point this is bbc world news, the headlines... the new republican speaker of the us house of representatives, finally elected after 15 rounds of voting, says former president trump helped him get there. kevin mccarthy's repeated attempts to secure the job almost saw fellow republicans come to blows. prime minister rishi sunak and the health secretary have been meeting leaders of nhs organisations and medical experts in downing street — to try to tackle the ongoing challenges facing the health service in england. iran is facing international condemnation for hanging two more people said to have been involved in nationwide protests. the uk called their executions abhorrent. as ukraine celebrates the orthodox christmas, russian—backed forces there say they've downed a drone lauched in breach of a temporary ceasefire.

it appears to be another sign that the temporary truce called by president putin has been ignored. now on bbc news — a programme called the big cases: killing my children's abuser. a warning this programme contains themes some viewers may find distressing. a woman has been jailed for stabbing to death a convicted paedophile. paedophiles tear lives apart. that's what they do. her children had been sexually abused. were you glad he was dead? yes. oh, yeah, definitely. she stabbed michael pleasted repeatedly. he bled to death. 20 minutes later she re—emerged. you can see the knife.

i bring life into the world. it never occurred to me that i would be guilty of taking life out of the world. did a man need to die? did children need to be hurt for the truth to come out? i think i had the knife in my left hand, and i remember him trying to grab it. i had taken the law into my own hands, i had done that. in 2014, sarah sands and her young sons moved into a maisonette on this estate, their first proper home.

her elder son bradley wasn't much older than his twin brothers, alfie and reece, so from the start they were always close. the family had been on a council waiting list for years, and sarah hoped their new home would finally give the boys a sense of security as they moved into secondary education. it was special to us, it was our fresh start. we poured a lot of love into that little place, it was ours, we were happy, the kids settled in great at school. we could have been happy there. took everything from me... sarah sands became friendly with

a pensioner in a neighbouring block. michael was 77 and lived on his own. i genuinely thought he was just a lovely old man. i would watch him on the estate. pleased to see everyone, help everyone. everybody said hi to him, he was easy—going, always had something nice to say. yeah, he wasjust a nice man, absolutely no red flags whatsoever. i cooked for him, looked after him, always kept him company when i had the time. so many regrets. i wish i didn't move here. i wish i'd never said hello. i suppose in one way it's like saying you wish you weren't kind and you wish you had been mean and ignorant, and you wish you'd been, you know...

a few of the children had saturdayjobs with him, just helping him out at the back of the shop, working in the corner shop, he'd the papers in the morning. so they had saturdayjobs with him and he asked if it would be all right if brad could help out, and brad was so excited, bless him. he was so excited. he invited them back to his flat, where the assaults took place. it was all part of his grooming, but she was unaware, she wasjust looking at him as an old man who was lonely in the community. he definitely...caught everyone off—guard, definitely. do you think now he was targeting brad? yep. she had given food to the man who had sexually

assaulted her children, she had kind of welcomed him into herfamily. he was, to all intents and purposes, grooming her children. he allowed the children, even at the young age they were, to work in his brick—a—brack shop at the back of the newsagents in the estate where they lived. 12—year—old bradley and the twins, who were 11, told her that pleasted had sexually abused them. still to this day, there are no words to describe how it eats you up from the inside out. he'd ripped my family apart, that's what he'd done. michael pleasted was arrested and charged with offences against her boys. while he was awaiting trial, he was allowed back on the estate. sarah sands couldn't believe a judge had agreed to let him return to the neighbourhood. he was given bail by the courts.

i can't comment on that decision because i wasn't involved in that decsion, but on a personal level, i still don't understand why the court gave him bail, and back to his home address, which was very close to where sarah and her family lived, which would have put them again under more stress and pressure, and more severe that there might be more repercussions. he had ruined my life and he had tried to take away the most precious thing in my life. them babies...we know they're not going to wake up one day and this didn't happen. i'm never going to be able to take it away from them when they are screaming in the middle of the night. i can't say, oh, it was just a dream. because it wasn't, he was a walking nightmare. it's horrendous, the guilt, the pain, the sheer shame. it's myjob to protect them. i should have known.

itjust eats you, eats you alive. but why are you feeling shame? because that's my baby. i would give my life for my baby. in a highly emotional state, she set off from her home and made her way to michael pleasted's flat. she was carrying a knife.

didn't know what i was doing there. it was a ridiculous... ididn't... itjust... i realised i made a huge mistake. i was frightened, absolutely petrified. he had no fear. he was not remorseful in any way, shape or form. at first, he was very much, oh, your children are lying. and i was just standing there, everything froze, the whole world, there wasn't a world, i just froze. once he realised i wasn't listening to the drool that was coming out of his mouth, because we both know my

children aren't lying. the police aren't here any more, you ain't got nobody to justify it to, we both know you are lying. i didn't say that but i'm sure the look on my face were telling him that, because at the same time he just stopped. hejumped out of his chair, went over to the window and then came towards me, and by that time, i had the... i think i had the knife in my left hand and i remember him trying to grab it. and i remember leaving. yeah. 20 minutes later, she emerged. you can see the knife. she had stabbed him eight times. he bled to death.

