on tuesday, senior bosses — including the europe boss at fujitsu — apologised, for the first time, for the company's role in the post office scandal, in which hundreds of sub—postmasters were wrongly prosecuted after money appeared to be missing, according to the computer system. earlier, i spoke to our news correspondent, ellie price, who is at the inquiry. there's been relative silence, hasn't there, over the last couple of weeks from fujitsu. as this scandal has developed over the last few weeks since the airing of that itv drama, where millions of people watched and became aware of the scandal that's obviously been going on for years and years. this is something that happened between 1999—2015 and yet it has taken until now, if you like, for action to be taken. as you say, the main headlines yesterday were not from here at the inquiry but actually from a committee of mps who were grilling the europe boss of fujitsu who made that apology for what he called "an appalling miscarriage ofjustice". he also said for the first time

that he felt there was a moral obligation of the company to pay some contribution towards the compensation of some of these people who were wrongly convicted, although there were no details of exactly how much or how that would really work in practice. he also said that the post office had become aware early on, to use his phrase, about some of the errors and bugs in the software system. a few other developments i think worth mentioning from yesterday, we heard from one of the lawyers representing 77 of the wrongly convicted sub—postmasters who said that of that 77, only three had so far received fair and final compensation. we also heard from the post office minister, kevin hollinrake, who said that he hoped that any compensation due to some of these wrongly convicted people would be paid by the end of august but that the bill for that compensation could reach more than £1 billion. today, here at the inquiry, we will hear more from employees for fujitsu, getting down

to the nuts and bolts of that software glitch. as i say, glitch seems a bit of an understatement given what happened, but talking about exactly how that software worked — or didn't work. big questions of course on how it was allowed to happen, how it was allowed to go unnoticed and, crucially, how it was allowed to be unreported for as long as it was. that was ellie price. nick wallis — former bbcjournalist — and author of the 2021 book the great post office scandal spoke to me earlier. i began by asking how the sub—postmasters had reacted to the evidence given yesterday. they tend to be rather cynical nowadays, for obvious reasons. there was a point that was made by one of the mps on the select committee yesterday, i was sitting at the back watching it all happen, that fujitsu's acknowledgement that they needed to donate to the sub—postmasters compensation fund was not mentioned

in their annual accounts. it seems that fujitsu have onlyjust found their moral obligations, after witnessing the public outrage on the back of the itv drama because if they had been intending all along to pay compensation to sub—postmasters for their role in this scandal, it would have been noted in at least one of the annual accounts which has been published subsequent to the high court case in 2019. so there are a lot of sub—postmasters who are very cynical about that. you mentioned compensation, that was a live issue in the select committee as well. we had alan bates, the titular mr bates from the drama mr bates vs the post office, saying he had not yet had a first offer of compensation and this was despite the post office minister kevin hollinrake stating on the record in parliament that every applicant to the group litigation scheme, the specific compensation scheme that alan bates is part of, would receive their first offer

of compensation within a0 working days of making their application. mr bates told the committee he put in his application at the beginning of october. it was now 66 working days since his application went in and he still had yet to receive an offer. on top of all of the problems with compensation, you would have thought that the one thing the government could get right was making an offer to the man who was sacked more than 20 years ago and has had to lead a two decades long campaign to get himself and so many other people exonerated and compensated. it just smacks of the sheer incompetence that i think has characterised the various compensation schemes which have been set up ad hoc and piecemeal since the high court litigation came to a conclusion. you picked up a line that came to light yesterday about sub—postmasters and sub—postmistresses being prosecuted by the cps, what is up with that? this came out of the inquiry and it was almost an aside

at the end of the evidence of a very junior woman who still worked for fujitsu and used to work in their fraud and litigation support office. it was asked by a barrister for one of the sub—postmasters who pointed out that the crown prosecution service were still prosecute... well, had taken over the prosecution of sub—postmasters and post office workers from the post office but that they were still doing it using horizon evidence. now this set alarm bells ringing amongst an awful lot of people because, as we know, the horizon platform has been stated by a high courtjudge to be not remotely reliable before 2010 and not much more reliable between 2010—2017. the post office stopped prosecuting in 2013, so did the cps take on the prosecution of sub—postmasters using unreliable horizon evidence? also, what was the role of the post office investigators? over recent weeks in the inquiry, we have seen a parade of post office investigators whose investigations led to the false prosecutions

