good afternoon. a controversial ferry contract, awarded to a company which had no ships, has been scrapped. seaborne freight would have earned £118 million under a deal with the department for transport intended to provide extra capacity in the event of a no—deal brexit. the transport secretary chris grayling had defended the deal, saying he would"make no apologies for supporting a new british business. his department says it's cancelled the contract because the company's irish backer pulled out. our business correspondent rob young reports. preparations have been under way for weeks, dredging started at ramsgate port at the beginning ofjanuary, the work was meant to ensure the port would be ready at the end of march, should britain lever the european union without a deal. the plan was for seaborne freight to run regular services to ostend in belgium once it managed to get it hands on ship, but now the company has been stripped of its contract. the government says the main backer

has pulled out meaning it could not mean its contract eventual requirements we first flagged problems in april of last year, and we have been tracking it since then, both in terms of its attempts to find a vessels, which have failed without exception. largely because this port is very small. it is thought that backer arklow shipping has withdrawn for commercial reasons. ferry services haven't operated from ramsgate since 2013. the government hopes the port could offer extra capacity should dover become clogged after brex. so it is still possible ferries will stale from here. the department for transport says it in talks with other companies to supply service, with less than two months to go until brex timing is the owner of topshop paid a female employee more than £1 million to keep quiet after she accused him of kissing and groping her.

the daily telegraph says the senior female employee , which it hasn't named for legal reasons , was one of five members of staff , who signed gagging orders after being bullied or harassed , by sir philip green. chi chi izundu has more. aggressive and intimidating. sexual harassment and racism. both are the accusations making headline news on the front of the telegraph newspaper. details of the allegations against sir philip green one of britain's best known businessman involving five employees we re businessman involving five employees were up publiced in the paper after thejudge allowed hill to were up publiced in the paper after the judge allowed hill to drop action against it which lasted six months. the allegations include one senior female executive at the arcadia group which owns shops including topshop who was allegedly called a naughty girl. she was accused of slapping her bottom and kissing her face. the telegraph reports how he allegedly drew attention to the dreadlocks of a black employee, in

front of other staff, and referred to him as still throwing spears in thejungle. both are said to have received payments of £1 million. the telegraph says the payments were dependent on the employee seeing a nonu disclosure agreement which means they weren't allowed to talk about what happened or the money and 110w about what happened or the money and now sir philip is threatening legal action. the agreements can be binding, there are some circumstances in which they can't, they can't prevent reporting a crime to the police and they can't report other reports to other individuals, the media, and regulators but on the whole they may still be binding. sir philip says the newspaper has employed a vendetta. he told the paper he denies any unlawful sexual behaviour and any unlawful thousands of bus routes in england are under threat because councils

say they can't afford to pay for them. they say they're having to fill a gap of over 650 million pounds in funding for he scheme which provides free bus passes for elderly people, and that the situation is "unsustainable". councils in england subsidise 44% of all bus routes, and say without extra funding some could be cut. just over 1,000 stabbing victims, aged between ten and 19, spent at a least one night in hospital in the 12 months to last march. there's been a 54% rise in the number of young people treated for knife wounds in england over the past five years, according to nhs figures. our home affairs correspondent danny shaw reports. the youngest victim to die in a knife attack this year. jayden moodie was stabbed to death after being knocked off a moped. an 18—year—old man has been charged with murder. jayden was just 1a. doctors say they're treating increasing numbers of people for knife wounds, and the victims are getting younger. what has changed is we are seeing a lot more adolescents and young

people who have severe injuries. and that used to be an occasional occurrencem and that's now the norm. i expect to admit somebody of school age under the care of our service this week, as a matter of course. the figures for hospital admissions for injuries from knives or sharp objects show there were almost 5,000 people treated for stab wounds last year. 0ver1,000 of them were aged 10—19 — that's a rise of 5a%, compared with five years earlier. another trend doctors have observed is that more girls are involved in knife crime. some victims face threats that footage of their stabbing will be posted online. there's a shift in what we're seeing. in that i'm seeing young women who've come in having had their mobile phones taken off them in an attack, and having their attack filmed, as part of a humiliation. "this is what's going to happen to you if you say anything, we'll put it on the internet." doctors say the rise in knife crime is putting extra pressure

on emergency services. the home office has set up a serious violence strategy to tackle the problem and has launched a review of the links between violent crime and the trade in illegal drugs. danny shaw, bbc news. a woman fined for driving through a bus gate has won her appeal after arguing there were too many signs for the brain to process. bernadine king's penalty charge notice was quashed. but in the last 18 months thousands of drivers were fined using the chelmsford bus gate — generating £1.5 million. essex county council says the penalty has reduced the number of people using the gate. with all the sport now, here's 0lly foster at the bbc sport centre. good afternoon. it's the second round of fixtures in the six nations championship. two matches today. the match between scotland and ireland kicks off at 2.15 at murrayfield it's live on bbc one, ireland are the reigning champions but had an opening defeat

