%

Take a child away from school for a day and you risk

The council said the judge provided clarity for what constitutes regular

It was echoed by the Department for Education, saying that it

But on the island there is much support for the local father

The prices that tourist companies charge you for taking kids on school

As long as you're not doing it every week, take them,

There should be a certain amount of time that parents are allowed

Jon Platt must go back to the Magistrates Court.

If convicted he faces a ?1000 fine and a criminal record.

Teaching unions applauded the Supreme Court's decision -

one local member told us the focus now has to be on making holidays

And speaking a few hours after the verdict, Jon Platt said

he stood by his decision to take his daughter out of school.

Taking your children on a family holiday correlates positively

If every absence had the same negative impact

on children's education, that would justify never taking,

the school never taking them to a museum or a library.

All absences are not the same, and the impact that they have

on children's attainment is not the same.

And family holidays, the DfE research shows,

children with up to 20 days' absence do better than children with none.

It's an average 60% price rise in holidays during school holidays.

This is really where we think the focus of this

To regulate the holiday companies and put something in place

Because it's punishing working families trying

to take their children on what are very valuable holidays.

A man who broke into a house in Weymouth and climbed into bed

with a six-year-old girl has been found not guilty of sexually

Jervaise Kevin Jones was asleep in the bed when police arrived.

He maintained throughout that he had not interfered with the girl.

The case centred on the events that took place early one morning

in a terraced house in Weymouth last October.

In court there was no dispute that the 26-year-old

Jervaise Kevin Jones had broken into a house and got

The question at the heart of the trial was whether he had

Today, after deliberating for almost four hours the jury found him not

guilty of sexually assaulting a child under the age of 13 and not

guilty of trespassing with intent to commit a sexual offence.

For legal reasons the girl and her family cannot be identified.

Her father spoke to us after hearing the not guilty verdict.

His words are spoken by a BBC journalist.

It's something we're feeling very deeply.

It's not something that's going to go away.

The court was told police found Jervaise Jones asleep

and naked from the waist down when they arrived at the house.

He had been out drinking in Weymouth and said he had no recollection

The jury heard he had a series of previous convictions for theft,

Defence barrister Nick Robinson said Mr Jones had not committed any

He told the jury it was remarkable that none of Mr Jones's DNA

Next Monday, in a separate and unrelated case, he is due to be

sentenced for drug offences and an assault

One person has been arrested on suspicion of human trafficking

and six men have been arrested on suspicion of being illegal

entrants following an incident on the M27 in Hampshire.

Police were called to junction two near Cadnam at 6:20 tonight.

It was one of the most terrifying weapons of the Second World War.

And today an exhibition opened in Dorset featuring

the German Tiger Tank and the people who manned them.

To mark the event, four veterans from that conflict,

two German and two British, had an extraordinary meeting.

It is wonderful we can meet like this 70 years afterwards.

The men here today know the Tiger Tank inside and out.

He drove one with the seventh Panzer division.

Ernest fought against them after D-Day.

When we heard it on the radio, there was a Tiger around,

TRANSLATION: It was a very impressive tank.

Much more advanced than other designs.

It was the bees knees when it came to technology.

Such was the fear of the Tiger in Dorset,

Britain developed a special version of the American Sherman tank,

squeezing in an extra powerful British gun into the turret.

Ken helped to accrue one of the so-called Sherman Fireflys.

I was in action when one of the Fireflys knocked out three

The man in the Tiger Tank was still in danger.

TRANSLATION: Even in a Tiger you always had fear for your life.

Those who said they were not frightened were lying.

For these men, who knew it on the battlefield,

It was a secret guilt of those who had been in the front line

and therefore knew that when a man was surrendering, you were probably

responsible for doing to his comrades what he had been

TRANSLATION: It is a shame we could not have this

That's all from the South Today news team this evening.

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

Here is our regional weather forecast.

Are we actually going to get the warmest weather at the weekend this

week? We certainly are. Temperatures are on the up, even into the 20s by

Sunday. That'll be the warmest day of the week. Tonight, quite chilly

with clear skies and fairly light winds. Last temperatures dropped to

just below 1 degrees in Dorset, but tonight we are expecting very

similar temperatures. These are temperatures in urban areas. It will

feel chilly in the countryside first thing tomorrow morning. Plenty of

sunshine throughout the day, the wind will be light and variable and

through the afternoon we could see temperatures reach a high of around

15, maybe 16 Celsius, similar to what we had today. But the wind will

be slightly lighter, particularly in the land. That is where we will have

saw Mr Bridges. Cooler on the coast with the sea breeze and three Isle

of Wight as well. Tomorrow night, the cloud increases in places, but

we're mostly looking at clear skies. High-pressure pulls away towards the

near continent through Saturday. That means we will draw in some warm

out coming from Spain and through France. The southerly breeze will

make it feel very warm through Saturday afternoon. More so on

Sunday, because Sunday because he temperatures reached 20, maybe 20 to

Celsius. Coastal stretches will be cooler with the increasing breeze on

Sunday. to rise into the weekend. We'll see

22 Celsius on Sunday. Hello. There was some warm sunshine

around today, but it's set to get even warmer this weekend. 18 Celsius

in London this afternoon. This was the scene in Chiswick, much quieter

than it was on Sunday for the boat race. Under the cloud for example

here in Cumbria, temperatures struggled to make double figures.

Through the night we're going to hang onto a lot of cloud across

north-west England, North Wales, Northern Ireland and western

Scotland, where there will be a bit of drizzle on the breeze. Zero skies

across many southern and eastern parts of England, together with