of innocent people, being basically reminded of how inept their investigations were. so has the crown prosecution service been using investigations from post office investigators or were the police involved? this is an entirely new area and no one is suggesting at the moment that there is any wrongdoing, but giving the scale of the miscarriage ofjustice when the post office was prosecuting it would be interesting to see on what basis and that how many people the cps has initiated charges against since 2013. so i have written to the cps asking for some answers to those questions and hopefully we will get some clarity on that matter. it is just another little facet to a multifaceted scandal and that's why the evidence that these fujitsu employees are now giving to the inquiry is so interesting, because fujitsu has been really, really quiet about its role in this scandal and only now with the scrutiny that the public and all the journalists who are now very, very much focused on this,

are we seeing other elements bubble up. nick wallis there. a cross—party committee of mps has strongly criticised government efforts to protect homes in england from flooding. its report says the government's goals are poorly defined, and that it failed to achieve targets that do exist. it comes as scientists have warned that flooding will become more frequent because of climate change. our environment correspondent jonah fisher has this report. in some places, like here in stratford—upon—avon, the water just flowed. elsewhere — this was bewdley — flood defences held it back. one man went as far as building flood walls all around his house and, incredibly, resisted the rising water. but with climate change set to bring wetter winters and more intense rain, the question of what to defend and who should pay for it is ever more pressing.

four years ago, flood defences were one of the big spending announcements of rishi sunak�*s first budget as chancellor. to protect people and over 300,000 properties, i'm doubling our investment in flood defences over the next six years to £5.2 billion. so how has it gone? well, prime minister sunak was in oxford last week, looking at some of the city's flood defences. he was all smiles, but the verdict of the public accounts committee is not so rosy. instead of the 300,000 properties chancellor sunak promised to defend, only 200,000 now seem likely to be protected by 2027. and the report says a lack of funds to maintain existing defences means thousands of homeowners now face a greater risk. the plan as originally designed didn't allow for the reality. when the rubber hits the road, there's always going to be problems in delivering projects, that wasn't built in, so we've got delays. surprise, surprise.

so yeah, the government is, i think, responsible for that. but two, climate change. the world has moved on. and when this was all conceived, i don't think we had projected this level of rainfall, which, inevitably, is going to impact larger numbers of people. a spokesperson for the department of food, environment and rural affairs said they would consider the committee's report and that since 2010, £6 billion has been invested to protect 600,000 properties from flooding and coastal erosion. nearly six million homes in england are at risk from flooding, and adapting to our wetter, wilder climate is bringing serious choices and costs. jonah fisher, bbc news. live now to heather shepherd, director of operations at national flood forum. thank you forjoining us. i imagine

that for people who are at risk of flooding, that is difficult viewing, to see that this situation could potentially get worse for them? film. potentially get worse for them? oh, es. i potentially get worse for them? oh, yes- i think— potentially get worse for them? i yes. i think people potentially get worse for them? oi, yes. i think people and communities are seeing this already. we really welcome this report and have been vocalising this for several years, on issues that have been identified. yes, we are seeing at the national flood forum more and more people being flooded but also very repeatedly and those that suffer mostly are the ones that don't need the business case funding criteria and they seem to be the ones that are sort of left out and left to repeat flooding. we have seen that in the last storm, storm gerrit. i believe you have been a flood specialist over the last two decades. in that time, how much worse have you seen it get and are you worried about the near future, in terms of climate change? i have seen huge —

