28/03/2017 Spotlight

Supporters of Alexander Blackman in Somerset are hoping to be able

to celebrate his release within the next two weeks.

The former Royal Marine, from Taunton, has already

had his murder conviction reduced to manslaughter on appeal.

Today, his previous life sentence was cut to seven years.

But because of the time he's already spent in prison,

his legal team expect him to soon be back home with his family.

We are overjoyed at the judge's decision to significantly

reduce Al's sentence, such that he can be

This is the moment we have all been fighting hard for.

It is hard to believe that this day is finally here.

Many people, including ex-service personnel,

say Alexander Blackman had to be prosecuted once footage

of what he'd done on the battlefield came to light.

Lord Ashdown is a former Royal Marine himself.

A soldier goes into someone else's country armed with lethal force

in order to protect the law, the domestic law that operates

And when that is broken, and whether it is broken is a matter

solely for the court, not anybody else, and the court has

judged on this and regarded that there were mitigating

circumstances, it is not for anybody else to intervene in that process.

The Blackman case has divided opinion from the beginning.

Some have said it's impossible to judge decisions made

One former colleague, who served alongside him in Afghanistan,

Rob Driscoll was a Sergeant with the Royal Marines on the same

He has undergone years of counselling since.

And he says the horrors of Afghanistan will

I have seen some pretty horrific things but I hadn't seen them use

body parts as bait or heard or seen them crucify people.

A real hatred built up inside me for the insurgency and people

who were prepared to use these techniques against us.

Do you think that is the background against which Alexander

There is no way we can argue it wouldn't have affected some

When you are surrounded by lunacy, a little bit of lunacy

Six years on and trying to settle into normal life,

Rob Driscoll says he still supports Alexander Blackman.

He acknowledges that what Blackman did on the battlefield,

captured on helmet colours, may have been illegal,

militarily he made the right decision

in not summoning help for the wounded Taliban fighter.

My answer is absolutely, because there is a very real chance

that if he hadn't done what he did I would be walking at the main gate

with eight or nine guys to go down to secure a route which we knew

was under threat and seeded with explosive devices.

That would have meant me rolling those dice and potentially not

coming back with all the guys I walked out the gate with.

Rob Driscoll there, talking to Clinton Rogers.

Well, Alexander Blackman had hoped that once his murder conviction

was reduced to manslaughter, he might be allowed

Today the High Court judges decided that his dismissal must stand.

Other news now and the diagnosis of bowel cancer

in people under the age of 50 could be improved, thanks

to research by the University of Exeter Medical School.

A doctor's developed a diagnostic tool to help other GPs

Our Health Correspondent Jenny Walrond reports.

It's an idyllic spot to build a dream home but Emma Matthews's

dreams of the future were shattered when her husband Martin

was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer.

It had taken a year to get diagnosed.

He went to the GP about 15 times, phone calls as well,

Martyn always kept asking if it could be cancer or not and they kept

saying they were 99.9% sure it wasn't.

Because young people don't get bowel cancer, but they do.

Emma's father was also diagnosed with bowel cancer but it was caught

Martyn managed to build their dream home but died

GPs find it difficult to diagnose bowel cancer in the under-50s

because it is less common in young people and the symptoms are similar

They don't get a good service and actually suffer as a result.

Your chance of surviving colorectal cancer as a young person should be

better than an older patient because by and large,

you are healthier, but that is not the case in this country.

Younger patients with colon cancer do worse.

Around 1 in 20 cases of bowel cancer are in people aged under 50.

There are 2,500 new cases each year in the UK and the symptoms

are so common they account for 1 in 12 GP appointments.

So, suppose you have diarrhoea and rectal bleeding...

This new diagnostic tool helps GPs identify who needs further tests,

by evaluating the risks from different

Professor Hamilton hopes it will be incorporated into GP's computer

programmes and automatically flag up at-risk patients and if it can speed

up diagnosis, it can improve chances of survival.

When caught in early stages, 98% of bowel cancer patients survive

An organic farmer from Devon is angry with Tesco for using

He says he's never supplied the supermarket, and using

the picture is creating an image that isn't true.

Tesco has removed it, and apologised.

Spotlight's Andrea Ormsby has the story.

Martin Godfrey is passionate about his farming methods.

I can produce a lot of food from a small area of a very high

standard, very nutritious, direct to the customer.

So when a picture of him pulling carrots was used

The image couldn't be so far removed from the reality,

me pulling carrots by hand in a field which doesn't

To grow carrots for the supermarkets, highly mechanised,

big tractors, lots of soil cultivation and those are OK

pictures for them to use but it needs to represent the real way

He says he has never worked for Tesco and was surprised to find

the picture of him being used on their website.

The supermarket chain got the image through an agency.

A spokesperson for Tesco says the supermarket works tirelessly

to support farmers and suppliers and is sorry for any upset caused.

It said it won't use the image in future campaigns.

Martin says Tesco has also offered to donate ?1,000 to a local charity.

He says he is happy with their response but wants

all supermarkets to change how they represent themselves in future.

Don't use pretty pictures to gain customers.

It is not fair on the farmers who are working hard doing

what they feel is right, looking after our soil

Martin has invited Tesco representatives to come and see

the work he does on his six acres in Devon.

On to football now and Torquay have been in action this evening

They've won 1-0 away to Solihull Moors, which means

Let's take a look at the weather now - David's here with the forecast.

after the fine weather, the rain has been a shock. It is here to stay

that there is some good news. It stays relatively mild. There will be

more patchy rain around tomorrow but also sunny spells. The same setup

for a couple of days. One weather system which gave us the rain has

moved northwards and this weather system moves back and forth, both

tomorrow and Thursday. If it moves far enough back into the Atlantic,

we will get sunshine. At the moment, still light rain and drizzle moving

away from us tonight. A lot of clout that follows and a mild night.

Tomorrow is a great start. Some drizzle in the wind. This weather

front gets closer during the day and there will be holes in the cloud

particularly across parts of Dorset and Somerset. By the time we get to

Thursday, the same weather system, pretty much the same place as well,

it will move away and allow more sunshine. Also higher temperatures.

A change towards the end of the week as it starts to cool down again.

Good night. We're back again with updates

in Breakfast from 6.25. times, but fairly mild for the time

of year. This stay tuned for the national weather forecasts with John

Hammond. Good evening. Your parents might

have told you once that life 's not fair and they were right. He is the

proof. Over the next few days some of us will enjoy some lovely

sunshine, temperatures in the low 20s. It will feel like early summer.

For others, quite a lot of rain around and it will feel like late

March. This is showers earlier on today and dampness this evening in

the West Country and Wales. That is heading north eastwards. A different

sort of night. A lot of cloud around, quite damp and misty in

places. Cloud cover will prevent temperatures falling much at all. A

much milder my than we have seen recently. Except for the North