[Anna Ford:] interest rates, will Britain do the same? And twentieth Century technology rebuilds the glory that was Rome. [music] police have launched a murder enquiry following the killing of a community policeman and another man in South London last night. P C Patrick Dunn had been called to a minor disturbance at a house in Clapham. In what police say was a tragic coincidence, gunfire was heard from a house across the street. He went to investigate and was murdered. His killers are said to have run off laughing. The other man was found dead nearby, he too had been shot in what may have been a drugs related killing. Police are tonight questioning three men.
[Laurie Margolis:] Home beat police constable Patrick Dunn didn't have to deal with the reported disturbance last night, at twenty eight Cato Road Clapham, but knowing the area, he said he'd go, on his bicycle as ever. While there he heard shots from across the road at number thirty one, stepped out to investigate and by what the Metropolitan police Commissioner called a tragic coincidence of events, was shot dead almost immediately by one of three men. Another man, apparently the victim of a drugs dispute, had been shot dead inside thirty one. A police surveillance operation had been taking place at the house, though not last night. Patrick Dunn was unmarried, forty four and came to the police late after a teaching career. As floral tributes built up, it became evident how much he was held in affection and esteem by local people.
[Maureen:] He was loved so much, it's unbelievable that it's happened. It really is. He helped everybody in the local community. You know, in my opinion it's like I've lost one of my own family.
[Laurie Margolis:] P C Dunn's boss, the Metropolitan police Commissioner, paid this tribute to the dead constable.
[Paul:] He was a good, honest, kind, gentle local bobby. Er doing what the Met does best, doing what British policing does best, working with his local community.
[Barry:] He was a total gentleman. There's just there's just no other words to describe them. A man who cared about what he did. A very well liked man in the community, a very well liked man at the station and erm I I can't speak highly enough of the man.
[Laurie Margolis:] This afternoon, P C Dunn's brother Ivan described Patrick's qualities.
[Ivan:] He could deal with people, erm he could communicate with people, he was always there to help with our problems and I'm sure he felt that he could help erm you know the community and and the beat that on which he was a home beat officer.
[Laurie Margolis:] In his earlier career, Patrick Dunn taught maths and was responsible for the welfare of fifth formers at this school in Bolton. A former colleague explained why he left for the police.
[Fred:] He noticed as we'd all noticed that in in respect of law and order that things were really going from bad to worse, were deteriorating. And it concerned him an awful lot and it it it irritated him and frustrated him and I think he set his sights on trying to do something about it in his his way.
[Laurie Margolis:] This afternoon in Stockwell near the murder scene, three men were spotted in a Nissan car by a police foot patrol following a tip off. They were stopped and arrested in a brief operation involving thirty police. The vehicle was taken away for forensic tests. This evening the men arrested are being questioned and police have appealed for witnesses who may have seen three men running from the area of the shooting last night. Laurie Margolis, B B C News, Clapham, South London.
[Jenny:] Police say a battle for territory between crack cocaine dealers has been behind a series of recent shootings in South London. There have been four drugs related killings in the area this year. P C Dunn's murder has again raised the question of whether more police should carry firearms.
[Neil Bennet:] Although Cato Road in Clapham is not a known haunt of crack dealers, police suspect it's the violence associated with this drug in particular, which has now claimed two more lives including that of a policeman. The officer leading the murder hunt, used to head a special ongoing operation in South London, against so called yardie gangs from Jamaica. Over the past three years, raids have been carried out as police target crack dealers who've been behind many shootings and violent assaults. There have already been four drug related murders in South London this year, and more than seventy incidents involving firearms. Experience in the capital and Manchester has shown, the level of violence linked to crack, make it very different from other drug trafficking.
[Paul:] What we've had in parts of London are so called turf wars between crack crack dealers, crack sellers, fighting for territory. And we believe that several murders have been as a result of that sort of tension.
[Neil Bennet:] The police response to the increasing number of criminals prepared to use guns, has been to train firearms specialists and make sure they're available all the time at short notice. In that sense, Britain already has an armed police force. But drugs related crime is posing an ever bigger challenge.
[speaker010:] Individual chief constables may in the light of particular circumstances, consider that their drugs officers should in fact be armed and that is for the decision for as I say the individual chief officer. So there could be cases where officers on particularly dangerous assignments, need to be armed and in which case, they will be armed.
[Neil Bennet:] Few would favour police officers being armed as a matter of routine, but work at the sharp end is undoubtedly becoming sharper.
