Review of the year: January (From Times Series)

Review of the year: January

1:32pm Wednesday 28th December 2005 in

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At the start of the year, harrowing information came in from south-east Asia about people in the borough who died in the catastrophic tsunami on Boxing Day.

Dr Sonali Deraniyagala, 40, a lecturer from Friern Barnet, was holidaying in Sri Lanka with her family when the giant wave struck, washing her miles inland. Her husband, Dr Steve Lissenburgh, sons Nikhil, five, and Vikram, seven, and parents, Edward and Gemini Deraniyagala, died.

Barnet Council flexed its environmental muscle with a new policy of fining householders £1,000 if they failed to put recyclable rubbish in kerbside black boxes.

The council won awards for this policy, which saw recycling levels dramatically increase. The council could be in for a £629,000 windfall from the Government next year if it has reached a target of recycling 30 per cent of all household waste.

The man responsible for running the Northern Line admitted that 2004 was a sticky year', but said the Misery Line days of the Nineties' were finally over.

A New York-style' gang brawl involving up to 200 youths armed with knives, baseball bats and hammers took place outside Friern Barnet Town Hall.

Several people were arrested for their part in the fight, which left one teenager hospitalised.

A week later, The Compton School in North Finchley was closed at lunchtime on one day on police advice.

Barnet FC super-fan Steve Percy celebrated attending his 1,000th consecutive attendance at a Bees match.

The man with the flowing grey locks and a Barnet badge tattooed on his right forearm revealed: "I was meant to be best man at my brother's wedding, but I couldn't go because Barnet were home to Telford that day, so I went to the evening.

"He accepted it. He should have got married out of the football season."

Amateur film-makers from Mill Hill and New Barnet sparked a full-scale police search involving two forces and a helicopter after passers-by reported seeing a body being dragged into Epping Forest under cover of darkness.

Vincent Tempest, 15, from Park Road, New Barnet, was filming his friend Adam Young, 25, of Longfield Avenue, Mill Hill, carrying a clothed blow-up alien wrapped in a bin bag.

After several police cars turned up, the pair approached officers who then searched Mr Young's car. One officer took the alien out of the bag, revealing its head.

Vincent said: "He just stared at it and couldn't work out what was going on, and was looking up at the helicopter. He said, You do realise this is all because of you, the whole police force is out looking for a body'."

The former Tory foreign secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind, came to Barnet, confidently predicting the Conservatives would win back the Labour-held seat of Hendon at May's general election.

He also predicted Michael Howard would be Prime Minister for a number of years. He was wrong on both counts.