tonight at six. .. the police watchdog says officers acted "completely appropriately" at a vigilfor sarah everard in south london earlier this month. the metropolitan police force was criticised after officers handcuffed women and forcibly removed them from crowds on clapham common. the report makes it very clear that officers were incredibly patient in their interactions with people. they pleaded with them, sometimes for more than an hour, to try to persuade them to move. all i can say as a woman who has been on the end of violence and harassment is that clearly no one cares. when i was in the van i felt i had that frustration of feeling, "here i go again, being silenced." the police watchdog called the media coverage a "public relations disaster" that damaged public

confidence in policing. also tonight... more than half the uk's population now has coronavirus antibodies mostly because of the vaccination programme. the boom in online gambling — just how information does the industry hold on you? one former addict finds out. and soaking up the sunshine on the uk's warmest march day since 1968. and coming up on bbc news channel... wales are back in world cup qualifying action this evening as the hosts. the czech republic are looking to bounce back from their opening loss. good evening and welcome to the bbc news at six.

a review into the metropolitan police's handling of a vigil in memory of sarah everard has found officers "did not act inappropriately or in a heavy—handed manner". footage from the event showing women being detained was widely shared and criticised on social media at the time. today, the chief inspector of constabulary said metropolitan police officers had done their best to disperse the crowd peacefully, and said they had remained calm and professional when subjected to abuse. our home affairs correspondent, june kelly, reports. it was an image which went around the world. the policing of the sarah everard vigil has been described as one of the most damaging episodes in the modern history of the met police. but now the met stands cleared of any major criticism. its tactics were right according to the report today.

it's important that people don'tjust prejudge the actions of the police by footage that was put out and aired on broadcast without knowing the full facts, and of course that's eventually why i commissioned that report. but one of the women handcuffed that night described the report as disheartening. when i was in the van, i felt that feeling of frustration of here i go again, being silenced. this does not matter. the report when it came again was just that same feeling of being silenced, extremely painful. after reviewing footage from body worn cameras and interviewing key people, the police inspectorate has found that officers did their best to peacefully disperse the crowd. but they remained calm and professional when being subjected to abuse. and that they did not act in a heavy—handed manner. the officers were incredibly patient and their— interactions with people. they pleaded with . them, sometimes for

more than an hour to try i to persuade them to move. it was only a very small- number of people who were arrested at that event. custody when they provided their name and address. . so i thinkjudge for yourselves and read the report. _ jade said she was very vocal that night. she was arrested and handcuffed. today she said she could see that challenges the police were facing. i agree that we should have been there and should have laid flowers and paid our respects accordingly and respectfully and silently. but i don't agree with how it ended up. it ended up being and the part i played in it, no, i don't believe it should have been that way. do you regret your behaviour that night? yes, i do regret my behaviour that night. in the febrile atmosphere that followed the vigil, some politicians called for the met commissioner to go. the report condemns what it calls this uninformed commentary. it says it undermines public confidence in

policing based on very limited evidence. but some who were at clapham that night say what happened did make them lose faith in the police. june kelly, bbc news. our home editor mark easton is here. that is what the report says, it was a public relations disaster. it a public relations disaster. it does, whatever the official report might say about the response of the police, the reputation of policing in london did take a big hit in clapham common that night. that powerful image of a woman under arrest was quickly reproduced and sent around the world on social media. but to protest at coverage on twitter, the inspectorate says, is as futile as complaining about the weather. they suggest a more conciliatory response to criticism might have served the force are better. but they also met the chorus of what they called unwarranted and uninformed condemnation from people in positions of responsibility,

jumping to conclusions, political commentary they talk about. the police were wrong in their reading of the law. some protests can take place legally, even in areas under lockdown. it could have worked to manage a safe and respectful vigil, but they did not because the law was confused. once again the finger is pointed at the politicians. let me read you this. it is incumbent on the legislature, to provide a set of rules that is readily capable of being accurately interpreted and applied. if the police are largely vindicated by this report, the politicians are most certainly not. more than half of the uk population now have antibodies for coronavirus, according to official statistics. some will have antibodies after contracting the virus, but most have got them after being vaccinated. antibodies are proteins in the blood which recognise specific infections and fight them off. and antibody levels are even higher among the oldest