in terms of climate change? i have seen huge changes _ in terms of climate change? i have seen huge changes in _ in terms of climate change? i have seen huge changes in that - in terms of climate change? i have seen huge changes in that 25 - in terms of climate change? i have seen huge changes in that 25 year| seen huge changes in that 25 year period and where we mostly saw flooding from rivers and it was at certain times of year. now we are seeing flooding increase dramatically to urban areas, as well as rural areas and on a more frequent basis with more frequent storms. yes, incredibly worried about our future because this is the now, so what is the future? what happens for our children and our children's children? we need, we will need to play our part, however government lacks the support plan that shows how they are going to tackle flooding holistically, with a boulder and integrated approach, to help the country become far more sustainable to managing flood risk in future. ~ ., , i. sustainable to managing flood risk in future. ~ ., , ., . ., in future. what is your advice to those peeple — in future. what is your advice to those people who _ in future. what is your advice to those people who are _ in future. what is your advice to those people who are in - in future. what is your advice to those people who are in those l in future. what is your advice to - those people who are in those homes that are at risk of flooding, is there anything that they can do to make sure that their homes are

protected? protected ? we protected? we think the forecast from the government policy statement has a huge emphasis on response bulletin for people to become personally responsible. now we all need to play our part and we need to be resilient as a society, down to the level of people who are home owners or have property to look at the resilience of that. but this isn't enough and now our worry is these are going to become unviable in the future and we are going to be repeatedly looking again at what has been done and reconsidering what needs to be done for a stable future. it is a really difficult one for communities, isn't it? when we have, i have heard sweeping statements like, you know, we can't protect everyone. well, thatis we can't protect everyone. well, that is a really negative statement to make and it almost feels like they have given up before they have even started. what are people meant to do, run to the hills and abandon

the rest of the country? it is a hard one. becoming resilient in your home personally is very expensive. there are help with grants and things but they onlyjust there are help with grants and things but they only just touch there are help with grants and things but they onlyjust touch the surface of what is needed for people to be able to become more resilient. and they are not full proof, it doesn't necessarily they give you a far better chance, they give you time to become more prepared, but we are seeing, particularly in different situations in the country, such as rural and urban, that sometimes they are not the suitable solution. they work better in some areas than they do the other. we need to plan as communities, as well, should they come along, but we see amazing communities that really pull together and really support their wider community and help. you know, where is their support for them in the wider, bigger picture, that plan from government? ok. that plan from government? 0k, heather shepherd, thank you very

much. last march, 22—year—old eleanor williams was jailed for eight and a half years, after falsely claiming she had been raped by several men and trafficked by an asian grooming gang. her lies caused an outpouring of anger and several protests in the town of barrow in cumbria. now, a bbc documentary reveals the extent of her deceit. our investigative reporter anna collinson has the story — a warningm, you may find the details in her report upsetting. i guess you kind of — you can probably guess what's going to happen. this is the moment eleanor williams was arrested in 2020. so being in breach of court bail, in relation to charges of perverting the course ofjustice. a court would later find that she had repeatedly lied about being raped, which legal experts stress rarely happens. right, so they're on now and we're recording. exclusive police footage shows williams�* deception began three

years earlier, when she said she'd been raped at a party. she withdrew her involvement, but a year and a half later, she makes a fresh allegation. so i was trying to push him out the door, couldn't. he had a knife, he was waving it around. notice her bruised cheek, which a judge later decides is self—inflicted. just weeks after this, she claims she's being trafficked and raped by a gang of asian men. whichever man was willing to pay the most money you'd go with. it was, we need to do something to help this girl. what is going on? she describes the properties she was forced to go to in great detail. the police treated williams like a victim, but suspicions began to arise after they spent two days driving her around a town she said she'd been recently trafficked to and was unable

to provide any leads. what it ended up being was me driving around fairly aimlessly, just in the hope that something might look familiar to ellie. that's when i first started wondering myself personally, is there any truth in this? the following week, her lies unravel further when police are called to her home. you all right? injured and seemingly intoxicated, she makes more claims of being trafficked. an investigation takes place and this is the innocent young man she accuses. cctv from that night shows the pair met by chance in preston when he asks herfor a lighter. it's williams who pursues a conversation. she's then seen on camera in barrow in furness, walking home with no visible injuries. but when police arrive at her flat 20 minutes later, this is what they find.