to england in dublin. they can't really afford to lose today if they are to realistically retain their title. scotland are looking for back to back wins after beating italy, also at murrayfield last week. if we want to go and compete and ta ke if we want to go and compete and take the next step, we need to win against quality opposition, ireland are that. they have proved that in the last couple of years and they are one of the best teams in the world. . if we are going to win tomorrow we will have to play one of our best games. with a few players coming in that didn't play last week, they will look to make a point they should have been involved last week, so look, we will have to make sure we get things right for sure, because if we produce something similar, the scots are a great team and have shown us, two years ago. wales face italy in rome at 11.30,

they came from 16—0 down to beat the french last week but have made 10 changes. george north is rested. centrejonathan davies will captain wales for the first time and there are four players starting a six nations match for the first time. liverpool can go back to the top of the premier league today with at least a draw against bournemouth at anfield. current leaders manchester city play chelsea tomorrow. paul pogba and anthony martial have given manchester a 2—0 lead at fulham in the lunchtime kick—off. black armband's are being worn at every game, in memory of cardiff city striker emiliano sala's, whose body was recovered from the english channel following a plane crash. it's a year to the day since the crash that ended the olympic dream of british snowboarder katie 0rmerod. she's has marked the anniversary by returning to the slopes and performing freestyle tricks for the first time. 0ur 0lympic reporter nick hope was there to meet her. katie 0rmerod back in her natural

environment. feeling on top of the world literally. a stark contrast to life 12 months ago. while her british team—mates celebrated a record haul of winter olympics medals, she was in hospital. with a broken heel, and wrist.|j medals, she was in hospital. with a broken heel, and wrist. i qualified for my first 0lympics, broken heel, and wrist. i qualified for my first olympics, and i was really confident to show the world what i could do on a snowboard and hopefully do well there, but it went so hopefully do well there, but it went so badly in the wrong direction, and as soon so badly in the wrong direction, and as soon as so badly in the wrong direction, and as soon as i broke my heel i knew that was me instantly out of the game, andi that was me instantly out of the game, and ifelt like the olympic dream was over. how game, and ifelt like the olympic dream was over. how tough has the last year ben? it was really bad. i didn't expect it to hit me as hard as it did. i was in crutches, in a wheelchair, was in in so much pain,

i crossed my mind i could be career ending, that was devastating, i couldn't imagine my life without snowboarding so i had to keep believing if everyone when it did feel impossible i would get through it and that helped me working tax credit hard in the gym and i had that determination to do it. despite seven round of surgery and a heel graft made of skin from her hip, combined with that of a pig, she has fought back and made a full return to the slopes this week. it feels amazing. the first time i went over it, it was the biggest adrenaline rush. does being here make it feel real? you are finally fully on the come back trail and back in the sport? i feel so happy and grateful to be back, and ifeel i want to be like the best snowboarder i can be andi like the best snowboarder i can be and i want to get back to getting medals again and hopefully make eve ryo ne medals again and hopefully make everyone proud. great britain's fed cup team face serbia in the europe africa zone play—off final in bath later today katie boulter and johanna konta won their singles rubbers

against hungary to make it through to the final. the british team haven't lost at all this week. if they come through the final they will earn a place in april's world group two play—off, win that and they would then get promoted to the second tier of the world group. that's all the sport for now. feel real? you are finally manchester united still leading fulham 2—0. thank you 0lly. the next news on bbc one is at 6.25. from all of us, enjoy hello. you're watching the bbc news channel with me, shaun ley. let's hear more now

about the department for transport‘s decision to cancel a controversial contract awarded to a firm with no ships to provide ferry services in the event of a no deal brexit. the deal has been torn—up because one of seaborne ferries main backers has pulled out. ramsgate's mp, craig mackinlay, gave me his reaction to the news. i am disappointed, because it seemed to be a good opportunity for thanet to be doing its bit for brexit contingencies. what has come out today, which is interesting, is that seaborne freight was backed up by a big shipping company from ireland, with 45 ships, and i don't know the reasons why they have pulled out of the deal. i would have thought that if they were looking at the ramsgate— 0stend route, i would have thought £13.8 million as a back—up from the

government would have made this route particularly desirable, but who knows? i'm sure the reasons will come out in the next few days. you hate to think, and i certainly hope, that it is not pressure from the irish government at this late stage. presumably, it is a commercial company, not state owned. given that it is an irish company, i wonder if chris grayling was well advised to make his comment that he made no apologies for supporting a new british business. you have shareholdings across lots of businesses in britain that are foreign owned. 60% in this case. british businesses own a lot of foreign brands but are fundamentally british, so there is nothing odd about that. i would like to say that i think that thanet district council