who are most at risk, according to tests conducted by the office for national statistics. here's our health correspondent, sophie hutchinson. lockdown is easing, and with it has come the sun, a chance to socialise when record numbers of us now have antibodies against the coronavirus, the immune system's way of fighting off an infection. the number of people testing positive for coronavirus antibodies has risen steeply. injanuary, it was estimated one in seven people have them after recovering from the virus. that rose to one in four people in february, showing for the first time the impact of the vaccine roll—out. and this month, it went up to one in two people, reflecting the large number of those who have now been vaccinated. the rest of the uk now has similar levels of positive antibodies, although they are a little lower in scotland. it's amazingly good news, compared to where we were at christmas, to think we would be here by now

is really good. and we know that it will make a big difference, it already is making a big difference, hospitalisations and deaths, because it's especially skewed towards the more vulnerable people. but there is still half the population who don't have antibodies, particularly children who are not eligible for the vaccine yet. antibody levels among some of the most vulnerable, those aged 65 and over, are even higher. the latest data shows that the vast majority, 90%, have some form of protection. but in the oldest age groups, there has been a slight decline, possibly due to people waiting for their booster dose. scientists say it's essential antibody data is monitored to keep track ofjust how safe we are. we know that 50% of people get coronavirus and don't have a single symptom, and other people sadly have it so badly that they end up in hospital and die. so we have this huge variation, naturally, and so it is only to be expected that we will also see variation in people's

response to vaccination. other data published today shows the number of deaths in the uk remains below normal levels for this time of year, the second week in a row. experts say keeping it that way will depend on just how careful we are as we embrace our new freedoms. sophie hutchinson, bbc news. let's take a look at the latest government figures. there were 4,040 new coronavirus infections recorded in the latest 24—hour period. on average 5,066 new cases were reported per day in the last week. 4,153 people are in hospital with coronavirus. 56 deaths were reported in the latest 24—hour period, that's people who died within 28 days of a positive covid—i9 test. on average in the past week 55 deaths were announced every day. the total number is now 126,670. as for vaccinations,

over 236,000 people have had their first dose of a covid vaccine in the latest 24—hour period, bringing the total to more than 30.6 million. 3.8 million people have now had both doses of a vaccine. the comedian sir lenny henry and dozens of black celebrities have joined forces to urge black britons to get vaccinated against covid—i9. they've written an open letter and recorded a short film telling people to trust the facts and the experts. the move comes as figures show that vaccination rates are considerably lower among black britons than among the white population. adina campbell reports. dear mums and dads. grandparents. uncles. brothers. some of the biggest names in tv... we don't want you to die. ..now turning their attention to the pandemic. take the jab. with ongoing concerns about low vaccination take—up rates in black communities, this new, high—profile campaign has been led by sir lenny henry.

please talk to a medical professional. do not go to dave down the pub for information, or uncle charlie on the zoom call. go to a medical professional, or your gp and get the proper information so you are properly informed and take the jab because we don't want anybody else to die. latest figures for the over 70s released by the office for national statistics show that between december last year and earlier this month fewer than 60% of people who identified themselves as black africans had been vaccinated. for those with a black caribbean heritage it was fewer than 70%. but the figure for white british people was more than 90%. reluctance to take up this really effective vaccine. vaccine hesitancy is a problem health leaders have been facing for months. consistent fears that keep coming up are is the vaccine safe? what is in the content

of the vaccine? do i have anything to worry about? how certain can i be about its protection? so we listen to these concerns from members of the community. the last 12 months have disproportionately affected people from black backgrounds, with much higher death rates from coronavirus compared with those from other ethnic groups. we know it's safe. but this new film is hoping to change that with a big push from some of britain's most well—known faces. don't let coronavirus cost any more black lives. adina campbell, bbc news. with coronavirus restrictions starting to relax around the uk, england's chief medical officer has warned there's a "high likelihood" case numbers will rise. so what are the risks of transmission, and what can we do to reduce them? here's our science editor david shukman. cases are falling, but the virus is still around, and although the vaccines are saving lives, they can't guarantee protection. so what are the risks?