i'll help you. i'll help you, shall we get you an ambulance? in court, a judge ruled these injuries were self inflicted and that she was playacting. he also found there was no evidence that she was mentally unwell. every single allegation she made, we still investigated because there might have been some truth in some of this. and it was really important that if there was, we found it. all of this footage, which has never been seen outside the legal system until today, tells the story of multiple desperate reports, the final one being where williams was found wounded in a field. tests would show her injuries were self—inflicted. you can clearly see on this, is an evolution. you've got an awful allegation in 2017, a much worse allegation in 2019, and then weeks later, boom, it properly snowballs into a massive multi—handed

organised crime group. cumbria police say this is a totally unique case and want to reassure genuine victims that they will be supported. williams�* lies about an asian grooming gang led to a spike in hate crime in barrow and damaged the mental health of the men she wrongly accused. and yet we may never know — why did she lie? anna collinson, bbc news. it is 10.49. a story now about one of our bbc sport colleagues, the football commentator chris wise, who had a special "hat—trick" to report recently. not goals....but babies. chris and his partner hannah became one of the 25 uk couples last year to conceive triplets naturally. all three arrived safely, and our reporter sophia seth has been to meet the family. meet emil, alba and ava. having triplets not only came

as a shock to their parents, chris and hannah, but also the sonographer at the nine—week scan. she looked really visibly nervous. both of our first thought was that something was really wrong. she said, "i can see a heartbeat, but i can actually see three heartbeats." finding out that there were three of them wasjust mind blowing, i would say. it was such a hard thing to process. being pregnant in itself is a challenge. but for hannah, carrying triplets was even tougher, notjust physically, but mentally, because it's higher risk with regular hospital scans needed. it was really hard. yeah. you kind of think when you when you get pregnant that it's going to be really exciting and that you've got all this to look forward to and ifelt like i was really anxious and worried for quite, quite a lot of it. triplets are born before full term, but this trio came a little earlier than planned at 32 weeks.

hannah had an emergency c—section. all went well, and the medical staff even facilitated a special gender revealfor them. so this is ava and that's alba and they are identical. sometimes at 4am, when it's slightly dark and you're slightly bleary eyed because you're so tired, it's tricky to tell. so we've had to paint one of their nails so you can see eva's —— ava's there has got a couple of her nails... matches dad! charities tell me only around 100 sets of triplets are born every year in the uk. when it comes to those which are naturally conceived like chris and hannah's, that's only 25 sets, which is well under 1% of births. welcome to brentford, the sun is shining. the added challenge for the couple is that chris is self—employed. you may recognise him from his football commentaries with the bbc. i had a tiny bit of time off

when they were in hospital and then when they've come back because it's been tied in around christmas and that is a pretty busy period in the footballing calendar, i've been here, there and everywhere doing games, but promising hannah that when we get into january, i'll be around a little bit more. well, seeing as i was there, i thought i could lend a helping hand. they love a cuddle. they really do. she's really cosy with you, isn't she? well, if you ever need a baby—sitter! i must say, having three, all at the same time, you're going to benefit because people are unlikely to ask you, will you have any more? i can categorically tell you the answer to that question. if they ever did, the answer would be no. we always knew we'd be lucky to have one, and we might have had two, we never planned to have three. so we'll be stopping here, won't we? yeah, we're stopping!

don't blame them! mopping the floors, doing the washing, dusting the furniture — they're all chores we'd probably rather not do. and apparently, we're spending less and less time doing them. in a survey to celebrate its 100th anniversary, the good housekeeping guide has found that 80% of us are spending less than five hours a week cleaning — with ironing topping the poll of the most hated chores. olivia hutchinson has been taking a look at how times have changed. women's growing independence means they spend much less time at home. a blast from the past. this news report from 1968 gives us a glimpse into domestic life at the time. skip forward a couple of decades to the eighties, this is what these men had to say. we fight the wars. i have a wife to do housework. so how are we feeling in 202a? the younger men possibly do understand more

about the utility machinery and washing machines... than when we first got married. yeah, yeah, they know how to switch it on. # do the shake'n'vac- and put the freshness back! we may not see adverts like this any more, but it seems women are still doing most of the housework. # do the shake'n'vac- and put the freshness back! and for those of us who are cleaning, we're doing it less often. latest stats show that the majority of brits are now spending fewer than five hours a week on household chores. if i get told that i've got to do something, but as we said, i do all the cooking. so, you know, i'm quite happy with all that. and i do all the shopping. i do it all. i look after outdoor, yes. he's the garden man and i'm the indoor man. so it works very well. we clean once a week and i do my share.

