On the same day that a gunman was shot dead in the King's Road, the story of Magda Pniewska's senseless death in a skirmish between armed teenagers last October was relayed by prosecutors at the Old Bailey. Ms. Pniewska was caught in a "Wild West"-style shootout, the jury heard yesterday. Upon finishing her shift at Manley Court nursing home in New Cross, the 26 year old care worker walked home. She was mere yards......

Time to get your placards out: Camden’s famous snooker hall is threatened with closure, as is Docklands' City Pride pub. The Old Bailey has learned some new tricks: all sorts of extra goodies and historical trials are now available on-line. The people at Moorfields really are very clever: now they’re playing with gene therapy. Sex in a different City: the film is to premiere in London. Coldplay are nice people. Well, they’re playing a......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 14th January 1437: The Great Stone Gate at the south side of London Bridge collapses, taking down two bridge arches and several houses with it. Tuesday – 15th January 1867: The ice on Regent’s Park Lake gives way while hundreds of people are skating on it. Dozens drown. Wednesday – 16th January 1599: Poet Laureate Edmund Spenser is buried in Westminster. His coffin is borne by other......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 19th November 1558: Queen Elizabeth I travels to Highgate on her accession to the throne. She is met by the bishops and escorted through London. Tuesday – 20th November 1992: Fire sweeps through Windsor Castle, causing £40 million worth of damage to over 100 rooms. Wednesday – 21st November 1695: The great composer Henry Purcell dies at his home in Westminster. The cause of his death in......

Finding venues for Friday and Saturday's fixtures was a piece of cake compared to this! But no nation should be left out - what with the world being in union and all that. Fiji v Canada Sunday 16, 13.00 UK time from the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff. Canadians! Seek the Maple Leaf. Drink Molson. Forget hockey. Fijians - listen up. We have important news for you and your Polynesian rivals below. Meet us one paragraph down.........

If you're feeling your age, then you'll have fun this weekend. Two events have been noted on the Londonist radar and both concern the silver end of the social spectrum. First up for your diary is Bells of Shoreditch on Saturday, a durational performance installation in St Leonard's Church, along Shoreditch High Street. As part of the Shoreditch Festival , performance and installation artist Anne Bean has gathered a diverse group of women to......

This morning, Grandmothers were saving lives. Now, just a few hours later, they're being found guilty of murder. The news is seeing more and more about the terrifying 'honour killings' that seem to be happening amongst families. Bachan Athwal from Hayes, even boasted to relatives that she had got a relative to strangle her daughter-in-law, Surjit Athwal, and throw her body into a river in Punjab. This was nine years ago. Despite the horror......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 16th July 1924: Crowds of photographers, reporters and ‘autograph seekers’ greet the pilots of the first (successful) round-the-world flight as it landed at Croydon airport for its London stopover. Tuesday – 17th July 1974: A bomb explodes in a tourist-packed room of the Tower of London, killing one person and injuring 41 others. No-one claims responsibility for the bombing, and no culprits are found. Wednesday – 18th......

Violent crime is on the rise in London and you can’t pick up a paper or turn on the news without the latest report of stabbings, beatings, muggings and even murder. It’s disturbing that the Justice system, crippled by overcrowded jails and soft sentencing guidelines, often punishes inequitably to the crime. However, we have it good in comparison to Ye Olde London Town who suffered waves of crime with such alarming titles as "Assault......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 4th June 1762: A newly installed peal of ten bells at St Mary-le-Bow church in the City is rung for the first time to mark the 25th birthday of George III. Tuesday – 5th June 1734: The Bank of England’s current premises on Threadneedle Street are opened for business. Wednesday – 6th June 1997: Another anniversary for the Bank of England, which uses its newly granted independence......

These images are of a new office scheme by MAKE Architects for 30 Old Bailey just over the road from the eponymous courthouse in the heart of the City. MAKE, whose founder Ken Shuttleworth is famous for helping design the Gherkin (30 St Mary's Axe), have continued the food theme by designing this one like a section of a doughnut. This sort of building makes us almost hungry.......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 28th May 1908: Ian Fleming, creator of the character of James Bond and author of more than a dozen novels featuring the British agent, is born in Mayfair. He also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Tuesday – 29th May 1886: The current Putney Bridge is opened by the Prince and Princess of Wales, replacing an earlier bridge that was built in 1729. Wednesday – 30th May 1972:......

This Week In London’s History Monday – 23rd April 1979: 33-year-old teacher Blair Peach dies from head injuries following outbreaks of fighting with police at an Anti-Nazi League demonstration against a National Front meeting in Southall, West London. Tuesday – 24th April 1993: A massive IRA bomb explodes on Bishopsgate in the City of London, killing one person, injuring 44 more, and causing more than £350m damage to the area. Wednesday – 25th April......

A teenager who shot dead a young father outside his east London home told a jury he was sorry for his family and that he had only meant to scare him. Bradley Tucker, 18, told the Old Bailey jury he believed the gun he fired at Peter Woodhams would only "go bang". In what is certainly a tragic situation, perhaps we can find a silver lining: a lesson in firearm awareness. Guns don’t just......

The Old Bailey is at last living up to its name, having turned 100 today. The famous courthouse was completed in 1907 on the site of Newgate prison, and has since sent down some of London's greatest crooks and butchers. During that century figures as diverse as Dr Crippen and the Kray Twins, Jeremy Thorpe and the Yorkshire Ripper, and Ruth Ellis and Lord Haw-Haw, have risen to the court usher's instructions of "silence......

