The Mean Streets
A blue tarpaulin hung across the front of the ground-floor council maisonette in Clapham, South London, where 15-year-old Billy Cox was killed on Valentine’s Day.
The police were out in force, scouring the surrounding ground for clues and fending off journalists.
Throughout yesterday, sobbing teenage friends came to lay flowers just outside the taped-off area. At 3.25pm, 24 hours after Billy was shot by unknown assailants, his body was wheeled out on a trolley and taken away in an ambulance.
Beyond the well-intentioned tributes and a photograph of a smiling, seemingly charming lad, it was obvious that Billy was no angel. The police said that he was under a supervision order for burglary, wore a tag, and was the subject of a 7pm-7am curfew. Though he was enrolled at the Ernest Bevin school in Wandsworth, he was referred a few weeks ago to another school in Kennington for “challenging” and “troubled” young people.
The Mail refers on its lead to WAR ZONE UK as its black front page tells us
The tributes tell their own chilling story about how a 15-year-old gunned down in his bedroom fell victim to the drugs and guns culture that blights our inner cities.
Billy Cox, until a year ago a polite, football-loving teenager, had become a crack dealer at an astonishingly young age and paid for it with his life.
He was summarily executed on Wednesday - shot through the chest in a revenge gangland hit by a group of up to three youths - and died in the arms of his sister.
The Guardian asks
How text message may have cost 15-year-old graffiti boy his life
Around the rundown walkways of the Fenwick estate in Clapham there were several theories about why Billy Cox had become the latest teenage victim of an outbreak of gun violence in south London, but all agreed on one detail: he had been involved in a row with another youth.
According to Janine Easton, whose children were friends with Billy, it may have begun with something as trivial as a text message. Billy, she said, had apparently been arguing with another teenager via their mobile phones; it had got of out of hand, and he had paid a terrible price.
"I think it was something to do with cussing each other on text messages - something as silly as that," she said. "Kids round here get into trouble and get sent to jail and come out thinking they are tough. But they are just children - but they are children with guns."
The Sun leads with the story of the Para who is to receive a posthumous Vc,under the headline
VC HERO KILLED BY FRIENDLY FIRE
THE heroic Para feared shot dead by his own comrades in Afghanistan still deserves his Victoria Cross, military sources insisted last night.
Corporal Bryan Budd died in a hail of bullets while saving seven pals during clashes with Taliban fighters last summer.
His widow Lorena, 23 — a clerk with the Royal Artillery — is due to collect his posthumous VC from the Queen at Buckingham Palace next month.
She was said to be “totally devastated” yesterday after being officially warned his death was probably due to a “blue on blue”.
The Guardian reports in its main story of the blow delivered yesterday to the Governement's nuclear ambitions
Judge deals blow to Blair's nuclear plans
Tony Blair's plan to pave the way for a new generation of nuclear power stations by the time he leaves office was in disarray yesterday after the high court ruled the government had carried out a "misleading" and "seriously flawed" consultation on its energy review.
Mr Justice Sullivan's judgment forces the government to canvass public opinion once again and is likely to force a delay of several months in the publication of the energy white paper, which had been expected in March.
The Independent describes
PM's nuclear power consultation was a sham, court rules
Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, was dealt a humiliating blow yesterday when he was forced to concede that he will have to start a new round of consultations on nuclear power after Greenpeace, the environmental campaign group, won the case against the Government.
Greenpeace accused the Government of acting illegally by failing to consult properly on its nuclear power plans before giving them the go-ahead. Upholding their complaint, Mr Justice Sullivan criticised the consultation exercise, which lasted only 12 weeks as "seriously flawed", "misleading" and "procedurally unfair".
Its front page though reports that
Chinese pupils eclipse all other ethnic groups in English tests
Children of Chinese origin have outperformed every other British group in English by the age of 11, according to an ethnic breakdown of exam and test results published yesterday.
They have the best results of all ethnic groups in national curriculum tests at 11 with 86 per cent reaching the required standard - compared with 80 per cent of white British children. And these figures include recent Chinese immigrants who do not have English as a first language.
The Telegraph leads on
Threat to staff who sign road petition in office
The paper reports that
Workers were warned yesterday that they face disciplinary action if they use office computers to sign the Downing Street petition calling for the scrapping of road pricing proposals.
