this is bbc news. the headlines at 11:00: police say they've taken action to foil an alleged islamist terror plot that could have been carried out this christmas. four men have been arrested in sheffield and chesterfield. jailed for 20 years — the man who threw acid into a crowded nightclub in east london. social media companies are taken to task by mps as they're accused of not doing enough to tackle hate crime. and on newsnight: an interview with zelda perkins, a broadcast world exclusive, with the woman who tried two decades ago to bring harvey weinstein tojustice. good evening and welcome to bbc news. police in derbyshire and south yorkshire say

they've taken action to prevent an alleged islamist terror plot that could have been carried out during the christmas holiday. early this morning, four men were arrested in sheffield and chesterfieldon suspicion of terror offences. bomb disposal teams were sent in, working with large numbers of police as our correspondent danny savage reports. a street in central sheffield tonight, the second placed the army bomb disposal unit searched as part of this terrorism investigation. early this morning two men were arrested here in bedsits adjoining a muslim community centre. tonight the muslim association of britain said those detained had no connection to the centre. the other place the bomb squad searched today was a property on sheffield road in chesterfield. counterterrorism officers arrested a 31—year—old man here. in the predawn darkness, armed police were pictured guarding the scene as the raid took place. at the edge of the cordon,

people evacuated from their homes could not believe what was happening in their street. they've come banging on the door saying you need to evacuate. my grandad refused to leave the house, still in there now, the only one on the street. and they said it's for your own safety, bomb disposal are here and they made everyone else leave apart from him. how does it feel that this is happening in your neighbourhood? in the way it's a bit scary, it's a bit weird, isn't it? you know, you don't expect things like this to happen in chesterfield or in a little area like this. so it's a bit worrying in a way. arrests were made elsewhere too as police took action against an alleged islamist terror plot against the uk that could have come to fruition over christmas. the most obvious activity was in chesterfield. the other raids were about 15 miles away around sheffield. as well as the two men arrested next to the community centre in burngreave, a business was raided in stocksbridge

and another man was detained in meersbrook where local people heard stun grenades being used. we were woken up at around 5:30am by a really, really loud bang and initially we did think that somebody had crashed outside our house. we were looking outside and all we could see were police officers dressed in riot gear and they were storming a house across the road from us. lots of running about and shouting. these were co—ordinated counterterrorism raid which may have stopped a plot timed to coincide with the christmas holidays. danny savage, bbc news a man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for throwing acid into the crowd at a packed nightclub in east london. arthur collins, who's 25, squirted the liquid into a group on the dance—floor at the mangle nightclub in april last year. he was convicted last month of five counts of grievous bodily harm and nine of assault, as our correspondent tom burridge reports. acid hurled across a crowded dance floor.

look closer on the cctv and you can see arthur collins' arm throwing the liquid a second and a third time. young people, like lauren trent, suffered severe burns and scars for life. today, she and other victims gave vivid accounts outside court of what it's like when acid is thrown over your skin and clothes. i think that night ijust remembered the sheer panic. the fear, the pain, more importantly, the pain. the smell, the smell of the chemicals and your skin blistering, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. i remember looking at the police officers and the people around us at the time when they arrived, it was almost like disbelief that something like this had ever happened in a nightclub. collins caused severe burns to m people. his actions, in the mangle nightclub, left physical and mental scars. when you are out, like ifjust

a splash of somebody‘s drink on your arm, like, brings the worse things through your head. so it's just very hard to deal with it and to just try and carry on like normal because i know i'm never going to be the same girl that walked into mangle that night, but it's just trying to get as closeback to that as possible. earlier that evening, collins argued with two of his victims, but the judge said his indiscriminate attack, which affected so many young people, was unprovoked. he sentenced him to 20 years. it sends out the right message that it will not be tolerated. it will not be tolerated by the criminaljustice system. anyone carrying acid needs to look at the offence and be aware that a strong sentence will be passed. collins showed no remorse in court for what was described as a despicable act. one of his victims today said her old life had been taken from her on that night. tom burridge, bbc news. seniorfigures from facebook, twitter and google

have been heavily criticised by mps about extremist content on their platforms, including death threats against politicians. labour's yvette cooper, chair of the home affairs select committee, accused the firms of failing to remove abusive material quickly enough. 0ur media editor amol rajan has more details. harmful content online takes cou ntless forms but not all of them are illegal. there is the hate speech that attacks individuals on the basis of attributes such as disability or gender. that is quite separate from extremist content, which propagates the worldview of those ranging from neo—nazis to so—called islamic state. how easy is it to find this material online? very easy indeed. 0ne campaigner working with mps on the issue believes social media platforms you're vulnerable adults into the extremist web. platforms lure vulnerable adults into the extremist web. how big an issue is soft extremism? it is a significant issue because actually the material

clearly is not removed, it is not illegal in the eyes of social media providers. the other factor is their algorithms are diverging individuals who may have an aggressive worldview, and the algorithms direct them to join other groups who may have similar content. today mps called tech companies as part of an enquiry into hate crime. the committee chair set twitter still had not removed an offensive tweet it was warned about in march. that tweet is still on your platform. why is it? i don't know the answer to that question. i really do all think we should kill a tory. think of the benefits were we to killjust one tory. that is on twitter. your home say she will not tolerate violent threats of individuals or groups. how does that comply with your code? we have 500 million tweets a day, 330 million users.