i didn't intend for it to end the way it did, no. you didn't intend to kill him? no. hours later, she handed herself into the police. i saw a very frightened, vulnerable woman. you could tell that she was scared. she came to the police station, she denied murder and obviously gave an explanation of what had happened and why it had happened, from her point of view. they absolutely have the right to demand answers from me. i had taken the law into my own hands, i had done that.

i've always been raised, and my boys have always been raised to take responsibility for their actions, but i also understood this is the process that should have happened to michael pleasted, this is the process. when you learned what your mum had done, and that this man was now dead, because she had killed him... hats off. good. i ain't going to lie, i ain't going to deny it. he was released on bail, . what would make you think he is not going to go, - i know i'm going to get caught and do time, let me go and get four, five more kids? _ it didn't stop any afterthoughts, we would often wake up crying, "where's mum," and the nightmares. if we have known he was locked away, i'm sure that would have been just as satisfying. so were you glad he was dead? yeah. definitely.

if this guy is still walking about and i know what he has done to me... one of us... he'd be out doing it again. the nightmares and stuff, it doesn't slow them down but it is more of a sense of security because you don't have to walk down the street thinking... he's going to come around the corner. | and he literally lived across the road from us. i could see the man's house, i could open that window over there and see his house across the road. there were lots of tears, certainly, whe she was giving evidence and when the verdicts were read out. at the old bailey, a woman has been jailed for three and a half years for stabbing to death an elderly neighbour who was a convicted paedophile. sarah sands were convicted of manslaughter rather than murder on the grounds that she had lost

control, but some question whether her sentence was too lenient, and the court of appeal was asked to make a ruling. the offender took with her to the scene a knife which was used in the infliction of fatal injuries. when the jury were sure that at the time she intended to cause at least serious grievous bodily harm. she did take some steps to cover her tracks. she had changed her clothing. she appears to have attempted to avoid her fingerprints being left at the scene. the offender, having fatally stabbed the deceased, did nothing to assist him in that she did not call the emergency services. seven and a half years, that is the sentence that will be substituted for the sentence

of 42 months. there were times in the beginning of going to prison i was suicidal. absolutely suicidal. and i think i cried every day for about six months, every single day. even in that state, i was still calling them in the morning to say good morning, calling them after school to ask out the day when, calling them in the evening to say good night before they went to bed. never missed a visit. you go to several gates and empty out your pockets, they pat your arms and legs, every inch of your body. you couldn't bring anything in if you wanted to. open your mouth, move your tongue to make sure you're _ not hiding something. having no say in what happens to them as children... in holloway, you literally get one hour. so having them sitting there, my little one trying

to play with my hair, everyone wants to talk to their mummy at the same time... as soon as they left, as soon as they left... did you feel, sarah, remorse? absolutely. and why did you feel remorse? i bring life into the world. it never occurred to me that i would be guilty of taking life out of the world. single mother, you know, trying to raise her children the best way she could. she hadn't had it easy in life. i'm not condoning what she did, because you can't take the law into your own hands. she should have allowed

justice to take its place, which was happening. what sarah sands and none of her neighbours knew was that the man she had killed, the man accused of abusing her children, was a convicted paedophile who had changed his identity to try to bury his past. his original name was robin mould, and this was a newspaper report of his first case dating back to 1970. he had 2a convictions for sex offending. he had served jail terms for his crimes which spanned three decades. not even the local council was aware of this when it housed him in a block overlooking a primary school. even without knowing his history, sarah sands had tried to stop him living back on the estate after he was charged with the offences against her sons. i did go through

all the authorities... it's the government's fault at the end of the day what happened. i have to take responsibility... if they did theirjob properly, this wouldn't have happened. this is their fault because at the very end of the day, if they did theirjobs, we wouldn't be here talking to you. if he was in prison after- 24 convictions, we wouldn't be sitting here today. personally i have dealt with over 150 murders. this case particularly has stuck with me. she is now out of prison trying to rebuild her life, that's brilliant. i've lived around here for years, before you came. that man was living on the estate to how many years and no one had a clue? and no one had a clue. i didn't have a clue. on an estate full of kids,

for how many years... used to watch my dogs for me. children working for him every saturday. they thought nothing of it, they thought its only old mick, nothing of it. good to see a familiar face. a crime is a crime. people think about it you are back now, that is what matters. that judge, if they have - given him a longer sentence thatjudge, if they have given him a longer sentence for his first crimes, if they had just done what they were meant to do... we would have been good. their lives would have been so different. instead they had a mum in prison for years, you know?

