London Underground office staff vote for industrial action in row over ticket office closures.

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Only 8% of domestic burglary reports to the Metropolitan Police result in action being taken against the perpetrator, figures show.

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Samii in West Hampstead emailed BBC London about his experience of being burgled:

My flat in West Hampstead was burgled about 2-3 weeks ago. Stole me and my partner's laptops, ipad and all my jewellery - of which a lot of it was inherited/passed down the family by my grandparents. 

I was distraught. We called the police and they basically told us the chances were they'd never catch who did it and the case would probably get closed pretty soon. They really didn't seem to care. So negative, unsupportive. I mean yeah sure, its probably true but they instilled no hope whatsoever. They didn't even bother to knock on your neighbour's doors or walk up and down the road to see if anything had been seen - we had to do it!

I was also mugged earlier this year in Westbourne Park (well attempted mugging - I fought back & won) and the police were a lot more supportive then. 

Nothing heard about either. I've had zero contact from the police on both occasions since. They simply assigned it to someone who asked minimal questions and then I never heard from them since.

There is no doubt that the Met is under funded and has 'bigger problems to deal with' but its getting ridiculous. So many people in this city are burgled and mugged and the police simply seem to do nothing about it. I sure as hell don't feel safe in this city anymore and I don't feel like the police would do a lot to try and protect me now. I don't want to own anything valuable anymore.

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A piece of music handwritten by Gustav Mahler has broken the record for the highest price for a musical manuscript sold at auction.

The composer's Second Symphony, which spans 232 pages, fetched £4.5m at Sotheby's on Tuesday morning.

But a controversial manuscript which the auction house said was handwritten by Beethoven failed to sell.

The authenticity of the manuscript for the composer's 1817 piece, Allegretto in B minor, had been questioned.

Sotheby's had stood by the manuscript's authenticity and expected it to fetch up to £200,000.

Staff at the Royal Free Hospital found a Costa Rican tiger rump tarantula in a box of bananas. 

The RSPCA were called and the spider is now at the charity’s specialist exotics facility in Brighton.

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Tom Edwards
Transport Correspondent, BBC London

The ticket office closures were one of the biggest changes on the Tube for generations.

Closed under the previous Mayor Boris Johnson, there were also job losses.

With the rise of automatic payments methods like the Oyster card and contactless, the idea was to get staff from behind the glass screens and onto the ticket gate lines. But the unions have always opposed it and say the redeployment has led to more lone working and there's also a staff shortage.

There have been strikes before and even though the changes were introduced the issue has not been resolved.

The TSSA Union, which represents station staff, says it will decide probably tomorrow what industrial action it will take in the dispute.

Strikes aren't being ruled out, although it could be an overtime ban. It says the Tube is "not fit for safe purpose".

This comes ahead of a review ordered by the current Mayor Sadiq Khan by London Travelwatch into ticket office closures.

It is feasible that could recommend some are re-opened. 

A disabled dancer is taking legal action after he was banned from an event in west London over claims his wheelchair damaged the dance floor.

Fred Walden, 54, says he was humiliated when staff at a Jive Addiction event last October told him to stop dancing.

He is suing the company for discrimination under the Equality Act.

The company claims its policy, which bans anyone using an object that damages the floor, is not discriminatory.

TSSA general secretary Manuel Cortes said: "Our industrial action ballot is not a localised matter for Londoners, it should concern everyone in Britain who comes to London or has relatives in our capital city because this is not a dispute about wages, it's our members being prepared to take part in a strike to let the world know that the Tube they are using is not fit for safe purpose.

"Our customer service assistants are overwhelmingly trying to warn the public that the Tube they use is not safe. We no longer have enough staff. 

"Our members will as a last resort go on strike to safeguard passengers. They are prepared to forego wages and risk media and management wrath to let the public know that our capital's Tube is no longer safe enough.

"This strike vote must not be dismissed as mindless militant action. Instead it's an act of desperation by mindful and public-spirited customer service assistants at their absolute best by putting passenger safety before anything else." 

London Underground workers have voted to go on strike in a row over ticket office closures, jobs and safety.

Members of the Transport Salaried Staffs' Association (TSSA) backed walkouts by 67% and other forms of industrial action by 9-1. 

The union has warned that staff have been on the receiving end of "unprecedented" levels of verbal and physical abuse from passengers since Tube ticket offices closed.

London Underground workers have voted to go on strike in a row over ticket office closures, jobs and safety, said the TSSA union.

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Rebecca Cafe
BBC News, London

A former crime scene manager has contacted us to about why he thinks the police are not investigating many burglary cases.

He said: "One of the biggest problems with domestic burglaries is the TV shows. They educate the thieves in the way of police detection, thus enabling them to commit crimes and leave very little evidence behind, or indeed on occasions, misleading evidence.  

"The cut backs I have seen include reduced Scenes of Crime Officers (or CSCO, CSIs, FSIs, depending how the force labels them) to go to volume crime scenes such as burglaries, theft from cars, garden sheds.

"Serious crime has a large impact on the staffing levels required to deal with scenes and the time involved.  

"One theory put forward is that the cost to a police force to investigate volume crime and the return in prosecutions just don't add up.  Whereas one experienced SOCO on a major crime can make a big difference.  

"It's all down to money."