AN ENGLISHMAN being tried for his alleged part in a terrorist campaign in London told a court at the Old Bailey yesterday that he was an IRA member, and had been involved in another bombing for which he had not been charged, and for which the wrong man had been sentenced.

A healthy fusillade of support for the toy-gun brigade followed Gwen's dilemma last week. She'd been at pains to bring up her son in a non-sexist way, and hated the fact that he and his friends constantly 'shot' each other in the park when playing detectives. To compound matters, his grandparents were about to give him a toy gun for his birthday. She didn't know what to do.

A LIST of military and civilian targets including the head of MI5, Stella Rimington, and Virginia Bottomley, the Secretary of State for Health, was found at the flat where two men accused of IRA terrorist offences were picked up, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.

On Saturday mornings, 11-year- old Chanel Bannister joins 80 other Afro-Caribbean children at a school in north-west London to study maths and English. All around the country thousands of black children are doing the same. At a score of sites around London, and in other cities with a sizeable black population such as Leeds and Birmingham, parents and teachers have come together to set up supplementary schools to combat the under-achievement of their children in state schools.

A Home Office minister insisted yesterday that he would not be 'blackmailed' by asylum seekers going on hunger strike. With the protest that has beset detention centres appearing to crumble, the Under-Secretary of State, Charles Wardle, told MPs that anyone who thought refusing food would lead to their release was sadly mistaken.

Scotland Yard named a man stabbed to death in Stoke Newington, north-east London, as Trevor Monerville, 26, of Hackney, north-east London. He was found on the pavement by a passer-by. His mobile telephone and jacket were missing.

LAUTRO, the life insurance industry regulator, was yesterday accused of failing in its role and of paying only lip service to consumers as its chairman and chief executive were given a rough ride by MPs on the Treasury Select Committee.

A POLICE officer diagnosed as mentally ill and unable to give evidence in court, was described as the 'prime candidate for responsibility' and 'plainly at the centre' of a murder in a police cell, a jury at the Old Bailey was told yesterday.

UP TO 10 police officers have been recommended for criminal charges following a marathon investigation into allegations of drugs trafficking, planting evidence and perversion of justice by police at Stoke Newington in north-east London.

Slide aerobics is being hailed as the Next Big Thing in fitness training. Imported from the US it has more than a touch of West Coast loopiness about it.

HOW can we pay for new public transport infrastructure? Cathy Aitchison points out ('Short-term funds go down the tube', Business, 9 January) that much of the benefit of the underground is 'captured away from the fare box' and that 'a hypothecated tax dedicated specifically to the Underground' could be introduced if ways were found of measuring such benefits.

A MAN whose life was made hell by his noisy drug-dealing neighbours finally snapped and set fire to their home, killing a three-year-old boy, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.

STOKE NEWINGTON's pounds 9m police station is the most imposing building on the High Street. Built three years ago to replace a sombre structure with an equally sombre history, it has light-coloured brick and shatter-proof glass through which Hackney citizens may be observed in discourse with their uniformed protectors. From the wide pavement, the large windows and spacious interior contribute an impression of institutional openness, even friendliness, no more threatening than, say, a Tesco store or Telecom office.

AFTER 15 minutes I thought, fine. The guy's probably been held up in the late-night traffic, I won't even mention it. After half an hour? Well. I spent a few minutes clockwatching. Thirty-five. Forty. Bloody three-quarters of an hour] And then . . . then I started to get niggled. I fussed around, thinking unfair things. I was at a party. It was after midnight. I thought: these days, you call a cab, you expect it to be late. Why? Why? Maybe the bloody thing won't turn up at all. I've had that happen, I thought. God, I was feeling bitter.