History > 2008 > UK > Crime (III)

Gun crime

Firearms:

cheap, easy to get

and on a street near you

From drug dealing
to settling playground squabbles,
firearms offences are rising

Saturday August 30 2008
The Guardian
Duncan Campbell
This article appeared in the Guardian on Saturday August 30 2008
on p16 of the UK news section.
It was last updated at 00:21 on August 30 2008.

The gun shown here, a Webley, is up for sale in London for £150, one of hundreds of such weapons that are easily and cheaply available on the streets of the UK's big cities, a Guardian investigation can reveal.

The variety of weapons on offer in Britain is extensive and includes machine guns and shotguns, as well as pistols and converted replicas. A source close to the trade in illegal weapons contacted by the Guardian listed a menu of firearms that are available on the streets of the capital.

"You can get a clean [unused] 9mm automatic for £1,500, a Glock for a couple of grand and you can even make an order for a couple of MAC-10s," he said. "Or you can get a little sawn-off for £150. They're easy enough to get hold of. You'll find one in any poverty area, every estate in London, and it's even easier in Manchester, where there are areas where the police don't go.

"People who use shotguns tend to be lower down the pecking order. There is less use of sawn-off or full length shotguns, and if a criminal wants street cred, he wants a self-loading pistol, a MAC-10 or an Uzi submachine gun."

This week a man who ran a "factory" for converting replica weapons into working guns was jailed for life. Police believe the products of Grant Wilkinson's workshops were used in more than 50 shootings, including eight murders. His speciality was turning legally purchased MAC-10s into weapons that could fire live rounds, an increasingly common practice.

According to David Dyson, a leading firearms consultant, it is possible to learn through the internet how to make a firearm, given a degree of skill, and converted deactivated weapons also feature in shootings.

But it is the arrival of eastern European weapons that, alongside a homegrown industry in converting them, has contributed to the firearms glut. "There has been an influx from eastern Europe and particularly from Poland, and there are also a lot coming in from people who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq," said the source. "In Liverpool docks, you can put in an order for 10 guns and some grenades and they'll say OK and two weeks later, they will be there - and they are straight goers."

According to Dyson, the latest "weapon of choice" is a Russian 8mm Baikal self-defence pistol, originally used for firing CS gas. "They are legally sold in Germany and won't fire a bullet but they can be converted by removing the partially blocked barrel, and replacing it with a rifled barrel," he said. "After other small alterations, it can then fire 9mm bulleted ammunition. The replacement barrel is longer than the original, and is threaded so that it will accept a silencer, which is commonly sold as part of the package.

"There are hundreds of these floating around and hundreds have been seized," he said. "They look the part as they are based on the Russian military Makarov pistol. If you are a 20-year-old drug dealer and you want a gun, that is what you will get and it will cost about £1,000 to £1,500."

"The trends in firearms are driven by the suppliers," said Dyson. "About two years ago, a supplier brought back hundreds of German-made revolvers, blank-firing pistols which can be bought legally in Germany. They were then converted and new cylinders made. They could then be sold for £700 to £800 when the supplier would have bought them for €60 and spent about £30 on converting them."

Home Office data shows that gun crime is up since last year, despite the recent doubling of sentences for possessing or supplying firearms. There were 9,803 firearms offences in England and Wales in the year to March 2008 with most in London, Manchester and the West Midlands.

Most buyers are involved with drug dealing, the source said. Some are used to rob other dealers in crimes that go unreported, others are used as protection while a deal is under way. "Someone will have a tool and there is always one guy in a posse willing to use it. They will have one guy who doesn't give a fuck.

"Everyone wants to be a gangster now, mainly the kids. You have five or six in a little crew and one of them will be carrying. They want handguns - shotguns are too big and bulky. The sawn-off doesn't look so good but use a machine gun and you get known as a heavy guy. They have them just to be a chap on the street, to pose. Some of them walk around all day with a .38. It's 16-year-olds at it and it's getting like America, silly as it sounds."