well, for people out enjoying the sun today, infection is really unlikely. that's why activities outdoors were the first to be allowed as the lockdown is relaxed. the research tells us that when you're out in the open, the risks are very low. that's because if someone is infected, the virus that they breathe out should be very quickly dispersed in the fresh air. even so, the advice is to remain cautious. that's because even outdoors, if you're very close together and talking face—to—face for a long time, studies show the virus can spread. but as this animation shows, the risks are greatest indoors, with the virus accumulating if there is no fresh air, so good ventilation and social distancing really matter when places like bars and restaurants reopen. are they spacing people apart effectively? are they considering the ventilation? have they got doors and windows open, or is it obvious that there is some other form

of ventilation in there? help keep the virus levels down and let's take _ help keep the virus levels down and let's take this next step safely. stay _ let's take this next step safely. stay outside when you are with people — stay outside when you are with people and not in your household bubble _ bubble. the government keeps emphasising the need to keep hands clean to reduce the chances of infection, but it's also now highlighting how the virus can spread through the air, especially indoors, and howjust opening windows can make all the difference. and this matters because although the vaccination programme is doing a greatjob protecting the most vulnerable, the virus is mainly spread by under 50s, and most of them have yet to have the jab. that's why scientists are still urging caution. david shukman, bbc news. all hypotheses into the origins of the virus that causes covid—i9 "remain on the table" according to the director general of the world health organisation. his comments come after an initial report had all but ruled out a laboratory leak as the cause of the virus. but dr tedros said the investigators had encountered difficulties getting

hold of raw data in china and further evidence would be needed to reach more robust conclusions. northern ireland's first minister has called for the police chief to resign following a decision by the public prosecution service not to prosecute those who attended the funeral of former ira leader bobby storey last june. it has been one of the most controversial events of the coronavirus pandemic. the senior republican�*s funeral saw crowds of over 2000 people in the streets at a time when strict rules limited public gatherings. emma is at stormont for us now. tell us more about the reaction. the bobby story _ us more about the reaction. tie: bobby story funeral has become a source of huge frustration and anger in northern ireland. it was attended by a number of senior sinn fein politicians, including the deputy first minister michelle o'neill. later on sinn fein faced accusations

of hypocrisy with being prepared to make the rules for others but prepare to breach them themselves. today's announcement that they would be no prosecutions has prompted a very strong reaction from the first minister, arlene foster, calling on the chief constable to resign, saying there is a crisis of confidence in policing now. but the head of the police here says he will not go and we have heard today that one of the factors that made bringing charges very difficult is there was a lack of clarity in the restrictions at the time which just kept on changing. michelle o'neill herself has apologised to people for the impression that her attendance at the funeral on the day, but this by itself is little comfort to many people in northern ireland who did stay away from the funerals of loved ones. this whole row has been very damaging for political relationships up damaging for political relationships up here. it's 6.16. our top story this evening —

the police watchdog says officers acted "completely appropriately" at a vigilfor sarah everard in south london earlier this month. the real impact of lockdown and the pandemic on our mental health is onlyjust starting to emerge according to experts. the royal college of psychiatrists says that social isolation, loneliness, stress, anxiety and bereavement are all factors that have led to an increase in workload for mental health services in the last year. it's just one of a series of warnings about the impact of the pandemic and the long—term consequences for the nhs. our health editor hugh pym reports from portsmouth.