Two men have been arrested on suspicion of attempted rape after attacking a woman involved in a car accident: She was driving in Enfield, north London, on Wednesday night, when she collided with a traffic island. Two men offered to help but took her to Theobolds Park Road where officers say she was indecently assaulted. Police were called by members of the public who saw the semi-naked woman... A 19 year old has been......

Seven people have been arrested outside the Old Bailey today where a man is facing race hate charges connected to the Danish cartoon demonstrations earlier this year. Talking of protests: Thousands of doctors, nurses and other hospital workers turned up in uniform at Parliament today to campaign against NHS budget cuts and the increase in private sector involvement. Thousands of schoolchildren across London are going to be learning all about HIV and Aids following......

The case against the Metropolitan Police over the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes reopens in court today. The first hearing, which was scheduled for last month, had to be adjourned until today after the Met's lawyers requested extra time to consider their plea. Incredible really when you consider that they're being prosecuted under health and safety laws (as a result of the Crown Prosecution Service deciding that there was no evidence to charge......

We were delighted to see Jimmy Bullard fire his new club, Fulham, to their first league win of the season at the weekend with a cracking free-kick. We’re putting his great start at Craven Cottage down to his people skills, demonstrated on a pre-season trip and revealed by the club’s website in the summer: Norm [goalkeeper Mark Crossley] was complaining that his room was too hot because it's over the kitchen. We were at......

Gavin Grant, a 22-year-old Milwall striker has appeared before the Old Bailey accused of conspiracy to murder 24-year-old Jahmall Moore who died last year after being hit by four bullets as he sat in his car in Harlesden. In the early hours of Monday morning a motorcyclist and a pedestrian both died when the bike ploughed into the man as he was crossing a main road in Golders Green. Apparently the "London-inspired property mini-boom"......

The blackouts in Soho yesterday hit more than 3,000 businesses. Energy comapny EDF are warning that sporadic power outages will likely continue into Friday in the area between Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus. Two men at the centre of the largest gun conversion racket ever uncovered by the Met have been convicted at the Old Bailey. Battersea MP Martin Linton has been laying out the advantages of an 'M25 for rail passengers' in the......

Bit of a nasty one this: A DRUNKEN chef who left his colleague's guts hanging out after stabbing him in the stomach has been jailed for nine years... Thiyagarajah Thirukkamaran had been drinking heavily when he plunged a 12in carving knife into 32-year-old Thavarasa Nallathamby's stomach, the Old Bailey heard. Mr Nallathamby died after suffering massive blood loss and a heart attack two days after a drunken fight between the two men. The chef......

The two brothers charged with killing Damiola Taylor go on trial today at the Old Bailey. Tennis fans arriving at Wimbledon today will be subjected to 'airport style' security checks. London has lost its title of 'World's most expensive city' to Moscow. There are now around 500 electrically powered microcars in London. This apparently means they are' thriving'. Patrick 'Bobby from JR' Duffy is having second thoughts about appearing in Woking's panto, as he......

This day in London’s History 1731: Daniel Defoe, one of London’s great characters, died. Most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, Defoe was also one of the first to write sophisticated fictional accounts of London life. Moll Flanders and Journal of the Plague Year are essential reading for anyone interested in the 17th century city. He is interred in Bunhill Fields alongside another celebrity Londoner, William Blake. 1993: One person died and many were......

This day in London’s history April 3rd was a typically busy day at the Old Bailey in 1695 and by the end of proceedings, six Londoners had been sentenced to death, 12 were due to be 'burnt in the hand' and just one was to be 'whipt'. The hand of justice moved a little swifter in those days didn't it? Not everyone came a cropper though, James Hambleton was accused of marrying two wives......

Paul Dadge, the ex-fireman who helped survivors of the July 7 bombings has criticised the ambulance service for its response to the attacks.. The Review Committee heard from 13 survivors and is expected to reveal its findings at the end of May. Police investigating the murder of Sally Anne Bowman are now trying to trace one of her regular customers.. The man who visited the hairdressing salon where she worked is not considered to......

The Old Bailey yesterday took 23 minutes to return a unanimous verdict of guilty to murder against Yousef Bouhaddaou who stabbed teacher Robert Symons in his home during a burglary. He faces a life sentence. Two men have been arrested over the murder of a couple in Upper Norwood last week. The IPCC is to publish a series of "lessons to be learned" from the death of Jean Charles de Menezes as part of a......

Police said they are treating the death as murder and appealed for people who were in Barking Road on Saturday afternoon or evening to come forward. Police launch a murder investigation after a 100-year-old woman dies in a fire at her flat. Morwen Rees, 57, of Llanpumsaint, was last spotted at 1140 GMT on Saturday, 11 February, after being dropped off at Carmarthen train station Police believe she may be in London as she......

Today Abu Hamza will make the trip from Belmarsh prison, where's he's been held since May 2004, to the Old Bailey where he'll face charges relating to the incitement of murder and hatred as well as as one under the Terrorism Act (but none of impersonating a pirate). The former imam of Finsbury Park mosque is due to attend the first day of his trial today to face a total of 16 charges which......

The 21 July bombers are at the Old Bailey today via videolink. Ken calls the Bush administration"A gang of thugs". The call for council tax contributions to 2012 to be capped at the initial £625 million estimate were thrown out of Parliament last night. Oxford Street will be pedestrianised on December 17. They're calling it Oxford Street - Christmas Treat. Pete Doherty is searched by police in Soho after leaving a 'drug paraphernalia store'. And......