In terms of nationalities, the influx of eastern European criminals has changed the balance of power. "Who's using the guns? The [Jamaican] Yardies' value for life was so minimal that they thought nothing of killing people," said the source. "We don't like them, they have no moral code. But it's the Russians and the Polish and Albanians around now. They are bullies. They want to take over the flesh business. The Russians are cold-hearted fuckers. What they have been doing is following the card boys [who put cards advertising prostitutes in phone booths in central London] and then taking the girls hostage, armed if need be."

Detective Chief Inspector Colin Sutton, who has investigated some of London's most high profile shooting murders, said he believed the age of offenders was getting younger, and sometimes guns seemed to be used for the slightest reason.

"Playground squabbles are now being settled with guns," he said. "And drug dealers are taking a policy decision to get youngsters to carry guns."

He said guns could be purchased for a few hundred pounds in many parts of London. "You can hire a gun for a period and, if the gun has already been used for a murder, the going rate comes down."

While the conviction of Wilkinson was seen as a breakthrough, it is accepted that with the increased traffic between Britain and eastern Europe, stemming the flow of weapons remains an almost impossible task.

"Guns are always available," said Dyson. "You can go to the former Soviet Union, or countries with less stringent regulations than ours, and although British Customs have their successes, many guns appear to be smuggled into the UK."

Amnesties for people to hand over weapons are greeted with scepticism by criminals. "The gun amnesties are meaningless," the source said. "All you get handed in are guns from boys who wanted to be gangsters and then got a job or someone whose mother found it in their bedroom. If I had a gun, I wouldn't take part because, if I got pulled, what would I say - 'Oh, I'm just on my way to the amnesty.' Also if it gets out that you've given in your tool, people will think you're a wrong 'un."

Few professional criminals would keep guns on their premises. "Only silly people keep it in their homes. Normally, you have a 'keeper' a couple of miles away and some of them have been at it for 20 years. It's best to have an old fellow with no previous or a woman. You keep the ammunition separate because you'll get a much heavier sentence if you have them together."

When guns are moved from place to place, a young woman is often used as the courier because there is less risk of her being stopped and searched.

What is not in dispute is the devastating effect that the casual use of a gun over a minor argument can have on dozens of people. In December 2006, Sean "Stretch" Jenkins, 36, an amiable, 6ft 8in window-cleaner from south London, was shot dead at a party in Carshalton. His killer was a cocaine dealer called Joseph Greenland, a volatile man with a quick temper, who had apparently taken offence at something Jenkins said. The men had earlier been at a boxing night at Caesar's in Streatham, where there had been some fighting outside the ring. Greenland had left the party, driven home in his Range Rover, picked up a gun and returned to kill Jenkins in front of at least five witnesses, who were warned not to talk.

None of the immediate witnesses gave evidence against Greenland, who had a reputation for threatening to "annihilate" anyone who crossed him, but there were traces of his DNA on a cigarette end and a wine glass at the party and his bragging about the shooting was to be his downfall. His recourse to a gun, for no other reason than some perceived slight, left Jenkins's six-year-old son without a father and saddened a wide network of friends and family. Greenland was jailed for life last week and will have to serve 30 years before he can be considered for parole.

"We got what we wanted," said the victim's mother, Maureen Jenkins, of the verdict and sentence last month. "I went to the cemetery and said, 'Well, boy, I can put you to rest'."

The detectives investigating the killing and the prosecution team that secured Greenland's conviction were "marvellous", she said. "I shed tears every day and I probably will till the day I die. Why do these people have to kill for nothing? If they want to kill people, why don't they join the army? You don't ever think a shooting will happen in your life. It's all down to guns, just guns."

The Guardian's source said that guns were becoming a first rather than a last recourse. "A gun used to be used as a mediator; now everything is revolved with a gun. It's brought the heat on everyone. Before you would get a two [years jail sentence], now it's a five. It's getting like the US now, like The Wire. It's like a prediction of what will happen here. I think they all think they're playing Grand Theft Auto. It's madness out there."

