It was a crime that chilled all who heard about it: a teenager was charged with the rape of an 11-year-old girl in a park on her way home from school.

Opemipo Jaji, 18, of Osward Place in Edmonton, is due to face trial next year in connection with the rape in Jubilee Park in Lower Edmonton.

In another sad story earlier in the month, neighbours described the “horrific” scene that left a woman with life-threatening injuries in Enfield Island Village.

Police were called to Gunner Drive just after midnight to find a woman in her early 20s suffering from multiple stab wounds. Police believed she had also been run over by a car.

Mrs Din, who lived nearby in Thorneycroft Drive, said: “This area has never had any problems. We have such lovely neighbours, so it’s really bizarre that it’s happened here.”

Veterans were also forced out of their Royal British Legion Club – just three days after Remembrance Sunday.

The building in Holtwhites Hill, in Chase Side, provided the venue for the end of the Remembrance Sunday but the Royal British Legion charity – which owns the building – ordered the club to close due to debts.

Club president Derek Caton, 83, who served in the Royal Air Force between 1945 and 1951, said: “The people running the legion have come out of university, they have jobs, they don’t realise what they are doing to the people who gave them freedom.”

The following week, a popular pub soon to be demolished closed to make way for housing. 

The Old Sergeant in Parsonage Lane in Chase Side went into administration in June but was later bought by Enfield Borough Council for development.

Pub manager Phil Baker said: “It’s my home. I haven’t got a clue what I’ll do now. I have nowhere to go. It is devastating for me and the regulars. They are broken hearted.”