This week 10, 20, 30 years ago
10 Years Ago
A horror helicopter crash which caused mayhem in Vauxhall highlighted fears over how South London would cope if plans to slash emergency services went ahead.
Eyewitnesses spoke of their terror as the aircraft hit a crane on top of the One St George Wharf tower in Nine Elms Lane around 8am on Wednesday, January 16.
The helicopter was sent crashing into Wandsworth Road, which was teeming with rush-hour traffic.
Pilot Peter Barnes, 50, and Matthew Wood, 39, were killed while people on the streets ran to take cover.
Ten roads in the area remained closed while crash investigators continued to inspect the scene.
“We had to run for our lives.”
Jurors at the inquest into the deaths of six people in a tower block fire, heard from the families of the victims.
Six people, including a baby and two young children, died in the horrific blaze in the 14-storey block, which started after a faulty TV caught fire in July 2009.
The inquest into the deaths began on Monday at Lambeth Assembly Rooms, in Acre Lane, Brixton.
Dayana Francisquini, 26, and her two children, Felipe, three, and Thais, six; Helen Udoaka, 34, and her three-week-old daughter Michelle; and fashion designer Catherine Hickman, 31, were killed in the fire.
South London theatres were celebrating after scooping top gongs in a major award ceremony.
The Young Vic bagged a hat-trick of wins at the Critics’ Circle Awards.
The venue was recognised with awards for best actress for Hattie Morahan in A Doll’s House, best director for Benedict Andrews’ production of Three Sisters, and best designer for Mirian Buether’s work in Wild Swans.
20 Years Ago
A cash-strapped council was considering selling off public loos to cash in on the property price boom.
Lambeth council announced plans to sell seven public conveniences to raise much-needed cash.
A report commissioned by the council did not go into details about how much could be raised in the sale of the toilets but pointed out that they had been boarded up for some time and had fallen into disrepair.
They had also been targeted by vandals and many had become eyesores in the eyes of the local authority.
Nurses and midwives said they were considering packing in their jobs because they could not find anywhere to park for free.
According to their union Unison, one of its Lewisham members had to fork out more in parking charges than she earned from her shift.
Tooting and Peckham town centres were named on a list of parking black spots drawn up by the union.
Many were also being bombarded by hefty fines when they went to visit their patients on their rounds and in emergencies.
The fines had to be paid for out of their own pockets because NHS bosses said they but did not have the money to pay the fines.
South London dominated the Brit Award nominations in 2003.
Brixton-based The Streets – aka Mike Skinner – made the shortlist in four of the main categories, while Lewisham’s Daniel Bedingfield, So Solid Crew and Stockwell-born Roots Manuva, Tulse Hill’s Big Bruvas and South London R’n’B group Mis-Teeq were all in the running for awards.
Surrey Quays-based Liberty X got a nomination for Best British Single with their song Just A Little, while Blue, fronted by Blackheath’s Lee Ryan were in the running for best pop group.
30 Years Ago
Police were accused of surrendering the streets to warring rival Yardie gangs after axing two crack-busting squads.
The chilling warning followed the closure of Operation Dalehouse in November 1992 and the scrapping of Scotland Yard’s Crack Intelligence Unit a month later.
A South London detective warned that the “guv’nors are out of touch”.
The officer, who did not want to be named, warned that the organisation of the crack gangs would go unchecked because the force lacked the resources to tackle them.
He said that while the units were in place they would know if an individual was rising up the underworld ranks because they provided the necessary intelligence to officers on the beat.
A Knife attack on a 13-year-old schoolboy prompted calls for random searches to be carried out on teenagers in South London.
The boy was stabbed in a school corridor as he went to a tutor group session at a school in Dulwich. The boy survived and a 15-year-old was arrested and charged with GBH.
Southwark Councillor Nick Eriksen led calls for the searches amid fears that the problem of violent crime in schools could escalate in the borough.
He also called for the full weight of the law to be used if a student was caught with a knife during one of the searches.
The hunt for the killer of Rachel Nickell became one of the biggest murder investigations ever to have been carried out by the Met.
Of the 54 officers originally assigned to the case, 49 remained on the job, six months after the 23-year-old part-time model from Balham was brutally murdered on Wimbledon Common in front of her toddler son.
Det Supt John Bassett, one of the Met’s senior detectives, was assigned to the case after 30 years on the force.
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