Firearms: cheap, easy to get and on a street near you, G, 30.8.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/aug/30/ukcrime1

Remains of five children found

at Haut de la Garenne,

Jersey former children's home

July 31, 2008
From Times Online

Jersey police have discovered the partial remains of at least five children at Haut de la Garenne, the former children’s home at the centre of the island’s child abuse investigation.

However, the grim discoveries of the bone fragments - believed to have come from children aged between 4 and 11 - may not result in a murder inquiry because experts have been unable to pinpoint when the children died, the detective leading the investigation has admitted.

Deputy Chief Officer Lenny Harper, from States of Jersey Police, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that there are difficulties dating teeth and bone fragments from the children.

“At the end of the day there may not be the evidence there to mount a homicide inquiry and an attempt to bring anybody to justice for whatever crimes took place there,” he said.

Police have evidence the bodies were burned and attempts were made to conceal the bodies in the late 60s to early 70s, he added.

To date, police have recovered a total of 65 milk teeth from the cellars at Haut de la Garenne. Experts believe the teeth could only have come out after death because of their condition.

In total, more than 100 human bone fragments have also been found at the site, with one piece identified as coming from a child’s leg and another from a child’s ear.

Tests showed some fragments were cut while others were burnt, suggesting that murders had taken place and the victims’ bodies had possibly been cremated in a fireplace.

Police are looking into around 97 allegations of abuse in Jersey dating back to the early 1960s and have said there are more than 100 suspects.

Mr Harper said: “We were pinning our hopes on the process of carbon dating. The latest information we’re getting is that for the period we’re looking at, it’s not going to be possible to give us an exact time of death.

“The indications are that if the results come back the same way as they have now it is obvious there won’t be a homicide inquiry.”

However, the police search has unearthed valuable pieces of evidence which “substantially corroborate” accounts of abuse at the home, Mr Harper said.

Investigations started in February after the discovery of what was initially believed to be part of a child’s skull.

Tests later suggested it was more likely to be wood or part of a coconut. Following the find, scores of people came forward claiming they were drugged, raped and beaten.

Police excavated four secret underground chambers at the site, referred to as punishment rooms by some victims, and found shackles, a large bloodstained bath and children’s teeth.

In one cellar officers found the disturbing message “I’ve been bad for years and years” scrawled on a wooden post.

Three men have been charged with sex abuse offences as part of the inquiry into historical abuse.

The children's home had in recent years been used as a youth hostel for travellers, but has subsequently been closed down.

Remains of five children found at Haut de la Garenne, Jersey former children's home,
Ts Online, 31.7.2008,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4434012.ece

Last year,

nearly four million Britons

used illicit drugs


Here, 10 people reveal
why cocaine, skunk and ketamine do it for them

Sunday July 20, 2008
John Hind
The Observer


Lucy, 27, punk singer, London
Drugs: speed, ecstasy, ketamine
Spends: £30-40 a week
There was a time when I was more than dabbling in heroin, when I went totally into myself and detached myself from society, and I sat down and wrote some really good songs, like 'Barbed Wire Boy', which was about someone on gear. I liked heroin because it made me feel warm, made me feel I didn't need anyone else. But now I'm not just a songwriter but singing in a band, and my focus is performing and not wanting to let the band down. We all want to make a success of it and the unity has given me a focus - a bit like heroin, actually.

So I don't perform under the influence. Any drugs I choose to take will only be after I've performed. I don't think I want, or can afford, to be unprofessional and experiment with speed and ketamine on stage, even if I think it might make me interact with the audience better.

I like speed socially. I last took some three or four days ago, at someone else's gig. I was dancing around having funny conversations. You have so much energy on good speed and the next day you've lost about a stone - that's what I like about it. I was asked last week if I wanted to chip £10 in for a £60 bag of coke, but it turned out to be ketamine. All the young people are getting into ketamine now, but it makes you quite aggressive. I took ecstasy a couple of weeks ago with my boyfriend. Ecstasy in the old days was always good vibey, but the pills today, like the techno, have become more erratic.