you do the hoovering and the mopping. - i'm not allowed to touch the dishwasher to load i or empty, that's his domain. a survey for the good housekeeping institute found 65% of women are still doing all or most of the chores, even if they lived with someone else. only 27% said they were divided equally with a male partner and 1% relied on their children. and what's the most hated chore? it's ironing, apparently. the first lesson is given in the hall by instructress ms asquith. the days may be over where women like these are taught how to polish correctly, but it appears there still is that stereotype when it comes to being a domestic goddess. olivia hutchinson, bbc news. i don't mind a bit of ironing myself cleaning though, five hours a week

sounds like a lot! now it's time for a look at the weather with helen willetts. hello. we now have an amber warning in force for snow across the north of scotland and the northern isles. in fact, here we've already seen almost 20 centimetres of snow in places. there's more to come — in some places, another 15 to 20 millimetres in the next 2a to 36 hours, blowing around in the strong winds. you can see the shower clouds, a real rash of them rushing southwards into the north of scotland. they're also affecting northern ireland. this area is a storm system further south which is affecting france into germany, belgium as well. but it might be, we've certainly got the cloud from it in the south, but it might be we just see a few wintry flurries in southern counties of england. so an icy risk here, but the main snow risk lies further north. in fact, ice could be a problem just about anywhere. but with that amber warning, quite widely another 5—10 centimetres across the northern isles and north—west of scotland, blowing around in those strong winds. so those drifts could well cut off rural communities,

cause power outages and find travellers stranded. so some hazardous conditions and it's bitterly cold again, it's been a bitterly cold night. feeling quite raw in the south, actually, because of all the cloud cover, the strong wind as well. that blows out the way, that cloud, overnight tonight. the amberwarning in force by that stage. more snow to come, more issues for travellers in northern areas. and again, it will be very cold. we had —14 last night. we could see that once again through the night to come. and another day where we see perhaps some early patchy freezing fog, ice quite widely, and yet more snow keeps coming in to parts of scotland. there'll be snow showers elsewhere, northern ireland, perhaps more so north west wales, north—west england tomorrow, possibly even eastern counties of england. but again, it's cold. now there's just a subtle change as we head towards the end of the week. by friday, notice the wind direction. it's more of a south—westerly, so we'll still see snow, but it looks as if it'll lift mostly onto the hills, which means that

lower levels will start to see snow melt taking place as it becomes slightly less cold. slightly less cold is the story for the weekend, as you can see. but with weather systems moving in and pushed on by really strong winds at times with gales or severe gale force winds potentially sunday, that will cause problems in itself. but for the meantime, that snow and the amber warning all on the website.

live from london. this is bbc news. prime minister rishi sunak faces a crucial vote on his rwanda deportation bill after two deputy chairmen from his own party resign over the issue. qatar announces israel and hamas reach a deal to deliver medicine to hostages in exchange for aid to enter gaza for civilians. and a trial of a new type of cancer treatment for children that's kinder than chemotherapy gets the go—ahead. hello, welcome to the programme. mps are due to vote today on the uk government's latest rwanda bill — a day after rishi sunak faced his biggest conservative rebellion since becoming prime minister. two deputy chairmen

resigned on tuesday, joining 60 colleagues rebelling against the legislation in its current form. our political correspondent hannah miller reports. a plan that aims to stop dangerous channel crossings like this. a key pledge that's become rishi sunak�*s biggest parliamentary challenge. the ayes to the right 68. the noes to the left 529. last night, 60 of his own mps tried and failed to make changes to the rwanda bill. among them, three who resigned their roles to vote against the government. the now former deputy chairmen of the conservative party, lee anderson and brendan clark—smith, and jane stephenson, who had been a pps, or ministerial assistant. i don't think i could carry on in my role as deputy chairman of the conservative party when i fundamentally disagree with the bill. i think most of the bill is sound. i think it can work. but we needed it beefing up.

we needed it strengthening over the next few days.