13/04/2017 South Today

Hello and welcome to South Today, I'm Edward Sault.

The top stories this evening: Two teenage athletes killed

A six-year sentence for the drunk soldier who sped

Plus the online adverts targeting vulnerable people by offering free

And there will be a lot of dry weather this Easter

weekend with some sunshine but possible rain.

A soldier who killed two promising teenage athletes in Aldershot

while drunk behind the wheel has been jailed for six years.

Stacey Burrows and Lucy Pygott died after being knocked down

at a traffic crossing as they prepared for a training run.

Michael Casey admitted causing death by dangerous driving.

Teenagers Lucy Pygott and Stacey Burrows were both

They were killed doing what they did best and tragically before

everything they'd been tipped to achieve in the world

The pair had been warming up on Queens Avenue in Aldershot ahead

of a training run when they were hit by serving soldier 24-year-old

This is a truly tragic case which has had an unimaginable impact

on everyone who knew Stacey and Lucy.

Both girls had such promising futures ahead of them but these have

been so cruelly ripped away because of Mr Casey's stupidity and

17-year-old Lucy from Hartley Wintney had recently been

awarded a bronze medal in the European Youth Championships

and 16-year-old Stacey from Farnborough was the Hampshire

Today, Lucy's mother, Lisa, told the court how the girls

had Olympic potential, but that Casey had robbed

the country of medals and two young girls of their lives.

Well, earlier, I asked Elisa how this accident happened.

It was on 8th November last year when the two girls were trying

Michael Casey had drunk three pints and a spirit and got behind

He became distracted by something in the footwell of his car.

And when he looked up, he realised the traffic light was red.

All of a sudden, he heard an impact, looked up and realised

A friend that was with them at the time had spotted that the car

wasn't going to stop - he was driving 40 mph

in a 30-mph limit - shouted at them to run as fast

as they could, but they just didn't make it in time.

Tragically, Tracey's father heard the crash,

ran outside and was told it was Stacey.

The families have been very critical about the length of this

Yes, they were absolutely devastated by it.

In the court today, they read out their impact statements

and Lucy's mother said, "The British Army trains

"Mr Casey killed with his loaded weapon of a hot hatch car.

"He chose to put the key in the ignition, he chose to turn

"the key, he chose to break the speed limit, he chose to drive

"through a red light, all while being drunk."

Casey was banned from driving for ten years and his nine-year jail

term was reduced to six because of his guilty plea.

He probably will only serve three and Stacey's

mother cried out in court, "I won't get my daughter back

Elisa Mitchell in Aldershot, thank you.

Young, vulnerable people in Sussex are being targeted by online

classified adverts offering them accommodation in exchange for sex.

The BBC has discovered that men are legally using the ads

on websites like CraigsList, including in the Worthing area.

I had no idea what I was getting into.

He took me into his living room, got me drinks and then, after that,

it was straight upstairs and go for it.

Vulnerable and desperate for a roof over her head.

Gemma answered a sex for rent online advert.

He would do what he wanted to do forcefully, and I just

These are some of the offers we found openly placed

on a classified ad site - free accommodation,

I was thinking once a week, something like that.

I spoke with six men posting adverts in the south-east.

All wanted photos of me before they spoke on the phone.

All were clear how the arrangement would work.

These are real conversations voiced by actors.

Well, you agree, sort of a couple of times a week,

As far as the apartment's concerned, it's completely

as if we're flatmates - so all the bills, the rent, free.

And disturbingly, this is all perfectly legal.

I think these adverts go as close to the edge of the law

The trouble is, when you have a vulnerable person that

then becomes exploited, the concept of choice

There are particularly young people who are being exploited

There is an added onus on the owners of these platforms to root this out

I'm being very explicit because, if they don't accept

their responsibilty, I will be pushing for

I contacted CraigsList for comment, but they didn't get back to me.

More adverts are appearing every day.

West Sussex County Council has been accused of being too slow to recover

up to ?1 million from suppliers whose bills it may have

Much of the money has now been recovered but only after opposition

Sean Killick is outside County Hall in Chichester.

He was hired by the county council to check for bills that were

mistakenly paid out twice. In 2013, he drew up a list of 200 possible

payments that have been paid out twice over ?1 million that says the

council was not particularly helpful. Over the two years of his

contract no money was recovered. He said he was to be paid by results

that never provided details of the double payments to the council. They

did not approve of me writing the senior management but I tried all

other avenues and got nowhere. We were still with only a few weeks to

go before the end of the contract, I still had not been given or the data

are needed, and I had not had any cooperation from the outsourcer on

the validation process, so we could physically not take it forward.

So what does the council have to say?

It says Mr Rowson wouldn't share information without being paid

upfront and says they failed to agree how they would go

But I gather some of the money has now been recovered?

Last autumn, Mr Rowson gave details of eight of those payments to a Ukip

councillor who took them to the council's own

The council says it's managed to recover around ?76,000 of those

The council has now hired a new company to review

the old payments and it might recover up to ?500,000.

It has also introduced new systems to tighten up procedures and avoid

double payments. If you're going away for Easter,

here's the good news - the worst traffic jams

are already over. Now for the bad news -

large parts of the railway will be shut for engineering work

over the weekend. Some of the busiest routes

will see no trains at all. Here's our transport

correspondent, Paul Clifton. This is part of Paul Harbour. If you

look over there, you can see the railway line which is on the sea

wall. Network Rail will be repairing at the Easter, and that means no

trains between pool and were at all over the holiday period. There will

be buses instead. On services to London, the problems will be

greater. On Easter Sunday, there will be no trains in or out of

London Victoria, no Gatwick Express, it will affect all southern

services, many diverted to London Bridge. At Waterloo, new track and

signalling is being installed, there will be fewer South West trains

services and trains through the Thames Valley will be affected by

the closure of the line to Bath to Bristol. Work on the railways is

done at Easter because the number of people travelling by train drops by

half compared with a normal working week. On the roads, the opposite is

true. They are 30% busier than on a normal weekend. Where is worst? Be a

303, the M4, the 831, the 834, the usual hotspots.

Here with our regional weather forecast is Alexis.

A lot of dry weather over the Easter period. Tonight will be dry with

clear skies. For most, cloudy skies, one or two clear spells for western

parts and temperatures in the countryside may dip the five

Celsius. Tomorrow is a cloudy day than today. Through the course of

the afternoon, the odd spot of drizzle. Quite a cloudy day.

Clouding over through the afternoon and the breeze will increase from

the West. Temperatures in any sunny spells will reach a high of 14 or 15

Celsius. Tomorrow evening, any showers could turn into longer

spells of rain and be heavy for a time, but the bulk of the rain for

clear overnight tomorrow night into Saturday morning. Saturday will

start on a cloudy and damp notebook brighten up through the course of

the day and feel fresher because of this north-westerly breeze. You will

need those extra layers through Saturday and Sunday. Saturday very

similar to Sunday, both days should be mainly dry. Sunday, the chance of

a shower. The Good Friday will be a mainly cloudy day with brightness to

be had. Mainly dry on Saturday and We will keep you updated. Now with

the National Outlook, Tomasz Schafernaker.

Good evening. It's not exactly cracking whether this Easter. I

think the main message is there's going to be a lot of dry weather,

just a little bit of