charlotte is enjoying the final weeks of her maternity leave with her ten—month—old son ethan, but life in lockdown has been difficult. she's been in and out of hospital. i got told by the doctor the worse could have happened, so he would have had a seizure if we'd left it two more hours, and wouldn't have made it. that's kind of what started everything. so i did get quite low. and back at home, she was anxious and stressed, but didn't have support to turn to. you weren't able to see families face—to—face, and ordinarily, i've known people to have their mums to stay or their parents to stay and help. it was a struggle. she says she was helped a lot by regular contact with leanne, who's a health visitor, but there are fears that many parents have missed out. there is a huge cohort of families who have not had the support from their families. i think the coming months and potentially the coming years will be able to show us the true extent of the impact of covid

on our families. those feeling trapped at home have needed more support, and hannah is a community mental health nurse who goes out to visit them. a lot of it is about social isolation, and we've been that contact for them. here she visits sam, who lives on her own, and says lockdown has added to her existing mental health challenges. i was like a recluse. ijust hibernated, i didn't... there was no point in speaking to my friends. it felt like there was no point in speaking to my friends because i couldn't see them anyway. ijust got deeper into depression. she says hannah's care has been a lifeline. i think you've helped me find things to do indoors, find things to keep me busy, motivated me to get out of the house. yeah. helping people on the road to recovery, patience is another member of the community team. she goes out to see older people who've been

on their own and struggling. linda, it's me, patience, the nurse. how are you? yeah, fine, thank you. can i come in? yeah, of course you can. oh, good. linda has physical health problems, but lockdown has affected her recovery, and her mental health deteriorated. when you're indoors all the time, one day rolls into another. i had a bit of a real bad day on saturday. just woke up, didn't want to get out of bed, i didn't want to get out, knowing what i've got to face, you know. patience says it was really tough for those who were advised to isolate. so they were shielding in the house with nobody seeing them at all. that was really hard on them. they can't see their family except on telephone, and unfortunately, with most of our patients, telephone is quite difficult. we think certainly some people will have delayed getting help, and therefore may be worse

when they come to us than they would have been otherwise. we also know that things will not just bounce back and go back to normal straight away, and that there are problems stored at the moment. they're giving hope in difficult times, but they know their work has a long way to go, with the toll on mental health of the last year becoming clearer by the day. hugh pym, bbc news, portsmouth. online gambling has exploded over the past decade, and now takes in around £6 billion a year. the industry has changed dramatically thanks to smart phones and laptops. now the government is reviewing the law surrounding gambling to make sure it's fit for the digital age. one area that will be looked at is just how much personal information the gambling industry stores. our media editor amol rajan has been speaking to one former gambling addict who has been finding outjust how much is known about him. gambling today has shifted online. it's part of the battle

for our attention that digital platforms wage every minute. people who can't control their attention are addicts. like this man, who has asked us to call him james. gambling on the internet, and particularly on smartphones using apps, you are in effect at the super casino in your pocket. i've never actually been in a physical bookmaker�*s shop. i can remember being sent an offer one day. if i deposited anything up to £300 they would match that and that was basically the initial hook that got me into slot machines. in three months, james went from gambling £100 a month to £5,000 in a day. when he finally stopped, he was £80,000 in debt. for a time, it ruined my life. james wanted to understand his relationship with the gambling companies, in particular sky bet and the personal data he agreed to share with them when he signed up. he issued what is known as a data

subject access request. but to start to get the full picture, he had to find out his unique code and put in a request notjust to sky bet, but also to three data harvesting companies which sky bet sends data to from its data warehouse. the three are owned by the us firm transunion. signal, which profiled his behaviour for marketing, notjust from sky bet but other companies too. iovation, which monitored what device he was using when and how often. and transunion�*s credit reference company. the subject access request from iovation showed almost 19,000 separate items of data. sky bet says it uses this forfraud prevention. and with the behavioural profiling by signal which can be used for marketing, james found they had 166 bits of data on him notjust from sky bet. these include classifying him a high valued customer, knowing he chases losses, and knowing the percentage

of their e—mails that he opens. transunion, the data and insights company said... sky bet told us it... the lawyer who helped james access his files says we need to understand what information we give away. gambling companies do not operate in a silo of data. there is a wider ecosystem and there is data flowing in at different times and in different ways. the concern for our clients

is that data is being used for behavioural surveillance, understanding what you are doing, who you are, what you like. the price of the free and open web we have today is paid in privacy and it's notjust about big tech. companies many of us know very little about have built exceptionally detailed profiles on you, me and everybody. we often sign up to this when we consent to online terms and conditions. the review of the gambling act will look at whether the law is effective and gives the right protections, something the regulator, the gambling commission, says it welcomes. amol rajan, bbc news. with just over five weeks to go until the scotish parliament election, scotland's political leaders are to face each other in the first tv debate of the holyrood campaign. the snp's nicola sturgeon, the conservatives' douglas ross, labour's anas sarwar, lorna slater for the scottish greens and lib dem willie rennie will all take part in the bbc programme.