[Anna Ford:] It reminds us of the deadly risks which our police officers run on on our behalf, day and night. Er and I would want to express my deepest sympathy to police constable Dunn's family. Er I'm sure that er the Metropolitan Police will be doing everything possible to track down those who are responsible for this evil act and bring them to justice.
[Neil Bennet:] Many police officers will want to remind the Home Secretary as he prepares his response to the Sheahy report that they take special risks and deserve special treatment. Neil Bennet, B B C News.
[Anna Ford:] Another man was shot dead in London this afternoon, it happened outside Shepherd's Bush underground station. The victim, who's not been identified, was hit in the chest and died shortly afterwards. His attacker ran off. The area has been sealed off and police marksmen have surrounded a local shop. No motive has been established for the attack.
[Jenny:] The chief inspector of prisons, Judge Stephen Tumim, has published a damning report into the causes of the riot at Wymott prison in Lancashire last month. He said the prison was close to anarchy and it was widely known that there was a strong risk of violence. It's estimated that the riot at the low security jail caused damage costing twenty million pounds.
[Laurie Margolis:] The Wymott disturbances lasted eight hours. Four hundred prisoners were involved in the worst prison rioting since Strangeways. Fortunately no-one was seriously hurt and no inmate escaped but the risk of trouble had been spotted and little done to stop it. That night, just seven prison officers were coping with seven hundred and fifty inmates, many violent street gang criminals, involved with drugs and too dangerous for a low security jail.
[Maureen:] There'd been incidents of violence between gangland type er warfare between inmates. Manchester, Liverpool don't get on very well and there was a drugs problem, a very bad drugs problem er which had been brought in from their normal way of life outside.
[Laurie Margolis:] The rioters wrecked accommodation blocks, workshops, and classrooms. it will cost up to twenty million pounds to repair the destruction. Judge Tumim went to inspect the jail next day, and he said his overwhelming impression was of the powerlessness of Wymott staff in the face of organized criminal activity. In his report, Judge Tumim said the prison had been very close to anarchy in the months before the riot. He said his original inspection had found a world of drugs, drug dealing and bullying. And he described Wymott as, No more than an open prison with a fence around it. Tonight the prison service reacted to Judge Tumim's report. Of his forty seven recommendations for action at Wymott, thirty five were already being put into effect.
[Paul:] No further building will be commissioned without cellular accommodation. So in other words, all new accommodation will be of a cellular type. But it's the it's the present estate if you like, that will take us time.
[Laurie Margolis:] Government figures released today show that like Wymott at the time of the riot, nearly a third of prisons in England and Wales are overcrowded, several housing seventy percent more prisoners than they were designed for. But the prison service sees the underlying problem of drugs in the jails like Wymott, as a priority and action has already been initiated. John Thorne, B B C News, Wymott Prison.
[Anna Ford:] Business leaders here have welcomed an unexpected cut in Germany's main interest rate. The Bundesbank reduced its discount rate by a half of one percent to five point seven five percent. The move should help stimulate economies on the continent where recession has been weakening the market for British exports. Germany's rate is now below Britain's and that's adding to pressure for a cut in rates here. The news boosted shared prices to a new record.
[Barry:] The Bundesbank has never been an institution to bow to public pressure. It's been slow to cut interest rates, believing Germany's four percent inflation is too high. But with inflation there on its way down and the economy bumping along the bottom of a recession, the Bundesbank Council decided it could tolerate another downward step. The city welcomed the move, believing the rate cut'll be followed throughout Europe, particularly on the continent where German decisions still dominate economic policy making. Despite pressure from its European partners, Germany has only reduce its rates very slowly. While Britain was in the E R M until September last year, our interest rates could never knowingly undercut those of Germany. But when we left, our rates fell and they fell quickly. Today's move means though that he German discount rate is below our base rate for the first time in a year. So will Britain now follow the Germans down?
[Ivan:] This latest cut does shift the balance of arguments in favour of reducing U K rates but there are other factors that the Chancellor will need to take into account. If the recovery is faltering he'll clearly want to be more keen to cut interest rates, and also he'll want to take into account the effect of any tax increases he may introduce in his budget.
[Barry:] A rate cut would not be an easy decision. The Bank of England which has less influence than its German counterpart has been reluctant to advise rate cuts over here. The Bank is worried about inflation which has been edging up recently. On the other hand, industry wants rates cut. Car production and trade figures released today, highlight the difficulties that British manufacturers are having in selling their products overseas. Lower interest rates would keep the pound down and keep exports competitive. Most of the advice Kenneth Clarke's receiving is to cut rates, his job now is to decide whether Britain's economy is more in danger of boiling over or going off the boil completely. Evan Davies, B B C News.
