Suggestions for a new player to Baldurs gate? Any recommendations for building a character such as stats and class? any tips would be useful.

Dwarf Fighter/Cleric is nice for a new player. You can wear the heaviest armor and you have spells to heal yourself. Every Fighter wants 18 strength and as Dwarf you can have 19 constitution which is also very useful. High Dexterity lowers Armor Class which is good because it makes enemies miss more often. A Cleric will want a high Wisdom (16-18) for extra bonus spells. Intelligence and Charisma are rather useless for this char. The downside to multi classing is that it takes a little longer before you gain your first new level.

Another personal favorite is the Half-Elf Cleric/Mage (or Gnome Cleric/Illusionist) because it gives you access to both arcane and divine spells. You will be lacking in hitpoints though so this is not really a good choice for a new player.

Don't create a character with 14 in every stat, 14 isn't better than 8, only extreme values do make a difference. Take a look at the stat tables at the back of your manual.

Most important is the dexterity stat because of the AC bonus it grants and the bonus to ranged attacks.
Also very important is the con stat, the extra hitpoints do make a difference. Take the racial maximum if you have fighter, ranger or paladin levels, else 16 is enough.
Strengh is useful for doing melee damage and carrying stuff, low carrying capacity can be very annoying, especially if you want to wear heavy armor.
Int is useless unless you have mage or bard levels.
Wis is useless unless you have cleric or druid levels.
High charisma is nice to have for getting better rewards (you'll be surprised about the difference it makes playing the prologue with 17 or 18 cha) but you can have another party member lead your party if it's low or live with less rewards.

Ranged combat rules in BG, so split your proficiency points between one ranged and one melee weapon at creation. Bows are the best since they grant an extra attack per round.
If you want to have the highest damage output in your party you have to specialise in bows.

For a human fighter optimal stats are 18/00 str, 18 dex, 18 con, 3 int, 3 wis and 18 cha, take large sword and bow proficiency. The same applies ro ranger or paladin, but it's quite impossible to get perfect stats for them since you can't dump the useless wisdom to 3, 18/01-18/99 strength is quite good too.

I don't recommend playing a pure class thief, dual- or multiclass version have enough skill and are superior.
Pure class druid isn't very easy too play either because of the armor restrictions.
I don't recommend playing a pure mage, you start with only one spell per day. Take a specialist class instead (I recommend illusionist) for more casting power.
Cleric is the easiest caster class since you aren't vulnerable with quite some hitpoints and heavy armor and because of the bonus spells based on wisdom you start with 3 spells per day.