I certainly won't dabble with crack any more, like I used to - it takes your soul away, you look a mess and you become an unpleasant person. I think if I didn't have the band to focus on, if I didn't see opportunities in life, I might be more inclined. The fact is there are young people all over the country who see that even if they had a job, it's so low paid they'll never be able to afford a home and a family. So they're taking drugs to deal with it, or selling drugs as a way to have something.

The other thing about Britain is it currently has the worst drugs in the world, in terms of quality, cleanliness and the user's ability to measure them and be able to judge their tolerance to them. Because we're an island, and because of terrorism and security, people here are becoming acclimatised to bad-quality drugs. If you believe that people go through behavioural phases, moving through periods of taking drugs and growing out of them, then the real concern should be the decreasing quality of what those people - and the poor, especially - are taking.

Jude, 40, illustrator and designer, London
Drugs: prescription benzodiazepines and other - non-prescription - drugs
Spends: £10 a week

I take clonazepam and diazepam because they help me draw and design, but I also take them to help with anxiety, nerves, twitching, bodily aches. Any job where you have to have a very steady hand and stay calm is helped by Valium or any of the benzodiazepines. I read that snipers take them to steady their grip and I've met a surgeon who uses them for the same reason. To draw well, especially to cope with a client or someone visiting to be sketched, benzodiazepines can be essential. But generally to work alone and really concentrate, with confidence, without shaking, they help.

I've broken the back of two portraits this week and that probably wouldn't have happened without the 'pams. But it's not quite as simple as that. I have to get the doses and timing right. I prefer to take clonazepam because it's milder, takes longer to kick in and is less addictive. But I took diazepam on Wednesday because I'd arranged to see friends but couldn't quite cope with socialising. Also, I was afraid about bumping into someone I recently came out of a relationship with.

Some people might take them for fun, but I'm not doing that. I'm not out looking for 10 for a fiver on street corners... not really. Maybe eggs - temazepam capsules - which are great for sleeping. But I usually rely on the goodness of doctors. I'm stocked up at the moment, but in a month, six weeks - and this feeds into the anxiety - I'm looking at an appointment with a consultant who's going to be asking me how many I've been putting aside for rainy days and what I'm drinking and... 20 questions. She might be wanting my liver or my blood to be tested.

Because benzodiazepines store up in your body fat, I've been doing a lot of exercise recently. I've not had muscles like this before. The exercise is about cleaning the system, making what I take more effective, and also fighting some of the anxiety in a physical way. Cycling helps. Recently I cycled home from the studio too late, having taken two or three 10mg tablets at the studio, and I went into a skip. That wasn't good. I was in the relationship then. She wasn't sure what she wanted. Since it ended I've not had the anxiety of performing for her, but I've also been anxious about the relationship ending.

At their best, benzodiazepines basically make me feel really relaxed and really productive and then really able to wind down. They're good for insomnia, temazies [temazepams] especially, and they can knock me out, sometimes with whisky, so I'm not too sleepless to be unable to work the next day. I like playing poker on the internet in the evening, and low 'pams can help that, unless I take too much too early. Last night I timed it pretty well and I was a winner.

Ellie, 28, works in TV, Manchester
Drugs: ecstasy, cocaine, skunk
Spends: 'probably' £50 a week

On Tuesday night I did a shoot for an alternative magazine, a bit kinky, and coke sort of went with the job, it's the least you expect. But my day job is in TV production, where there's lots of cocaine, generally, although my boss really frowns on drugs. When you boil it down, drugs are a social thing, for weekends. And almost always with my best friend, usually at clubs or at her flat. That's what drugs mean to me - friendship, laughter, dancing. On Thursday we got into two clubs under false names. She can get any man to buy us a bottle of champagne, and I could, too. But, at the end of the day, drugs are what we're really looking for. We were on this terrace smoking and we had a little coke from this bloke. We took the piss so much and he still drove us home and gave us what he had left.

