Summary

  • Updates on Friday 13 November 2015

  • More news, sport, travel and weather from 08:00 on Monday

Live Reporting

  1. Coventry Blitz anniversary coverage; and more from throughout the day

    Live updates for Coventry & Warwickshire have finished for the day.

    We'll be back from 08:00 on Monday with the latest news, sport, travel and weather.

  4. Singing the Sound of Music for Children in Need

    The BBC is hoping to smash the £32.6m total it raised at last year's Children in Need.

    A choir of 1,100 people sang the Sound of Music and raised more than £7,500

    Some of the fundraising efforts have included a choir of 1,100 people which rehearsed for six hours to sing the Sound of Music, 50 years after the film's release. 

    They raised over £7,500.

  5. Watch Coventry Blitz: The all clear

    BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

    Watch another one of our animations based on first-hand accounts of the Coventry Blitz.

    You can watch and listen to more of our coverage marking the 75th anniversary here. 

  7. Coventry Blitz: Watch memories of an evacuee

    Kevin Reide
    Midlands Today

    As a nine-year-old evacuee, Tony Vail remembers watching his city burn from the relative safety of a country manor 20 miles away.  

  8. Sheep attack in Warwickshire

    Moira Rawlings
    BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

    Sheep have been attacked and killed in a field in Tanworth-in-Arden, according to police.

    It happened during the night of Wednesday, 11 November in a field.

  9. Coventry Blitz: A city revives

    It is believed 568 people died in the bombings, with a further 1,256 injured. 

    Yet, within weeks of the raid - and contrary to all expectations - the city revived. 

    Factories were soon turning out aircraft parts that would be used to avenge the attack.  

    Coventry in Blitz aftermathGetty Images

  10. Travel: M40 accident

    BBC Travel

    An accident has closed one lane of the M40 northbound between J15, A46 and J16, A3400.

    More details on BBC Travel.

  11. Football: Sky Blues don't need a Reda Johnson replacement

    Clive Eakin
    BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Sport

    Sky Blues goalkeeper Reice Charles-Cook believes that the City don't have to dip into the transfer market to replace long-term injury victim Reda Johnson. 

    Reice Charles-CookEmpics

    The 21-year-old stopper is back from injury to challenge Lee Burge for the keeper's position in tomorrow's League 1 match at Colchester. 

    Manager Tony Mowbray's still trying to find a player to fill the void left by "Big Reda" but Charles-Cook says he thinks the current centre-back pairing are doing a good job.

  12. Nicola Payne murder trial: Jury sent home

    Vanessa Pearce
    BBC Local Live

    The jury in the trial of two men accused of murdering Nicola Payne in 1991 has been sent home for the weekend. 

    Nicola PayneWest Midlands Police

    Nigel Barwell and his brother-in-law Thomas O'Reilly, who are both from Coventry, deny murdering the 18-year-old mother-of-one as she walked across waste ground. 

    The jury at Birmingham Crown Court was sent out yesterday and has so far spent two days deliberating.

  13. Coventry Blitz: Peace and Reconciliation

    Kevin Reide
    Midlands Today

    Former hostage Terry Waite has praised the people of Coventry for the way they responded when the city was all but destroyed during the Blitz.

    He's been attending a special peace conference at the cathedral to mark the 75th anniversary.

    The head teacher of All Saints Primary in Nuneaton, Sally Kaminski-Gaze, also took some pupils to the conference. 

  14. Council announce library proposals

    BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

    Coventry City Council has unveiled proposals for more than £1m worth of cuts to libraries and community facilities.

    Earlsdon Libraray protest

    The report includes plans to shut every library outside the city on a Wednesday and Sunday and to end the mobile library service. 

    Councillor David Kershaw, Cabinet Member for Education and Libraries, says the proposals are necessary if the council are to balance their books.

  15. Council agrees to allow cars on Bermuda bridge

    Moira Rawlings
    BBC Coventry & Warwickshire

    County councillors in Warwickshire are pressing ahead with plans to open up a pedestrian bridge over the A444 in Nuneaton so vehicles can use it. 

    They were reviewing the project after concerns were voiced that the scheme's costs had doubled to £6.5m.

  17. Coventry Blitz: Why Churchill's cabinet wanted more control of the BBC

    Jennifer Harby
    BBC News Online

    In the days following the Coventry Blitz the BBC broadcast an interview with anthropologist Tom Harrison, who talked about the number of casualties and the shock people felt in the city. 

    ChurchillGetty images

    Cabinet documents of the time show Secretary of State for War Anthony Eden describing the broadcast as "most depressing", adding it would have a "deplorable effect" on morale.  

    The Coventry bombing turned out to be a trigger-point for the government, and ministers were determined to exert more control over the BBC.  

  18. City Link prosecution: Judge criticises prosecutors

    A magistrate has questioned the government's use of a "retrospective crystal ball" in prosecuting three former directors of the collapsed firm City Link.

    Deputy District Judge David Goodman dismissed charges against the three men after hearing that a £17m offer to rescue the courier firm was rejected following it's slide into administration.  

    City LinkReuters

    During a two-day trial, Mr Goodman said, counsel for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, Paul Ozin, had suggested former director David Smith would have seen collapse was inevitable if he had looked into a crystal ball. 

    Delivering his verdict, Mr Goodman said: "Retrospective use of a crystal ball is a concept I struggled at the time to understand."