twitter is used in multiple languages. you are actively recommended what is effectively raises material you are actively recommended what is effectively racist material into people's timelines. i will ask reviewers to look into it and get back with a solid response. i will look at how we can look at hate speech. isn't the truth that your algorithms and the way you want to attract people to look at other linked things, is that actually your algorithms are doing that grooming and that radicalisation? but that is not how facebook sees it. while i do recognise we have a problem, which is a shared problem, with the police, with yourselves, with civil society organisations, how do we address that personally? society organisations, how do we address that person? who may be going down a channel which can lead

to them being radicalised. mps have a personal stake in the fight against harmful content online. but it's not clear that turning tech giants into censors is the best way to safeguard democracy. the future of the retailer toys r us in the uk — with more than 3 thousands jobs — is hanging in the balance after the company was told to allocate 9 million pounds to its pension fund. the retailer has been ordered to find the money by the end of the week, or its restructuring plans will not be approved. our business correspondent simon gompertz has been giving us the latest. it isa it is a desperate night for the 3200 staff who work at toys r us because if things stay as they are at the moment, their ariza real danger that administrators will need to be called in by the end of the week. what has happened is the pension protection fund — the body which whales out pension schemes of troubled companies like this one — is voting against a rescue plan that

toys r us was tried to put to its creditors. basically toys r us is going to slim down — this is one of the stores it will close down anyway — get financial support from creditors and soldier on but the pension protection fund has said, u nless pension protection fund has said, unless it stumps up three years worth of pension contribution in advance, it will not get its support and toys r us has said it does not have that money, at its us parent does not have that money because it is in financial trouble, and that is putting 100 outlets in trouble. it is not over yet, if the company can persuade the pension protection fund, the wrist deal hype but tonight, which should be the busiest and best time of year for toys r tonight, which should be the busiest and best time of yearfor toys r us staff is turning into one of deep

uncertainty. a passenger train which crashed in the state of washington was travelling at more than twice the speed limit — according to accident investigators. the train veered off a bridge onto a busy highway yesterday. three people died and more than 70 were injured. local authorities in england will be able to increase council tax byjust under 6% next year without triggering a local referendum. currently a raise of 5% or more must be put to local voters. ministers say it will ease pressure on local services. the local government association says councils will still be at financial breaking point. that's a summary of the news, newsday is coming up at midnight. now on bbc news it's time for newsnight. tonight, we have a broadcast world exclusive with the woman who fought to bring harvey weinstein to justice two long decades ago. for me to have broken into a meeting like that was very unusual, and he did not question me. he got up and came with me straight

away because he knew why i was as angry and serious as i was. so you accused him of attempted rape? yeah, yeah. and he denied it? yes. he said nothing at all had happened. and he swore on the life of his wife and his children, which was his best get out ofjail card that he used quite a lot. and did it ever cross your mind that that he might be telling the truth? no. good evening. at the end of a year which has seen women speak out with such clarity about abuse of male power, we dedicate much of tonight's programme to hearing from one who worked for harvey weinstein two decades ago. zelda perkins accused the hollywood mogul of the attempted rape of her colleague, and tried to start criminal proceedings against him. she has never spoken on camera about it before. she told newsnight about the moment she confronted weinstein over his behaviour, how

she expected his company to fire him, and how she was told the only way to get miramax to listen to her was by making a monetary request. zelda perkins ended up signing a non disclosure agreement worth £125,000. for 19 years, the company bought her silence. she told me why she decided to break it now. and what working for him was like. listen, harvey now everyone sees is this sort of repulsive monster. which he was and is, on one hand. but i think what is interesting and what isn't maybe brought forward is that he was also an extremely exciting, brilliant, you know, stimulating person to be around. he was at the top of his game at that time. he held all the cards. everybody came to him. and i'm notjust talking

about people in the entertainment industry. i'm talking about people in politics and in, you know, big business and industry. and so to be in the enclave of somebody that powerful, you know, was very exciting. he was also very unpleasant to be around. but he was a master manipulator and you know, his moods changed very quickly and you never knew whether you were, you know, his confidant or whether you were going to be screamed at. so it was a very highly adrenalised environment. when did you first notice that he had a problem with women? i don't know that i could say i noticed he had a problem with women. i think, again it's very difficult. everybody now says why did everyone

go to his hotel room? it wasn't as simple as that. you know, everybody went to his hotel. this was where he did business. it wasn't in his bedroom, it was in his suite. you know, you had top agents, top movie stars male and female coming in hourly for meetings. this was his place of business. so it wasn't sort of this spurious, weird thing that you had to go up to his room. however, he had a lot of meetings with actresses and he clearly had girlfriends. you know, he had regularfemale visitors who were actresses sometimes, aspiring actresses, well—known actresses.