The first time I had good cocaine before sex was the first time I really enjoyed sex. My sister said, 'It was just luck,' but it's been like that since. I'm not advocating it for that reason. You hear some men are useless [on cocaine], terrible. Maybe the women saying that are useless, too, or they've been disappointed like me. I do have sex without cocaine, but it's never quite the same.

I'm trying to think of drawbacks. I get sweaty. But I drive better, I park better, I chat better, I feel better and make love better. I don't believe everyone is better looking on coke, but when you're with people who do it, they tend to be better looking anyway.

Every time I've had a really, really good time socially in the past two years, drugs have probably been involved. But the best times, the funniest times, the stupidest, are with my best friend. We can put on this really cheesy fitness video from the Eighties and kill ourselves laughing. Last weekend we got drunk and stoned and she had a bit of coke left - because sometimes we take it from men, pretend to snort it somewhere and then save it for when we're alone. We didn't go out in the end because it was raining and we wanted to prank call, which is mainly lying on cushions. Even if there's no one else, it's still a bit like a festival, being with her and taking stuff. We act out scenes in films - like Meet Joe Black - or impersonate Sarah Silverman sitting in a chair. We run up and down the stairs with hats on singing 'Shitdisco' by Shitdisco. We've probably never done ecstasy on a Sunday, or mushies [mushrooms]. We'd say Friday for that - because she's younger than me, but does a straighter job.

George, 67, idealist and humorist, London
Drugs: cannabis
Spends: less than £140 a week

I became aware of drugs when I was about 16. I would hang around Soho and a woman told me about the uppers and downers that were going around. They didn't interest me at all. I was fit, an athlete. Pretty much teetotal, and I remain so. But then when I was about 24 and working in the diamond trade in Hatton Garden someone gave me some Thai grass to smoke and I enjoyed the experience. Ever since - 43 years - weed has been my recreational drug of choice.

In the Eighties I had cocaine, but it never did anything for me, and I dabbled with ecstasy and it's OK, but nothing I'd want to keep doing. My abiding memory of LSD is just how dirty and dusty everything seemed.

No, it's always been grass for me. But you can't get the stuff that was around in the past that would always make you see the funny side of life. Once, I even put some expensive Thai sticks in a lit oven to dry out and then completely forgot to take them out. I was sitting there with the windows closed, inhaling the wreckage.

It's the funny and philosophical side I'm after, and it tunes you in to music, of course. It's like a perpetual Hamlet advertisement, really. Unfortunately, the only weed you can regularly get today is skunk and it's quite heavy. But there's never been any question in my mind that if all marijuana was legal we would be a far healthier and happier society. Smoking weed tunes me in to a part of myself I like being tuned in to.

There should be proper drug education in schools and kids could be allowed to dabble, maybe. Ultimately, I look to a future where weed isn't classed as a drug. The only thing that'll stop me smoking it is death.

William, 15, schoolboy, Swansea
Drugs: skunk or hash
Spends: up to £30 a week

It was mental my parents suggesting I should have some one-to-one drugs counselling, because all they knew about was a few pills missing and my spliff - and my dad's been spliffing since before I was born. My mother drinks white wine and a night for her costs as much as I've spent for a week. It makes me sarcastic with them. I'll say things like, 'I'll see you in the queue.'

Mum and Dad are saying no to me going to two festivals now. The other thing that didn't help was a party I was at was raided. They had sniffer dogs and everyone was lined up and they made some girls cry and found an ounce thrown about the place. One thing my father said is, 'Don't get a record, or when you get a car they'll pull you over every Friday until you're a dying man.' It's good advice.

I don't think my parents have ever cared if I've had three Stellas. If I was out of it they'd be happy to think it was lager.

My mother thinks I'll be seen smoking by the neighbours. I saw a burglar when I was having a smoke at the window once. I saved next door a fortune, probably. It's much easier in summer, moving about, because using the gazebo - the gazeblow, we call it - at the park on this side of town is a bit of a joke. The council and the community police walk in a circle at 15-minute intervals, so we're in, out. No one really bothers us at the skate park in the evening. The adrenaline of skateboarding takes the edge off spliff. But summer's way better because there's loads of places to go.

