We've had fake funerals, government issue parental guidance, a chocolate baby, shock tactics, marching and in your face policing. It's about time someone actually listened to Lily Allen and put on the benefit gig. Yes, the Knife Crime Awareness Tour will be coming to a town near you in the next year. Kicking off in South Wales (who knew they had a Windsor, too?) and featuring 250 as yet unnamed music acts of all......

Late-night lash lovers in Clerkenwell will have one less option for the next month at least: Dust nightclub has had its license revoked after a shooting last weekend. Gunshots were heard in the vicinity of the Farringdon Road nightspot early Saturday morning, and a 28-year old man was later taken by a friend to a south London hospital suffering from bullet wounds to his legs. Following police advice, the club's license was suspended on Monday......

Following the furore over widespread lackadaisical record-keeping for on duty expenses within the Met police force, a detective has been jailed for 10 months for impressively audacious abuses of the company credit card. Detective Sergeant Richard de Cadenet's level of spending suggests he wasn't entirely thinking straight or even criminally when he laid out for Mexican holidays, luxury electrical goods, a snazzy new wardrobe and £18,000 of hard cash from the hole in the......

Londonist accidentally went to a funeral this morning. Thankfully it was a cortege entirely composed of actors and volunteers. It was part of the ‘Drop the Weapons Campaign’ and jeepers-was-it-effective. Londonist is a bit of a liability even slicing bread, and so we're already pretty scared of knives. We actually felt sickened by the power of the image we saw (watch the official video here), and if wannabe knife carriers aren’t startled and deterred by......

Bored and lonely gentlemen, put your phones down - it ain't what you think. Quite the opposite, actually. Mark Clarke of Bedford Hill, a Tory parliamentary candidate, is waging what he describes as a one-man war against vice in his neighbourhood. Fed up with ladies of the night proffering their business round his 'ends, the 31-year old has vowed to disrupt their work so they can't practice the world's oldest profession. Taking email tips......

One of the benefits of roof or windowsill gardens must be being pretty confident about what's lurking in your plantings. Not likely to encounter snails or slugs or beetles or.... human remains. Which is what a plucky allotmenteer in Walthamstow dug up last week. To be more specific, a human skull. Police are now running forensic tests on the skull and treating the plot as a crime scene so we wait for more news......

Foreign visitors may be bemused by our relatively toothless bobbies with their funny hats and ineffectual truncheons, but the truth is they can't always be trusted when packing heat. A female officer has been removed from operational duty after she left her firearm in an Edgware Road Starbucks. With a bladder perhaps filled with one of the chain's venti soy frappucinos, the officer, who has not been identified but whose surname is suspected to......

In another desperate attempt to do something useful about curbing youth crime and tackling gang culture today the Home Office published "The Gangs: You and Your Child". It's an attempt to help parents identify whether their kids might be involved with gangs and deliver sound advice about what to do about it. A bit like when they used to tell you to hide under the kitchen table with some tinned food when the bomb......

Mayor urged to endorse cross-river tram plan. St Pancras to Peckham? Sorted Stop-and-search policy criticised by ex-head of the Met's homicide prevention unit Top cop in charge of 2012 Olympics security claims he's being racially discriminated against Ramsay rumbled: there's a new top restaurant in town. We're sure Gordon took the news calmly South London squatters told to sling their hook Lethal weapons: one-man gun factory jailed for life Bus strike to begin tomorrow.......

Girl material: Her Madgeness to make like Minogue and display her garms in an exhibition The driver's last lie: Salman Rushdie's former protector apologises over moronic verses. Being a copper for the Met isn't the safest occupation London Assembly canvassing for opinion on teen boozing Beijing 2008 coin minted - one to collect along with those special edition stamps. Ben Kinsella's mum take the knife fight to the US (not literally) - she's in......

Despite prior indifference, that gold-laden swag bag from Beijing has got Londoners enthused about 2012. Commuting into London is time-consuming. In other news, Pope is Catholic, and dog bites man Mayor Boris to meet with government in bid to tackle air pollution. There be fines in the offing if we don't clean up East London choir caterwauls to final of TV show Council workers cowed by crime are ferried from office to Tube station......

It's amazing what a lick of paint and better lighting can do. Apparently, the redesigned entrance to Shadwell DLR station, countering its previous dark and dingy reputation, has made 75% of local residents feel safer using it and there has been "just one crime at the station since the revamp in May, but there were six crimes there between May and June last year, according to British Transport Police figures". The main thrust of......

Last night was another in a series of fatal instances of being in the wrong place at the wrong time as London struggles with its youth crime. 18-year old Ryan Bravo was shopping in Costcutter with two family members last night when several men on mopeds opened fire from the street outside. Bravo entered the store on Camberwell Road in Walworth at the same time as three other men ran in, laughing and talking......

The latest from court: Barry George found not guilty of Jill Dando's murder, while jury in 7/7 plot trial fail to reach a verdict Kensingtonites watch out, there's a bogus policeman about The real deal, meanwhile, are set to introduce more patrols at Tube stations Careless staff at St. Georges hospital leave patient files laying around No money, no problem: London will weather the economic storm, says the Mayor And finally, Londonist breaks its......

There were tears before bedtime yesterday when a Facebook "splashmob" got a little out of hand and resulted in 9 people being arrested. The ES pictures show a jolly group of plastic bazooka armed lovelies frolicking in the evening sun enjoying a refreshing water fight but the BBC reports that the “high spirited” aquatic combat scared horses, unseating some small children riding nearby, so the rozzers were sent in to break up the fun. There’s......

