Award-winning News Shopper always brings you the biggest stories first. Here is a selection of the news hitting the headlines this week.

Fire at Thamesmead school was arson

A FIRE at Bishop John Robinson Church of England Primary School in Thamesmead is being treated as arson say police.

More than 40 fire fighters and eight fire engines took around eight and a half hours to bring the blaze under control at the school in Hoveton Road.

The first fire crews were at the scene at about 7.10pm on Friday (October 31).

A spokesman for the fire service said the fire damaged 25 per cent of the single storey school and 50 per cent of the roof.

Anxious parents gathered this morning outside the school, which is now the scene of a police investigation.

Tributes for bride-to-be from West Wickham crash

A DOTING fiance has paid tribute to the love of his life who died along with the driver in a car crash last week.

Charlotte Simpson died after the Fiat Punto she was travelling in with four others collided with a bus in Corkscrew Hill, West Wickham on October 25.

Her fiance, 25-year-old Alan Hooley has been speaking about his loss.

The painter and decorator said: “She was always there for me, always by my side no matter if I was in the right or wrong- it didn’t matter to Char.

“She loved me and I loved her, we were always together.”

Charlotte and Alan of Parish Lane, Penge got together on Christmas Day 2003.

Nearly five years later the pair decided to get married and the date was set for May 2 next year.

The 21-year-old already had her dress picked out.

Hotel owner appeals strip club refusal

A HOTEL owner is appealing the decision to refuse the opening of a striptease and lap-dancing club.

An application by the White Hart Hotel, in New Cross Road, New Cross, to open a strip club on the premises was refused by Lewisham Council in August.

More than 100 letters of objection and three petitions signed by 232 residents against the plan were received by the council, including a letter of objection from the police.

But now White Hart owner Ken Linwood is appealing the council’s decision with a court appeal to be heard at Bromley Magistrates’ Court, on January 13 and 14.

Mr Linwood argues the strip club is the only way his business can survive.

Student murdered in Plumstead for being from Peckham

A STUDENT shot dead was in “the wrong place at the wrong time”, an inquest heard on Friday (October 31).

Eighteen-year-old Philip Poru was killed when he was sat in the front seat of a silver Ford Fiesta in Long Walk, Plumstead, at around 10pm on October 14 last year.

Police believe the unsolved murder arose as a result of long-standing territorial rivalry and that Mr Poru was shot because he came from Peckham.

Southwark Coroner’s Court heard that two black men thought to have Somalian accents approached the car and opened the door before firing, and then ran away.