It's never been a problem getting skunk in town. Or hash. It's not a problem when I can't get it. The time I was always wanting it was back at the beginning, really. I was being bullied. It sort of helped me. I'd changed schools and there were two major serious psychos there. When I started taking some of the pills my parents had - I don't even know what they were - they were OK, like anti-depressing.

A bit trippy with drink. I don't do that now.

The thing is, I'm paying more for skunk from friends than I would from some dealers, because dealers will start offering you anything else they want to unload. You're saying, 'No, no, no. I only want some hash really.'

What I'd seriously like is to be online on MySpace, be on PlayStation 2, and have a smoke halfway through homework, with a dressing gown across the bottom of the door and really knowing no one's going to be in the house for two hours. That and being on the ramps where there's someone with smokes and jokes. And girls. My picture of paradise is a girl on the ramps - no lamer, she's always busting it out - who sort of gets she's sexy but doesn't. She has Air Insurgents [trainers] and has the moves and has her own little stash of hash. Everyone I hang around with wants the girl like that.

Diana, 27, legal clerk, Essex
Drugs: heroin
Spends: £350 a week

Obviously I have to take my little packets to work prepared, so I don't have drama in the toilet getting a razor blade out and measuring each time for a snort. I'll have had one at home, so there's two packets for work. One's ready for lunch and another later. It's usually two, or three. I need three if it's cut [adulterated]; ideally four - in case I'm working late, or I'm not coming home after work.

I'll usually know in advance if it's heavily cut. If it's no good then I'll want to smoke it. I prefer smoking sometimes, but I can't be setting an alarm off. So I need to know the day's schedule. If a case comes forward or I'm at the office and there's bullshit about someone's dental appointment, or a personal injury case suddenly reappears that someone's messed up, that's when I might get a bit angry. On Tuesday I thought I'd have to smoke on the office balcony because I couldn't wait.

But it's really no big deal going to work with a habit, unless others are making it difficult. It's others causing the problems. I'd never have concerns at work if it was good stuff.

Sometimes if it's really weak, or my husband's found mine and taken a bit from each packet while I'm asleep, that's when I think about the needle, but I can't be carrying a kit. I can cook up in the toilet some time, if I must, but I'm not doing the needle now - ever, really. Just sometimes in the evenings, when I have to, because of all the hassle.

This week I've had good stuff. Not really good, but not really dodgy. When it's really good, the forehead pours, you know straightaway. Once, the paper towels and toilet paper ran out, because the cleaner wasn't there the night before, and I brushed my hand against the photocopier and it was dripping, and a clown said, 'It must be very hot in the Ladies.' I didn't reply.

I take care of everything that's put in front of me. I'd probably have given up working in law if it wasn't for smack. When work's boring it numbs the boredom. Everything's better on smack, everything. But I couldn't do more than a gram a day on what I earn, and I'm eating at Subway. Whereas my bosses could afford two grams without noticing. They don't, I'm just saying. There's no one else on skag there, although there's loads in law.

There was a problem recently when my husband kept phoning the office. Two dealers disappeared last month and my husband thought I was hiding stuff at work. He hasn't phoned since. If he loses me a job he knows I'll kill him. I work perfectly on smack. I'm not drinking at lunch, like others in my office. When you've got heroin you don't need alcohol. The only difference is you can't get it 24 hours in Tesco. I know one lawyer who's been on smack for 18 years. One clerk I knew died last year, but that's because the stuff that came through was great after he'd been having stuff for weeks that was 15 per cent, you understand? He was a good worker, good with papers like me.

After work yesterday I went somewhere to get some, because I was thinking ahead to the weekend. But I didn't get any. I was just sat waiting in a room with these guys, watching The One Show. We were just watching television for hours. One of them was a guy I knew from university who started getting angry because he said one of us ate his KitKat. The dealer said he'd sort us by seven, then two hours... We were just waiting and waiting. I had a report with me and I read some of that.

