16/01/2017 Spotlight

Good evening. BBC Two. That's Newsnight with

A man from Somerset man has been sentenced to 25 years in prison

after being convicted of sexually abusing children since

In what was described in court as a shocking case,

the prosecution said Andrew Margetts was abusing victims from the age

of eight, but he couldn't be prosecuted for that

because he was below the age of criminal responsibility.

Our Somerset correspondent Clinton Rogers reports.

The prosecutioner called him a disturbed child who had

an obsessive interest in sex from the age of eight.

And today, Andrew Margetts, now 31, was convicted on 23 charges,

including rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment.

His victims, two girls and a boy, were aged between six and 11

when the abuse took place in the '90s.

Throughout this week-long trial, the court has heard that

Margetts subjected his victims to sustained abuse

Sometimes he would tie up his victims or gag them.

He threatened one of them with a knife, saying,

"If you tell anyone, I will kill you."

At Taunton Crown Court, the prosecutor said

The jury told they were entering a twilight world they might

The NSPCC told the BBC, in fact, a third of sexual abuse crimes

against children are committed by people under the age of 18,

But not unheard of and at the NSPCC we have similarly had experience

in rare cases of seven and eight-year-olds also

perpetrating very serious sexual offences, but it is pretty rare.

The judge said that the lives of the young victims in this

He told Andrew Margetts, "You knew what you were doing was wrong,

seriously wrong," and sentencing him to 25 years in prison, he told him,

The family of a man who died tombstoning on Plymouth Hoe,

today watched footage of him falling to his death on film

The inquest into the death of Vincent Wagstaff heard

the father-of-three had drunk a substantial amount of alcohol

before jumping off a ten-metre wall in October last year.

John Danks was at Plymouth Coroner's Court.

A major rescue operation was launched when Vincent Wagstaff

jumped into the sea on October 13th last year.

What started as an attempt at Tombstoning ended

Vincent had been on Plymouth Hoe with two other men and they'd

But Vincent had changed his mind, saying he wanted to do

the really high jump, this was the ledge

He asked his cousin to film the jump on a mobile phone.

He said he shouted to Vincent to stop, but he went

to leap off the ledge, but it wasn't a leap,

Today, some of his family were shown the footage in court.

It was a mistake, I could see it was an accident, I could see

in the way that he tried to run and jump that it was

The court heard that Mr Wagstaff had drunk

a substantial amount of alcohol, five times the legal driving limit.

He leaves behind three devastated children, a partner,

We are left with a huge gap in our lives.

He will always be loved and I will always miss him.

The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death

On to other news around the South West tonight.

A 46-year-old man has been arrested after a stabbing in Exeter.

The police helicopter was used to trace the suspect in woods off

Officers say it was an isolated incident and the victim suffered

Commuters using one of Cornwall's busiest roads have been warned that

multi-million pound roadworks will create disruption

Overnight closures of the A38 in the Glynn Valley are already

in operation, but most of the work will be carried out during the day

Ten libraries in Plymouth could be closed over the next few years.

The city council says the seven which would remain open are the most

popular and account for 80% of all library visits.

The authority says it wants to make better use of its resources.

A hospital in the south west is bucking a national trend

for the amount of time that elderly people have to wait

BBC research shows in England, 56,000 people over the age

of 80 had waits of more than 12 hours in A last year.

But hospitals here haven't seen such big increases.

Jemma Woodman went to the Royal Devon and Exeter

Hospital to see how they're coping this winter.

It's early evening at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

92-year-old Joyce Taylor has been brought into the emergency

Coming downstairs and when I came right down to the bottom,

I didn't realise that I had hurt myself.

Joyce is among an increasing number of elderly patients coming

We regularly have patients, over 90 and almost daily over 100

in our department and the majority are made up of patients

The paramedics are going to give us a hand and as they do,

I'm just going to pop a monitor on you, so we can check your blood

To stop patients waiting for too long here in Exeter,

most are seen by senior consultants within minutes of arriving.

A lot of services are now put into predicting discharge dates

of patients and aiming to get towards that, so if we can get them

up to the medical unit before nine o'clock,

they will be seen by a consultant tonight rather than tomorrow

morning, so you save yourself 12 hours of hospital stay.

Joyce was close to being admitted but it is decided she would be

I don't think we are going to be of any benefit bringing her in.

It's what Mum wants and it's better for anybody, I think,

It's better to be in your own surroundings.

Judy is a retired doctor who used to work at the hospital.

My heart, from time to time, goes into a wrong rhythm.

What they are going to do is put two electrodes onto my chest,

pass a current through my heart and hopefully that will shock my

It is the sort of procedure which used to need a short stay

in hospital, but it is now being done within the

By getting things done here, we are saving her a hospital

admission, so it's good for the patient, it's also good

for the trust as a whole, because that's one bed

that is available for somebody else to move into.

253 patients came through the emergency department on the day

we were filming in Exeter, but only 46 were admitted

A small Devon charity, which helps cats and dogs in Afghanistan,

has been handed a massive financial and publicity boost thanks

to the comedian Ricky Gervais. He's donating half the profits

from a forthcoming gig to the charity Nowzad,

It's providing a support for hundreds of street dogs and cats

Ricky Gervais has taken to social media to explain why.

They're the people that are actually doing stuff,

I'm just tweeting about it and giving some cash.

They're the people that do it and they're amazing.

The donation itself will just be incredible.

We've got lots going on in Afghanistan at the moment.

We've got over 150 dogs that we are currently caring for,

over 40 cats and six donkeys, so that keeps us busy

and that is where the donation will go and it will come

Now the weather. We have a new week and a new week of weather but what

does it hold? A fairly mild couple of days after a cold snap, but this

week will be mainly dry. Brighter towards the tail end but where we

get those brighter skies, the risk of some frost. We have this

high-pressure anchored across eastern parts of the UK and the near

continent and that has fairly cold air underneath it. That will push

towards us and break the cloud up with the increasing risk of frost.

Western parts will be cloudy underneath this weather front.

Light, Apache and gristly. They bit of brightness towards eastern parts.

For most it will not be until Wednesday that we see decent spells

of sunshine. Light winds and there is the risk of a frost through

Wednesday night into Thursday. Thursday we have this week weather

front across the top of us. It will introduce more cloud, so not as

bright but not the risk for all of us of seeing a frost. Friday,

another drive, settled day with light winds and Friday will be a

brighter day compared with Thursday. A lot of cloud tonight. A bit of

light rain and drizzle. A lot of mist and low hill fog. That will

persist towards dawn. Not a cold night, should be frost free, those

of around four or 5 degrees. A great start tomorrow, very little change

through the morning, outbreaks of light rain. We will start to see

this drier air pushing into eastern parts. Further west we keep the

cloudy skies but staying mild. More sunshine after a cold start on

Wednesday but it will start to feel that little bit colder. We are back

with our breakfast News from 6:25am tomorrow morning but from the late

team, have a peaceful night. Goodbye.

perhaps a little milder. If you like the mild weather, you'll have to

head elsewhere in the country. Find out more in the national weather

forecast. Our weather is going against normal expectations this

week. In Highland Scotland some snow to be seen on the hills.

Temperatures as high as 12 Celsius today. Over the next few days the

coldest air is in the far south-east of England where there is sunshine

to be had. Four or five Celsius in Kent. Differences remain over the

next few days and here is why. I pressure in control of the weather.

Some clear a continental air, but coming into Scotland from the

Atlantic plenty of clouds around. Outbreaks of rain through Scotland

and Northern Ireland overnight, patchy drizzle into parts of England