CROYDON'S X Factor stars had kept our hopes alive since the summer but in December the dream was over.
The borough was admirably represented in this year's competition with a quarter of the finalists boasting a local link. Lorna Simpson went out in the first week of the live finals, followed by Hannah Barrett in the seventh. Rough Copy, who were making their second bid for X Factor stardom, made it to the semi-final before losing out in the sing-off.
But this was not the season to be downhearted and the Advertiser was soon campaigning for a homecoming gig to celebrate their achievements. We got our wish when in mid-December it was announced that Rough Copy would headline their first concert on December 30, with Hannah in support.
A MURDERER serving a life sentence boasted from his prison cell how he planned to spend Christmas taking drugs and drinking booze.
Jamal Dyce, 25, was jailed for at least 12 years in 2008 for stabbing a man to death in a row over a mobile phone.
Despite being locked up, he managed to get hold of his own mobile phone and was bragging online about watching Match of the Day, eating biscuits and taking drugs. The Advertiser was even able to talk directly with the killer, from Thornton Heath. Posing as a member of his former running club, our reporter was in contact with Dyce for the best part of a week via BlackBerry Messenger.
When asked how he would be spending Christmas, the ex-Warlingham High pupil said: "Weed and drink, just another day."
He added getting hold of drugs in prison was easy compared with obtaining a mobile phone.
CROYDON'S most senior police officer caused controversy when he said people use soup kitchens so they can spend money on alcohol instead.
Borough commander David Musker claimed the soup kitchen in Queen's Gardens, aimed at the poor and homeless, was instead being used by drunks out to cause trouble.
"The reality is that a number of people use the soup kitchen in Croydon in order to spend their money on alcohol rather than food," he said.
"This, in turn, leads to these individuals committing crime or antisocial behaviour. In the long term, soup kitchens are not helping to get people off the streets and turn their lives around."
"In my extensive experience, soup kitchens are not a solution and contribute to antisocial behaviour and criminality in the town centre."
Jad Adams, chairman of Nightwatch, the charity which runs the soup kitchen, said the chief superintendent's comments were "lacking in factual substance".
The row followed the leaking of a council report which recommended using "all available bylaws" to ban the soup kitchen from Queen's Gardens.
COULSDON's answer to Braveheart said he was considering standing in the 2014 council elections.
Richard Thurbon is the chairman of Coulsdon West Residents' Association and has called publicly for the Coulsdon to break away from Croydon.
He said his members want representatives tied to the area rather than a political party.
In an authority where the ruling party has a majority of just four, the move could have a big impact.
Mr Thurbon said: "One man can make a difference – there is always something one councillor can do or one councillor can say that will change the course of everything.
"People are frustrated that the only people listening to them at the moment are the residents' associations. The point is that people want to see a material change in things and if this is the way to bring it about and it is the right thing to do, then that is why we exist. If they want us to run for these things then that is what we will do."
Discontent with the council has reached boiling point over plans for huge developments in Cane Hill and the proposal to build a supermarket on the Lion Green Road car park.
While the developments are broadly welcomed, many have accused the Tory-run council of failing to listen to concerns over how roads and schools will cope with the influx of people.
GARY Hayward's family got the best Christmas present they could hope for when the victim of a vicious gang attack was told he could come home for the first time in two years.
The father of three was allowed spend a few hours with his family on Christmas Day as he continued to recover from devastating head injuries. The 31-year-old is now able to talk, eat unaided, and can also remember events before the attack in October 2011.
His progress had been so encouraging that his doctors said he was well enough to spend some time away from his rehabilitation centre in Kent. Gary is blind in one eye, and barely able to see out the other. While his eyesight is taking longer to recover, doctors believe he will walk again.
"We're seeing a lot more of the old Gary now. He's got his sense of humour back and has even started taking the mickey out of the nurses," his mother Wendie said.
"He has so much will to live. He knows it's not his time. He's able to move part of the right side of his body and can walk in the swimming pool and wheel himself about.
"When I think back to what he was like last Christmas – his head was supported, he couldn't talk and he could barely move – his progress has been incredible."