Ideas above his station? Boris is taking legal advice to see if he can remove Sir Ian Blair. Suspect in the rape and murder of Norwegian student Martine Vik Magnussen named Latest Dando news: Jill's still dead. But the jury is deliberating if Barry is guilty or not Cover your ears: shamed shock jock James Whale returns to the airwaves Britain kowtows yet again to the American legal system as man accused of hacking......

If you're bothered, of a dull evening, by a drunk, leering man giggling and gurning at you with a suspicious (if meagre) bulge protruding from his pocket region, you'd be forgiven for force-feeding him a knuckle sandwich and sending him on his way. Yet this was the nightly scenario visited upon one Staines resident. Ben Craft, a former karate trainer, found himself opening the door each evening to some clueless caller looking for a......

Not content with tracking the every move of its errant young, a London borough is bribing its youths to behave themselves – or lose their privileges. The Positive Citizen photocard being trialled in Sutton works on the premise that young people engaging in ‘positive behaviour’ are less likely to transgress. Obedient, apple-cheeked young citizens in Sutton will receive a selection of incentives, such as discounts at McDonalds, Zavvi and New Look, amongst others, while its......

If you're born with the proverbial silver soup-eating utensil in your gob, yet your aspirations include running a country with a long-standing disdain towards the average toff, how can you relate to the lumpenproletariat? Maybe by showing that you suffer from the same troubles they do - such as, for example, being the victim of petty crime. Just days after his City Hall chum Boris announced the Summer Cycling campaign, David Cameron has joined......

Olympic Delivery Authority criticised over construction emissions Attack on police in Croydon may have been gang retaliation Don't read this if you ate strawberries at Wimbledon Notting Hill Carnival will be "Welcoming the World" "funkapolitan" style with Boris ululating on the side Image courtesy of Kayode Okeyode via the Londonist flickr group.......

Here's a rap sheet to be proud of: Earl Petrie has been charged with (deep breath) grievous bodily harm, dangerous driving, driving without insurance, driving without an appropriate licence, failing to stop at an accident, cruelty to animals, and having a dog dangerously out of control. The 33-year old was charged with this orgy of offences after he attacked a cop in Richmond Park when the officer intervened in a row over a disabled parking......

Barely a week after a vicious gang attacked police officers in Croydon, we bring you another sobering tale of needless violence from the blighted borough: an unruly mob has caused £10,000 worth of damage to a 150-year old church in Shirley. Before you get scribbling to the the papers with hand-wringing woes about the yoof of today, with their iPods and idiotic idioms and bulletproof hoodies, bear this in mind: the miscreants in this......

We'll likely avoid Croydon this weekend. Lovely place though it is, news reports are coming in from around Croydon that suggests that Lady Luck is not currently visiting the area. First off, news came in of police officers being bitten by 15-year olds and attacked by a mob after one of their group refused to pick up litter they had dropped. Then in comes a report of a new mum giving birth in a......

Occasionally an event happens so spirit-sappingly depressing to make us wonder if those millenarian, "hell in a handcart", death knell-sounding types in the Mail's employ might actually have a point after all. Here's one: two cops are on sick leave following an attack by a mob in Croydon, after they had the temerity to ask a 15-year old girl to pick up her litter. The mob, some 30 people strong and made up largely......

Disgruntled motorists in well-to-do Crouch End have become so irate at bits of their flashy cars being stripped off that the police have come up with a new tactic: decoy BMWs to catch thieves red-handed. While your car radio and alloy wheels used to be the only parts at risk from thieves with socket sets, the prices that high-end car parts can fetch on the black market means that all sorts of bits are......

Taggers are, by definition and, at the very least, cheeky young scamps but Andrew Gillman who's facing sentencing for criminal damage today, has truly got balls. Not only is he leader of the prolific and international grafitti gang, DPM Crew, and responsible for thousands of pounds worth of railway streetart/vandalism he's also responsible for legitimately decorating the Eastender's set with his signature tags. Auntie Beeb, in search of East End authenticity, hired Gillman for......

Those people persevering with wordy email scams from Nigeria, involving "confidential business transactions" worth vast amounts of money, civil unrest and promises of mighty rewards for the simple act of paying their expenses really ought to take a leaf out of the audacious book of the fake Contessa de Aliva, one crafty Elda Beguinua of Dulwich. This charming lady defrauded major financial institutions and persuaded an entire retinue to wait on her before conning......

Reports that hate crime is on the rise don't really surprise us. In the wake of the earlier shocking news about the murdered French students and the relentless wave of violent crime we seem to be riding at the moment, we're not really feeling the love at all. However, Barnet is specifically reporting a 20% increase in reported race crime, whilst other boroughs report a decline. Statistics, of course, can be wonderfully open to......

Sickening details of the so far motiveless murder of 2 French Imperial College research students have emerged over lunchtime. The stab wounds inflicted on the two men were so extensive that the attack has been described as "frenzied" and the DCI in charge of the case spoke of how everyone involved in the investigation has been "deeply shocked" by the extent of the attack. No murder weapon has yet been found. The attacker set fire......

A pink pot hastily filled with flowers marks the spot in Bellenden Road, SE15, where a girl in her twenties was fatally stabbed last night. Londonist doesn’t have a big powerful camera like the gentlemen of the rest of the press, so we can’t show you the blood-stained pavement. But we can describe the sense of mute shock and disbelief that hangs in the air in Peckham this morning. It was only yesterday in......