The curbs faced by individuals wanting to protest emerged as Dorset Police launched an internal investigation into the circulation of an email which urged staff to back the campaign.
An inquiry has been launched by the force's Professional Standards Department and those who endorsed the protest could face disciplinary action.
VIAGRA SAVED OUR BABY is the headline in the Mirror
THE parents of Viagra baby Lewis Goodfellow last night told how they had been planning his funeral when doctors saved his life with the wonder drug.
Jade Goodfellow and John Barclay were expecting the worse as their tot struggled desperately to survive with a collapsed lung that was unable to fill his blood with oxygen.
But then doctors pulled him from the brink of death with the antiimpotence pills and the couple's despair turned to joy as the youngster went from strength to strength.
The Express meanwhile discovers another puinitive tax for its front page
THE SECRET PENSION SCANDAL
TONY Blair and his closest Cabinet allies are to escape punitive new taxes on pensions which they imposed on other Britons.The Prime Minister will collect a guaranteed pay-out of £62,400 a year from the moment he leaves office.But last night it emerged that Mr Blair and other ministers will also be immune from a heavy new tax on private pension funds.New tax laws introduced by the Government mean that any pension pot worth more than £1.5million is taxed at 55 per cent.
The Mirror reports on
WOMEN VIDEOED TOTS FIGHT
FOUR women forced a toddler brother and sister to fight while they made a sick video.
The seven-minute film shows the crying boy of two in a nappy being hit in the face by the three-year-old girl.
The women - including the tots' own mother - are heard telling the boy: "Don't be a wimp and a faggot."
They goad him to hit back. The terrified boy tries to bury his head in a sofa but the women laugh as they urge the girl punch him again.
When they tell the boy to punch her back, he sobs: "No, I don't want to."
The girl tries to get away by going to the toilet - but when she returns she is urged to attack again. Finally, one woman says: "That's enough."
Most of the papers report on the start of the Madrid bombing trial,the Times reporting that
Madrid attack ‘ringleader’ denies charges
Rabei Osman El Sayed Ahmed, an alleged top-level operative known as “Muhammad the Egyptian”, denied any involvement in the plot, which he condemned “unconditionally and completely”. Speaking in Arabic, he said that he would not answer questions from the prosecution, as is his right under Spanish law. Wearing a white sports jacket and with a close cropped beard, he sat impassively as the prosecutor read out a long list of questions about his alleged involvement in international terrorist plots.
Back in the Uk and the Mirror reveals plans for
SNOOPERS TO ENFORCE SMOKE BAN
THOUSANDS of snoopers are being trained to patrol pubs and bars this summer to catch those flouting the new smoking ban.
Town halls have been given £30million to train staff in how to issue on-the-spot £50 fines.
An investigation revealed yesterday that 1,200 council employees in England will be trained in the next few months - with many more to follow.
Many of the papers report on the most expensive streets in the country.
The Millionaires' Rows - 1,352 streets have average house price in seven figures
Says the Mail,
More than 1,300 streets in England have an average house price of £1million-plus, research has revealed.
The findings offer a dramatic insight into the soaraway property market.
In 2000, only 322 streets could boast that the average value of a home or flat there was a seven-figure sum. Now, the number is 1,352.
Under the headline,
When it comes to the most expensive properties, squares have best angle
The Times identifies
Kensington Square (average price £5,534,4800) and Chelsea Square (£5,098,047), in London, top a poll of the 20 most expensive streets in England and Wales. None of the multi-millionaires’ rows listed is a street. The poll, prepared by Mouseprice.com, a property data website, is based on Land Registry sale price statistics, up-dated with current estate agents’ particulars.
Finally the Telegraph writes about
Postcard delivered 90 years too late
When Private Walter Butler posted a card to his sweetheart from the trenches in the First World War, neither thought too much about it when it failed to arrive.
Pte Butler, who was fighting on the Western Front with the Dorset Regiment, went on to marry his girlfriend, Amy Hicks, and the pair lived long and happy lives in Chippenham, Wilts.
Last week the card mysteriously reappeared when Martin Kay, a postman, found it had been placed in his delivery sack. With Pte Butler and his wife now dead, he tracked down their only daughter, Joyce Hulbert, 86, and delivered it, 90 years too late. Mrs Hulbert said: "I would love to know where it has been all this time."
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