[Jenny:] British U N Soldiers at a base in Central Bosnia have been forced to move out under heavy mortar fire. More than two thirds of the troops at have withdrawn from the town leaving around seventy soldiers there. The attack was launched by Croat soldiers on Muslim positions in which is on the front line between the opposing sides. The main British base is thirty miles away Vitez. From the area, our correspondent Alan Little reports.
[Fred:] It began with seven mortar rounds in quick succession, then shelling, often at the rate of one a minute for five hours with no let-up. Take a look at the cook house, one British truck driver said, It's history. An artillery shell struck here at breakfast time, but by now the base was on red alert, its soldiers under cover. No-one was hurt.
[Jenny:] Shortly after seven o'clock this morning the Bosnian Croats launched and attack on one of the suburbs of er and there was some intense fighting er in and around the Unprofor base. We've evacuated er two thirds of the base er to a more secure area. We'll just sit out the present fighting and see what happens.
[Fred:] Others were less sanguine. These civilian truck drivers were among more than a hundred evacuated to safer positions. They were glad to be out. The Bosnian army were being pounded, they said.
[Neil Bennet:] soldiers down in a a wheelbarrow. All the dead soldiers. I've never seen anything like it in my life. I don't want to see it again really.
[Fred:] A hundred and twenty eight soldiers and civilian staff were moved out on the order of the base commander, some showing the signs of their ordeal. It is not the first time the British have found themselves in the path of an offensive, it is the first time they've evacuated, in such numbers and with such urgency. lies on the most important aid route into Central Bosnia, which is why the British are here. But while the battle goes on, the aid does not get through, and in Central Bosnia, a million and a half people depend upon it. Alan Little, B B C News, near.
[Anna Ford:] A woman who was in danger of losing her home after she mortgaged it as security for her husband's business debts, has won the right to keep it following a victory in the House of Lords. Five Law Lords said, Banks must warn wives and partners of the risks they're taking before granting loans.
[speaker010:] Bridget O'Brien's been fighting attempts by Barclay's Bank to repossess her home for five years and her legal victory was welcomed by others with similar problems. The Law Lords found that she should have been fully informed by the bank that she was risking her whole house by guaranteeing a loan to her husband's business, not the limited amount she believed at the time.
[Anna Ford:] And if some of you can do well out of it and it will help you keep your homes, because at the end of the day, without our home, where are we? This is what it's all about.
[speaker010:] Mrs O'Brien here at her home in Slough, was told by her husband that the loan back in nineteen eighty seven was only for sixty thousand pounds, the bank didn't correct this or give her independent advice. The debt rose to a hundred and fifty thousand pounds and the bank obtained a repossession order. Today's judgement means that banks in future must make sure a spouse or partner is directly informed of risks. The judgement could help others whose homes are under threat for similar reasons.
[Laurie Margolis:] It's affected my health, it's affected my family and erm everyday it's there. You don't know whether y you just don't know what the future holds.
[speaker010:] Banks now urge customers to seek independent legal advice before signing guarantees.
[Maureen:] Banks haven't been pulling the wool over people's eyes by not telling them. In fact for many years, the banks have been telling people to seek legal independent advice er since March nineteen ninety two, this has been a requirement of all loans.
[speaker010:] Today's Law Lords judgement should keep Bridget O'Brien in her house, it will also mean that in future, a wife or partner only agrees to mortgage their home as security for a loan after being fully informed of the possible consequences. Wesley Kerr, B B C News, at the House of Lords.
[Anna Ford:] And the time is six sixteen and still to come, parents and teachers protest over plans to cut help for pupils whose first language isn't English. And farm workers complain that sheep dips are damaging their health. [music]
[Jenny:] Hundreds of parents and teachers have lobbied Parliament to protest about the government's plan to cut help for pupils whose first language isn't English. Campaigners say, four thousand specialist teaching jobs could go if the government reduces the grant for teaching English as a foreign language.
[Barry:] This is going to be your drum, now what about another drumstick? Have you got
[Paul:] Anne Redding is a section eleven teacher, funded by a Home office scheme to promote racial equality, introduced by section eleven of the local government act. She works alongside the class teacher, helping pupils who don't speak English as their first language. Almost all the children in this school in Newham, East London, need help with their English.
[Barry:] Children here don't lack any sort of ability it's because th they English isn't their first language so they need support in learning English to help them with the everyday necessities of the national curriculum.