it's being chaired by the bbc�*s scotland editor, sarah smith, whojoins us from edinburgh tonight. and sarah, after a tumultuous few weeks, what's the atmosphere expcted to be like tonight? i think the one thing we can probably all agree on is that we want to focus on the issues now, on the policy is that these five parties have for how to try and rebuild scotland back after the pandemic, ratherthan rebuild scotland back after the pandemic, rather than all the focus that there has been on the psychodrama that's been playing out between nicola and alex salmond. so the questions tonight are all going to all come from our audience members who will be joining us via zoom, and it will reflect the issues that really mattered to them in their lives. myjob willjust be to try and get the answers out of the politicians to reflect what the audience asking them about, and also to try and stop them all shouting over each other if everything gets a little bit heated. —— nicola sturgeon. because this is overly crucial election, you have got scottish parliament, which covers

issues like health, education, the environment and the economy, all of those policies will be talked about, but inevitably we will get to the question of scottish independence. two of the five party we just support scotland becoming an independent country, 31 scotland to remain in the uk and do not want to have an independence referendum within the next few years. whether or not we have that food is one of theissues or not we have that food is one of the issues that could be decided should said that vote should have said three of them want scotland to remain in the uk.— remain in the uk. thank you, sarah smith. it looks like today has been the hottest march day since 1968. what temperatures reached over 2a celsius in central london, with much of england and wales basking in unusually warm sunshine. jon kay has been soaking it all up now that lockdown restrictions have been eased. after a long lockdown winter, how good does this feel? it feels great! as you mightjust be able to tell,

they are happy to be back together and in the sunshine. it's been so horrible with all the covid restrictions, we can't do anything, and now we've got the two household rule, we can all come together again and just have fun. sun's shining, with your friends, it's great, it's an amazing feeling. this afternoon, weston—super—mare's seafront seemed more like mid—summer than early spring. look closely, though, and it's not quite normal yet. that will be a few more weeks at least. but for these two, this is good enough. feels hopeful. it'sjust really lovely to be out and enjoying the sun. i think it's just lifted my spirits a bit, because obviously it's been dark and dingy for so long, and being locked up inside when the weather has been bad, you can't even enjoy the garden. although more northern parts of the uk haven't been so lucky today, it has been ice cream weather from london... ..to pembrokeshire.

resorts say they have learned lessons from last summer's crowds about how to keep things covid—secure. of course i do, yeah, i feel very safe. just the way people are conducting themselves, everyone is keeping their distance. even when people are queueing up for the toilets and getting their fish and chips etc, everyone is taking the guidelines quite seriously. yeah, makes you feel safe, yeah. and with many predicting a boom for uk tourism this summer, the easter weekend could bring...snow. jon kay, bbc news. time for a look at the weather. here's stav daneos. the hottest place to date was again in the london area, kew gardens reaching 24.5 celsius. —— the hottest place today. a number of places are seen records for march. this is the warmest march day since 1968. a likely to see those

temperatures similarly enter tomorrow. very warm air wafting up from northern africa, across our shores, yet this by the front continues to plague the north west of scotland, bringing some very wet weather through this evening and overnight, some cold air beginning to dig down into the northern isles as well. further south, a cool nights to come under clear skies, not as chilly, though, as last night. wednesday, we do it all again, a cool start, lots of sunshine, very warm, again into the afternoon. read more clerk for northern ireland and for scotland, we will have areas of rain, scotland is telling increasingly wintry over the higher ground. temperatures again 22 may be 23 or 24 celsius. on thursday, cool air beginning to push a bit further southwards. plenty of sunshine around, thanks to higher pressure, variable amounts of cloud, but the dregs of the warmth will just hold on for one last day for england