Inside Croydon

A sixth member of a Thornton Heath drugs gang who went out “hunting as a pack” and pursued a teenager into a bedroom of his own home on Shirley’s Shrublands Estate and used a zombie knife and other deadly weapons in a “barbaric” killing four years ago, was finally brought to justice at the Old Bailey yesterday.

Romario Gordon, 22, of St Helens Grove, Monkston, near Milton Keynes, was found guilty of manslaughter by a jury at the Central Criminal Court in connection with the killing of 16-year-old Camron Smith on July 1, 2021.

POLITICAL SKETCH: Ever been invited to a party when you’ve been expected to pay for your food? Or a launch event which is set up so you can neither see nor hear clearly the speakers on stage? KEN TOWL has, after attending Rowenna Davis’s Croydon mayoral campaign launch on Saturday

Benji has a lot to answer for.

It was Benji, we were told, who “made the magic happen”, in that he was in charge of the technology at the official launch of Rowenna Davis’s campaign to win the Croydon mayorality.

It is not just in Croydon where Keir Starmer’s party stands accused of acting unlawfully, as it faces a High Court challenge from a rejected candidate in Lambeth. By WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor

The Labour Party in Lambeth has been forced to suspend its candidate selections for next May’s council elections after one veteran member issued a High Court legal challenge over the process.

It is just the latest local embarrassment for Steve Reed OBE, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North, if he can be asked) and a member of Keir Starmer’s crisis-hit cabinet.

Steve Reed will probably feel more at home at MHCLG, but is the former leader of Lambeth Council who as an MP was a bystander over ‘slum-like’ conditions at Regina Road and the bankrupting of Croydon up to the job of delivering on housing targets and local government finances?

The government’s intervention in Croydon Council’s £1.4billion toxic debt has now been placed in the hands of a Croydon MP, after Steve Reed was last night named as the new Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

The Metropolitan Police has made further arrests in the investigation into the murder of Leroy Mitchell at a silent disco in South Croydon in 2021.

Issa Souleman, 28, of Achilles Street, SE14, and Kwabena Ofori, 28, were charged on August 13 with perverting the course of justice.

“This is in relation to the investigation into the death of Leroy Mitchell,” a Met spokesperson told Inside Croydon this morning.

“The charges follow arrests on Tuesday August 12. They will next appear at the Old Bailey on September 26.”

Labour-controlled Lambeth is in trouble yet again over housing standards in the borough, with the council criticised in an independent report that, according to opposition councillors, “shows a pattern of neglect, incompetence and a complete disregard for the wellbeing of… residents”.

It was in 2023 that Lambeth became the first local authority to be subjected to close scrutiny by the Housing Ombudsman over what the watchdog described as “maladministration” and mistreatment of council tenants.

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Two men have denied murdering Leroy Mitchell in a shooting at a silent disco in South Croydon in 2021.

Mitchell, 35 years old and a father of three, was shot as he left the party on Birdhurst Road just before 5am on October 2 2021.

A £20,000 reward was offered by charity Crimestoppers later that year, but it wasn’t until 2025 that any arrests were made.

Cimarron Dume-Gooden, 32, of no fixed address, was charged in June this year with the murder of Leroy Mitchell and perverting the course of justice.

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Rivers charity begins a Judicial Review, accusing the environment secretary of having ‘no policy at all’ for solving the crisis around Thames Water

Environment secretary Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North, if he can ever be bothered) could be dragged into court by a rivers charity which has accused him of an unlawful failure to publish his policy on taking failing water companies into temporary nationalisation.