[Paul:] The government meets three quarters of the costs of section eleven projects, but that's being cut to half over the next two years. in Newham, that could mean shedding over a quarter of its section eleven teachers. Educationalists say that'll damage all pupils since, without support, class teachers won't be able to teach the rest of the class so effectively.
[Ivan:] The effect on a school would be devastating erm the school has already lost one teacher, the s the actual demand is increasing erm if we were to lose yet another teacher then what would we would be denying is education to the children, the best possible education. Which is what we're trying to provide.
[Paul:] Today, lobbyists gathered at Westminster warning thousands of section eleven jobs are threatened nationally, but the Home Office says painful decisions are necessary in the current public spending round. At a time of heightened racial tension, cuts in English language support teaching are particularly sensitive. many ear that when the Home office cuts its grant from next April, local authorities won't be able to make up the shortfall. Mike Baker, B B C News, East London.
[Anna Ford:] Joh Commonwealth leaders have been attending the first day of their summit in Cyprus and protests by Greek Cypriots. Thousands of women formed a human chain along the route to Nicocea, where the opening ceremony was held, to protest against the Turkish occupation against the North of the island. The summit will spend the next four days discussing issues ranging from the division of Cyprus to the war in Bosnia.
[Fred:] The Greek Cypriot hosts have hijacked the conference agenda. Government heads driving to the Nicocea opening found the fifty mile route lined with women, hands linked in protest at the world's and especially Britain's failure to reverse the nineteen seventy four invasion which has left thirty seven percent of the island in Turkish hands. Inside the conference hall, delegates were greeted with a highly unusual presentation mixing potent T V images of Hitler and the Holocaust, with flashbacks to that Turkish invasion. [music] Some resented President Clarides' propaganda coup, but other delegation heads were immediately swayed.
[Jenny:] Why can't the same methods that were used by the Commonwealth yesterday vis a vis Rhodesia, vis a vis Namibia and vis a vis South Africa, not be applied in respect of the colonial and settlerist situation here.
[Fred:] Elsewhere, with many teachers engaged in the fifty mile protest, hundreds of youngsters used their day out to protest at the green line barrier separating Greek and Turkish communities. Penetrating no man's land in a fracas which left three British U N peace keeping soldiers injured, before tear gas from the Greek police dispersed them. Later John Major urged Commonwealth heads to drive on world trade talks and pledged a crusade to ease poor countries debts. Apartheid arguments over, the Commonwealth's now seeking a new role spreading democracy, but the assembly lacks stars and so far the Cypriots have stolen the show. Robin Oakley, B B C News, Cyprus.
[Jenny:] John Prescot has been given one of the key posts in the new shadow cabinet. He moves from transport to employment, swapping jobs with Frank Dobson. But Harriet Harman stays as shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, despite being voted off the shadow cabinet by her fellow M Ps. Our political correspondent John Sople, reports from Westminster.
[Neil Bennet:] For John Prescot today, not a discrete silence while waiting for the leader's call, he was making it clear that he wanted a swap to one of the top economic jobs. And having saved John Smith's skin at the Labour party Conference, with his rumbustious performance in the one member, one vote debate, Mr Prescot knew he was in a position to call in his debts. But tonight the new employment spokesman is putting a rather more modest gloss on it.
[speaker010:] Well I didn't demand job, nobody demands of John Smith. But I wanted to do employment, I want to get on with this kind of job, it's going to be a major political issue, and by God I'm gonna put it right up front.
[Neil Bennet:] The prediction had been that these elections would result in more women and fewer Scots around the shadow cabinet table as a result of the voting system. But with the loss of one woman and the election at last of George Robertson, the reverse has happened. But John Smith has kept faith with some of those who've been most harshly criticized. Anne Taylor, the education spokesman, keeps her job and there's a big promotion for Clare Short who was sacked because of her opposition to the Gulf War. While Harriet Harman who lost her seat on the shadow cabinet and has been strongly criticized for he commons performances over the past year, keeps hers.
[Anna Ford:] I know I do have the confidence of the backbenchers to carry on with this particular job as well as the confidence of the leader and the shadow Chancellor.
[Neil Bennet:] John Smith's always made clear that he wanted to make the minimum number of changes to his shadow cabinet and with the exception of John Prescot's move, he's shown his determination to do that by making the minimum number of changes. But some are also saying, it's been a missed opportunity to make a more radical shake up to a shadow cabinet where some members performances have been notable lack lustre. John Sople, B B C News, Westminster.
