2003 MONDAY SEPTEMBER 23
A visit from Sister Wendy, a murderer’s house sold, a Lottery scratchcard winner and much more made the news 16 years ago this week
Sister Wendy serves up her nightclub ministry of sound
THERE was a taste of spirits and the spiritual for the thousands of revellers flocking to the Welsh capital for a night in the bars and clubs when Christmas party time arrived.
For in the midst of those drinking and dancing would be Wendy Sanderson, below, a 26-year-old passionate about life, music and God.
Known as Sister Wendy to her colleagues in the Church Army – an Anglican mission agency whose alumni included former hostage Terry Waite – she aimed to act as a chaplain to anyone whose Christmas celebrations seemed short of joy.
Wendy’s full-time job would be leading a group of volunteers in Cardiff ’s nightspots in a project called Club Network.
She said: “You have thousands of people coming through Cardiff every weekend, and I am sure not one of them isn’t going through something. We are there for the crisis if there is one on the night, or to hold their hair up when they throw up.”
Her mission is to give “non-judgmental love and support”, but the former shoe shop manager believed churches and nightclubs already had more in common than the people who went to them might realise.
She said: “We are not going in to shut down the culture. We are going to work with club staff and management.
“When you look at the influence of drugs and the hunger for the ultimate high, it kind of all links in. I do believe there is a hunger for spirituality and God.
“Sometimes religion has turned off people and hurt people, but I think although young people are not interested in religion, I don’t think the hunger to know God has gone.”
The months leading up to Christmas will be spent recruiting and training volunteers to deal with the challenges and dangers of ministering on the streets.
She said: “Someone said to me the other day, what would you do if someone took five Es? Would you help them? And the answer is ‘yes.’
“Why turn someone away? I don’t believe Jesus would have done and I don’t believe God does. God never turns me away, so why should I?”
Murderer’s house sells within hours
LYNETTE White’s murderer sold his £50,000 Valleys home from behind bars within hours of putting it on the market.
The sale of the three-bedroom property at Bridgend Road, Llanharan, has been welcomed locally.
Rhondda Cynon Taf county councillor Greg Powell said: “It’s good news and now, hopefully, it will be occupied by a decent family who will get involved in our community.
“That will sever a link with a horrific crime so we can move on.”
Security guard Jeffrey Gafoor, aged 39, had been sentenced to life imprisonment after admitting stabbing the 20-year-old Cardiff prostitute to death in a flat in Butetown on Valentine’s Day 1988.
He stayed silent about his frenzied attack – which ended with the helpless young woman being stabbed more than 60 times – even after three men were wrongly convicted.
Steve Miller, Yusef Abdullahi and Tony Paris – known as the Cardiff Three – spent years in jail before being released on appeal in 1992.
Years later the loner was finally trapped by new DNA techniques when police investigated an assault on one of his colleagues.
It is understood a family from Brynna bought the house for letting.
Gafoor is believed to have made a profit of around £12,000 on the sale before deduction of legal and estate agents’ costs.
Lotto winner’s life turned around
A lottery winner who won £500,000 on a £3 scratchcard would finally have a normal life thanks to the cash windfall, according to her sister. Helen Ford, from Penarth, who was named by Camelot, had been unemployed all her life, suffered with depression and not had a holiday abroad for 13 years.
But the money bonanza – the highest ever pay-out on a lottery scratchcard in the UK – would help her do all she had ever wanted.
“Usually money seems to go to
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