This week in 1990 a man who battered to death a sado-masochistic accounts clerk on Hampstead Heath was jailed for five years.

The Old Bailey heard how a 32-year-old Aids sufferer had pleaded with three men to beat him up for sexual gratification.

The victim's body was found in the bushes on the Heath in December 1988, 18 days after his death.

In other news, an alleged off-the-cuff remark by then-Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson was condemned by Haringey Council leader Toby Harris as "an unforgivable insult to the people of Archway".

Mr Parkinson was alleged to have told a meeting of senior Tory councillors of widening Archway Road, "I wouldn't have mind jumping into the bulldozer myself".

Elsewhere, Eileen Bernal, who dedicated herself to the peace movement both locally and internationally for 70 years, died aged 91.

Mrs Bernal, the wife of world-famous scientist D. Bernal, was an active member of the Hampstead and Camden CND groups and the World Disarmament Campaign.