has shown significant leadership by stepping up to the plate and saying, we are ready and willing to do our bit for brexit resilience, and they have behaved admirably in what has happened so far. this could be an opportunity to show that ramsgate is a viable port. but we have to turn the page sometime on ramsgate port because there are financial difficulties. the dredging and all that that might be involved. charlie elphicke, who represents dover, said on the radio this morning that the government was chasing a chimera. it is a longer route and just not commercially viable. it was never going to be the salvation and would not have been able to cope with more than 5% of the traffic, and using smaller ships than currently go out of dover. i will protect chris

grayling on this one. if he had done nothing, he would have been admonished. the department for transport have to do something in case there are problems after a no—deal brexit. and he gets admonished for that as well. it is a rock and a hard place. a small insurance policy to make things work as effectively as they can, and i don't believe there will be difficulties. i trust what the deputy mayor of calais has said recently, giving assurances for some time that he foresees no difficulties in the dover— calais route, they will keep things going, customs arrangements will be in place. i thought that common sense will prevail and that will happen. he says he does not want chris grayling back at the calais port because he is unimpressed by how the british government has dealt with calais. it may be unfair on mr grayling, but he is developing a terrible reputation for things turning to dust in his hands. for a politician, that is a bit of a liability, isn't it? these are difficult

times and we are in uncharted waters, dare i put a bit of maritime spin on it, and we are relying on that single point of traffic from dover to calais, and i think sensibly the government has been trying to plan for every eventuality. the ramsgate port has been mothballed for many years and there has been very little traffic, but it could step up to the plate and do a service for the country. so full marks to them. sadly, for whatever reasons, commercial or otherwise, seaborne freight have decided not to go ahead with this, but i am hearing that there are more significant operators out there who are alerted to the potential for ramsgate and who may come forward and start speaking to us,

which would be a good thing. new attention has been focused on the legal deals known as non—disclosure agreements, amid allegations published by the daily telegraph about sir philip green. new claims of sexual and racial harassment against sir philip green have been published in the daily telegraph. a senior female employee said she was paid more than a million pounds to keep quiet, after she accused him of kissing and groping her. she's one of five staff members reported to have signed non—disclosure agreements , or ndas , after alleging they had been bullied or harassed. the topshop boss denies allegations he behaved wrongly. i asked an expert in ndas — mark stephens, from the howard kennedy law firm — to explain how they are used. their original purpose was that you could keep trade secrets, so your customer lists, if you were an employer, you could gag someone from talking about that. if you worked at coca—cola, you couldn't tell the formula to pepsi, for example. in those examples, commercial secrets, one understands the importance of them. of course, what has happened is that ingenious and highly paid lawyers, and as one, i can speak with authority, have expanded that, and now what they are used to do is to cover up inappropriate

behaviours, often where there is a power imbalance, and that is where the vice is, really, because the people signing up to these are people who have been abused and just want to get out, and they want to leave. they'll sign anything to get out, and that is where the problem lies. i was listening to the former solicitor general saying he is not convinced by that because actually all those people have a voice too and it is down to the lawyers to negotiate with the other lawyers and there is no evidence that the lawyers negotiating on behalf of people who are victims of bad behaviour from their employer are losing out. i am very fond of edward garnier, but he has missed the point. i suspect it is because he hasn't sat in a room with people. it is not about the quality of the lawyers. you can have expert lawyers on both sides, but if your client is saying, look, just sign anything, i want to get out, this is an abusive situation and i cannot work there, i need money to tide me over to a newjob,

do the best you can, and that is the instructions you are getting, whereas on the other side, if you are acting for the abuser, acting for the employer, they are saying, shut this person up. there is a reputational risk here, gag them. we don't want them speaking to the press at any cost. as a consequence, that is what we are seeing and we are seeing people effectively being gagged. what about sir philip green's argument that this puts unfair pressure on people who already signed ndas in his case because the telegraph have made the story public? they will come under pressure to talk, even though one of the things about a nda is that they want to forget it and get on with their lives and they won't want future employers to know about it in case they think they are trouble. there were cases involving

harvey weinstein, where he was producing ndas on a photocopier, there were so many of them. some of the women have made it abundantly clear that they do not wish to speak, and have not, but some of the people hadn't realised that there was the large number of nondisclosure agreements, and as a consequence, they do now want to speak up. this really leads me to one of the issues for reform. there is no transparency reporting. it is important that if there is just one case, that perhaps that can be dealt with, but if there is, if you like, a hotspot or cluster of ndas affecting one individual. that should be reported? that should be reported. hr should know, and the remuneration committee on any company should know that. we are seeing that kind of reporting in america. if the americans can get it right in terms of employment law, we certainly should. as we've been reporting, just over