we are good. you're always going to be good. they had a mum that loved them, they had a mum that cared for them. they definitely had that. how has what happened in the family affected them, your relationship with them? we are closer than ever. closer than ever. nothing was ever going to stop me being their mum. i don't think i'm ever not going to baby them. i don't think it matters to me what age they are going to be!

you only have one mum to do it. the rest of the world you have to be grown up and go to work and you got responsibilities. you have all that. your mum is the only one, she is always going to put that wing over you. our relationship, so much to catch up on. they went through so much, you know? there were cracks that we had to work on but you couldn't break the bond, you couldn't. paedophilia is a pandemic. you know, we've got to get change. sarah has nowjoined others who are campaigning for tighter restrictions on sex offenders who change their names. here at westminster, meeting the labour mp sarah champion. hello, i'm sarah.

for me, there is a gaping hole in child detection. hole in child protection. it's what i found most curious but worrying when i started looking into the restrictions and the conditions put on sex offenders, it's up to them to tell the police they have changed their name. so if they don't, if they change it and theyjust disappear, there is literally no way until they reoffend that the police can track them down. they could change their name, you don't know they are missing, they could be anywhere in the world within three weeks. the government says offenders are legally bound to notify the authorities of any name change. but the campaigners are concerned that some are simply ignoring this and using their new identities to get through abs checks which are needed for certain roles and which reveal criminal convictions.

they are systematically changing their names, some in prison, so they are able to create a new identity, but once they change their name, they are able to get a new driving licence in that name, a new passport in that name, and that enables them to get a new dbs cheque, a clean dbs check, and we are finding these people are then going into schools, with young people, with vulnerable people, in positions of trust, and they are exploiting that in the most horrific ways. we are an example of. what happens when rules like that are not imposed. they allowed him to change his name, i he was within 500 feet of a school, i he had children employees. theyjust let him on the streets. if you are being abused or have been abused, try and talk. if you don't speak up, whoever the man or woman abusing you, they will move onto someone else. the sooner you say it, you could save more people from being in the same

pain are feeling. i feel like it's better to get l yourself out of that situation and talk, otherwise you are just putting yourself to _ be worse and worse. eating yourself alive. when i went in, i was absolutely very bitter towards the authorities, towards the judge that had given him bail. that was going to eat me alive, it was eating me alive. for me to help build them up and show them it's possible, i had to do it first. the real me, the strong version of me, she's got a lot more light now. yeah, she breathes a lot better.

hello, there. saturday has provided a blustery first half of the weekend. there've been some heavy downpours around as well. in fact, the winds have been strong enough to whip up some quite rough seas around some of our coasts. it's a big area of low pressure that is dominating right now. this is the satellite picture from earlier on, this swirl of cloud. here's the centre of the low. that's where it was earlier on this afternoon. and as we go through tonight, the centre of this low will be passing to the north—west of scotland.

very strong winds continuing to affect many western parts. gales are likely around some western coasts of england, wales, northern ireland, most especially western scotland, with gusts of 60—70mph for a time through the night. there will be further showers, some of which will be heavy, some clear spells as well, partly because of the strength of the wind, it is not going to be a cold night, 4 to 8 degrees. so into tomorrow, it is a sunshine and showers day. but those showers will tend to be quite heavy. there could be some hail and some thunder mixing in. the showers likely to line up into bands as well. and with some slightly chillier air pushing in, we could see some wintriness in the showers over high ground in scotland, say above 400—500 metres elevation. it's going to be windy again, particularly for western coast, maybe not quite as windy as it has been today for some inland spots. temperatures between 7 and 10 degrees. now, as you move into monday, again, there are some showers to be had, some of those on the heavy side. and again, perhaps some wintry showers over the hills

and mountains in scotland. still quite windy. the wind coming down from the north—westjust accentuating a slightly chillier feel. 6 degrees there for aberdeen, 10 for cardiff, 11 for plymouth. but those temperatures by no means unusual for this time of year. as we move into tuesday, we see another frontal system pushing in from the atlantic. that will bring outbreaks of heavy rain northwards and eastwards across the uk, maybe some snow over high ground in scotland for a time. but between this warm front here and this cold front here, we're going to have what we call a warm sector, a wedge of mild air. so, look at the temperatures for tuesday, 8 degrees for glasgow, but 11 for belfast, 13 for cardiff, 14 there for london. as we look further ahead, it does stay quite unsettled towards the end of the week. mild for the most part, it may turn colder in the north by the very end of the week.

this is bbc news, with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. the new speaker of the us house of representatives, finally elected after 15 rounds of voting, says former president trump helped him get there. i don't think anybody should doubt his influence. he was with me from the beginning. somebody wrote the doubt of whether he was there and he was all in. the uk's prime minister meets health leaders from across england to discuss the challenges facing the national health service. in eastern ukraine, russian missiles have struck the city of bahkmut, despite moscow's claim of a 36 hour ceasefire.

iran is facing international condemnation for hanging two more people said to have been involved in nationwide protests.