TUESDAY NIGHT HEADLINES: East London Advertiser, Jul-15

CHARLES VISITS FAILED’ EAST END SCHOOL

PRINCE Charles came to London’s East End today (Tuesday) to meet pupils and staff of a failing’ school that only four weeks ago was warned it faced closure if it didn’t improve. Bethnal Green Technology College was one of 600 schools on a Government hit list’ last month earmarked for closure unless it got 30 per cent of its pupils to pass five good GCSEs or more by 2011. But the day belonged to the kids as they jostled to touch the Prince, some managing to shake his hand, others snapping him on their mobile phone cameras.

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SHOCK STAB YOUTH FILMCLIP ON INTERNET

A SHOCK film-clip aimed at stopping the epidemic of youngsters carrying knives on the streets has been put out on social networking websites YouTube and Bebo, aimed at getting the massage home that those who carry knives are more likely to be stabbed themselves. It depicts a youth being chased through the streets, then stabbed—both victim and knife-wielding attacker are then revealed as being the same person.

—BUT KNIFE MESSAGE NOT GETTING THROUGH’

...A 75-strong taskforce has been set up by police to stop and search youths after a senior officer warned the message about carrying knives wasn’t working. Some 20 teenagers have been stabbed to death in London this year alone, which Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson told the Metropolitan Police Authority means “the message isn’t getting through.”

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MISSING CLUB BOUNCER IS NOW FEARED DEAD

DETECTIVES are running an appeal for information about the disappearance of 30-year-old club bouncer Jimmy Harmon 10 years after he vanished from East London. Scotland Yard now fear he may have been murdered back in 1998, but have never found his body. Jimmy was last seen at 3pm on January 24 that year, visiting his girlfriend in Romford.

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NOW PEER JOINES OUR BANCROFT’ CAMPAIGN

THE influential Labour peer Baroness Uddin has backed the East London Advertiser’s campaign to block Tower Hamlets council plans to sell the Bancroft Archive Library. The former East End councillor said the Town Hall had a duty to protect the heritage of London’s East End. Too much had already been sold off, she told the paper.

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EAST END PROMISED A £4.5BN BONANZA

MOST of the £6 billion being ploughed into the 2012 Games is paying for East London’s permanent regeneration, Olympics chiefs have assured. The Delivery authority responsible for the Games at Stratford estimates 75p-in-the-£1 is being invested in long-term projects. The Games themselves were therefore costing £1.5bn.

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