a thousand stabbing victims, aged between 10 and 19, spent at a least one night in hospital in the 12 months to last march — and the nhs is reporting a 5k per cent rise in the number of young people treated for knife wounds in england over the past five years. earlier i spoke to patrick green, head of the ben kinsella trust, which works to reduce knife crime. he says he's particularly concerned about the early age of some of victims. it's the number of young people, 10—19, that are shown in these figures coming through from trauma units. they are nearly doubling, so we are seeing a real crisis at that very early age, and that's the worrying trend. we need to do far more to stop young people carrying knives. 0ur ethos at the trust is that no child is born carrying a knife. it is a learned behaviour,

and we need to do far more to help young people unlearn bad behaviour is to good ones and stop carrying knives. what is happening in terms of the popularity of carrying knives? as it learned behaviour from siblings? what is driving it? there are a number of issues driving night for crime, not just one issue. ——driving knife crime. protection is the most common answer we get from young people. behind that is fear. young people are fearful. if you feel there are more knives out there, you feel the only thing you can do is protect yourself. if you and i are friends, and you are carrying a knife, i will probably carry a knife, and it grows and grows. what do you make of the government's talk in the early

stages of this about crime prevention? ——knife crime prevention? we would need to see more about what that means. for habitual knife carriers, giving extra police powers is a good thing. we would have some questions of use on younger people, 12 years of age, no criminal record. with that group, early intervention and prevention has been shown to be very successful, helping young people make those decisions and turn their lives around. there are other measures that are really successful and can be put in place. around forty—thousand children suffer brain injuries every year in the uk, and without treatment they can become isolated and angry, falling behind at school. now a national health service centre in cambridge is combining a number of different disciplines in one place in order to help children rehabilitate, as richard westcott reports.

buying some cake ingredients would be a doddle for most teenagers but 15—year—old zack's just learning to shop alone. hi, darling. hey mum, ijust need to make sure i have the right things, granulated sugar and self raising flour. no, you need plain flour. are you sure you didn't buy any chocolate, zack? yeah, i'm sure. laughs. he's trying his hand at baking for the first time, too. george! i mean, richard! laughter. did i hear my name? do the work. george... do the work, and then then you get a reward. yes, but have i got the payment we agreed earlier? did you manage to get it? yes. thank you very much. a decade ago, zack was an everyday sporty kid and then he banged his head at school, permanently damaging his brain. i had a highly—intelligent child with a photographic memory, he was a natural sportsman, very happy all the time, to a child that was angry, to a child that was physical,

to a child that screamed, to a child that had to learn how to use his limbs again. whoa, that was a good catch! zack used to beat me up daily. you know, he used to say it was my fault, what had happened. even though he didn't mean it, he wanted to die. zack wouldn't have shopped alone six months ago, then he started coming here. this is the cambridge centre for paediatric neurospsychological rehabilitation. a complex name for a bright idea. it is britain's only nhs one—stop shop to rehabilitate children with brain injuries back into family and school life. combining experts on emotions, language, medication, body movement and education. when a young person has had an injury like zack's, they need all the expertise and what is great for the families is they get to come to the service and see everybody who they might need to see in one place, on the rather than having to go

to multiple different services which can take years of sometimes. brain injuries happen through accidents, assaults, infections, tumours and strokes. imagine that's the top of the head... without help, people can become isolated and struggle to control their impulses. incredibly, around 60% of young adult prison inmates report having had a brain injury. the effects can lay hidden for a long time. 5—10 years down the line, you might see an adolescent who uses inappropriate language, whose behaviour is not right for the situation, who misjudges social cues and that might be put down to that person's bad behaviour, if you like. but really, it's a consequence of the injury that had back when they were five. let's get the cake out of the oven... the child will never be the old self again but with this combined help, they can learn to cope with simple, everyday life. i've done a lot on my own, yes, and got quite far, but i've always felt very isolated.

now i don't feel alone. richard westcott, bbc news, cambridge. now, time for the weather. it was gusty overnight — how is it looking today? storm eric is pulling away. there are showers and western areas, more persistent rain for a time across 0rkney, but milder this afternoon for many, temperatures of 9—12dc. more persistent rain over central and southern england and parts of wales overnight. there could be a touch of frost as temperatures fall

below freezing. it is a wet start to the day tomorrow across central and southern parts of england. the rain could linger across east anglia in the afternoon. rain returning to northern ireland in west scotland throughout the day. a north to north westerly wind tomorrow, feeling colder again. i temperatures of eight celsius. —— high temperatures. you are watching bbc news. the headlines this hour: the government has cancelled a controversial agreement to provide extra ferries in case of a no—deal brexit. new allegations of sexual and racial harassment by former employees of the retail tycoon sir philip green are published in the telegraph. he denies any crime or misconduct. the number of young victims of knife crime admitted to hospitals in england has risen by more than 50% in the past five years. us officials say they've held three days of productive talks in north korea, to prepare for the second meeting between president

trump and kimjong—un.