[Anna Ford:] Toxic chemicals contained in sheep dip may be banned after complaints from some farmers who say their health has been damaged by the dip. A government advisory committee is meeting to decide whether organo-phosphates or O Ps as the chemicals are known, are safe for continued use. Manufacturers of sheep dip say there's no evidence to link the pesticides with ill-health.
[Laurie Margolis:] Dipping sheep in a bath of pesticide is an annual chore for farmers. The work is hot, tiring and very messy. But far more alarming is mounting evidence that the chemicals which poison sheep parasites may be poisoning farmers as well. At the weekly sheepmart, farmers come to compare prices, but they also compare experiences of sheep dipping.
[Maureen:] On the way back from moving the sheep, I felt as if I'd had a night in the pub, started feeling very wheezy and, Oh this is good. Anyway I finally got back, washed the lorry out and I just couldn't finish washing the wagon out. I started to feel sick, was vomiting, I had very bad diarrhoea and I sort of stayed in bed for like a couple of days, very very poorly.
[Laurie Margolis:] At twenty nine Somerset farmer Julian Westcot fears his working life may be over. He was hospitalized this Summer after shearing sheep which had been dipped in O Ps.
[Paul:] I was laid up for five weeks, couldn't do any work whatsoever and just sleep, cuss the family, be generally grumpy, tired and achy.
[Barry:] When I took him in he was at such a stage he had to go in in a wheelchair. Erm he couldn't walk at all. He was I think he'd passed out in the car.
[Laurie Margolis:] The mobile dip Julian worked on now lies abandoned. The man with the power to ban O P dips is Professor James Armor, Vice Principal of Glasgow University and chairman of the government's veterinary products committee.
[Ivan:] It's whether they will be withdrawn or not. I Obviously I can't preempt a discussion, but if we think on the evidence we see in in October that er that that is the course to take, we would do so. But if we do not think that, er or we think there are possibly problems in in relation to to using protective clothing, we will also do that.
[Laurie Margolis:] The Agriculture Minister Gillian Shephard will make the final decision and it's expected she'll do so within a month. Affected farmers will learn then if O Ps have been reprieved or banned. Only then can the battle for compensation begin. Adrian Pitches, B B C News.
[Jenny:] Scientists in France have found a new way to bring the past back to life. They're using computers and virtual reality technology to interpret historical records. And as our science correspondent David Whitehouse reports, it means we can now see what cities and building looked like hundreds of years ago.
[Fred:] Today they're just ruins in a Paris suburb, it's hard to imagine what these roman baths looked like when they were new. But thanks to virtual reality, we can come as close as is possible. Using historical records computer scientists have reconstructed the building, fifteen hundred years after it was ruined. Inside these roman baths, the marriage of archaeology and computer science is complete. British scientists are exited by this new way of bringing ancient buildings back to life.
[Jenny:] I can stand in front of the screen, I can look at the simulations, I can stop them whenever I want to stop them and look at them, it gives me ideas about how the buildings might have looked at that time and it gives me a whole range of variations as to as to what can be done in terms of their reconstructions.
[Fred:] Recreating ancient buildings involves a lot of painstaking work translating archaeological records into computer code. I B M U K are at the forefront of the new science of virtual archaeology.
[Neil Bennet:] First you make a fairly detailed ground plan, and then you essentially turn that ground plan into a three dimensional plan inside the computer. And that's quite a time consuming step. I believe in the case of these baths it took about one man year to do that transformation. But then once the computer's got that, you just have to say, pretend I'm standing here, and the computer's capable of saying, This is what you would see.
[Fred:] But the most ambitious example of virtual reality, is Clanne Abbey, also in France. Built in the year nine O nine, for six hundred years it was the largest enclosed building in the world. Torn down during the French revolution, little remains. But scientists have reconstructed it showing what it would have looked like. using almost three thousand hours of work on a major computer, the result is a stunning walk through the abbey as it would have appeared in the eleventh century. Scientists are excited by this computer approach to archaeology and they've plans to reconstruct other great buildings of the past bringing them to life once again. David Whitehouse, B B C News.
[Anna Ford:] And the main news again, there've been renewed calls tonight for the police to be armed after a community policeman was murdered. P C Patrick Dunn was described as an honest gentle local bobby. Judge Tumim's report into the riot at Wymott prison in Lancashire says the jail was close to anarchy. John Prescot has won a key post in the new shadow cabinet, moving from transport to employment. The next national news is the Nine O'clock news, from Jenny and [recording ends]