Kevin, 48, grave digger, Hertfordshire
Drugs: cannabis, ecstasy, LSD
Spends: £20-30 a week

Grave digging is one of those jobs where it's easy to smoke on the job, and common. It's a bit ironic because, when I got into drugs, a late-starter [at 21], I spent my first night coming down from sulphate in a graveyard. I found blue bombers [sulphate] exhilarating and sociable. I'm introverted, but the sulphate made me extroverted, confident. I was snorting it at art college, for art's sake and for the enjoyment of music and company and friends, and the high philosophy of it and the liberation. Sometimes I was up for nights on end and had psychotic comedowns. Two weeks solid was the most I ever did. I'll take a bit now, but only at parties which I really don't want to leave.

Acid's a touchy subject. My first time was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. Everything was so clear, so bright and so real. Although I've had LSD since - seven in a week at music festivals - and it's never been quite the same for me, I decided that first experience was how the world is, for real, and I've always kept the memory with me. I tell myself, 'When the world's not looking and feeling like that, it's me not seeing it.'

I was cost-conscious about ecstasy in its early days - you could get eight tabs of acid for the price of an E where I was, but I ended up on the rave scene in the late Eighties and taking E regularly, dancing all night. The reason I don't take it much now is because at my age it would be crippling to dance around in cycling shorts and a hat with dog's ears going absolutely berserk too much.

I think it was all the drinking that caused me to get a really chronic nosebleed two months ago. I was taken off in an ambulance. A week in hospital. They told me to cut out everything - the drinking, the blow, the puff, everything. And I've gloried in it all my life. After a month, I thought because it makes me sleep so well - I like 10 hours - that I'll have spliffs, but with toy tobacco. And I thought that I'll drink but I won't cane it, then a couple of lines of cocaine, up the best nostril. The funny thing is that they've been talking at work about drug testing everyone. The last time they said that, it never happened. But it's looming, looming.

So before the weekend I was feeling healthier, from not caning it, yet thinking the world was turning against me. But on Saturday I went up a friend's house and we were going to have a little drink in the garden and someone else came round and he had some MDMA and I ended up going next door and sleeping with my friend's neighbour. I haven't even taken a girl out in nine years and so it was quite an outrageous thing for me to do, a total transformation of confidence.

Carl, 37, shop owner, Bristol
Drugs: GHB, viagra, ecstasy, amyl nitrate, etc
Spends: less than £50 a week

The Virgin Atlantic ad on TV - it's very spacey and John Hannah's in it - is like a commercial for the hallucinogenic side of ketamine, to me. There's drug imagery everywhere. You flick through the channels on TV and see lots of people who are obviously on drugs - middle-aged presenters, politicians, the lot - who sniff when the camera's not on them. I've been told as a fact that drugs are allowed and encouraged on one of the reality shows. It's edited out.

I'm a gay man. And I have friends who think anti-drug is anti-gay, full stop. I feel it's certainly no business of anybody else who someone sleeps with or what they put in to their body. Obviously I like to think they're going to be sensible - hah - about it, avoid people spiking their drinks and going bareback [not using a condom], and looking after themselves and not necking anything and everything. I want to remember what I've done. And obviously if a business depends on you functioning day in, day out - and you need to earn to be able to party, anyway - you're going to want to stay healthy. Of course, sex keeps you fit and sex drugs contribute. But I've got a form of cystitis and I've had sex once in the last week. If you were hoping for a story of cocktailing drugs night after night and six-hour sex sessions, I can't oblige right now.

One thing I've usually done is give myself Monday off work. If I'm out on Friday, working Saturday, and then out again, this is the age when it starts to become a bit torturous. I haven't had meth [crystal meth] for weeks, and when I do it's only at weekends. I wouldn't do Special K [ketamine] from Monday to Friday either and I'm usually only having Dorothys [small amounts]. I find some people in a k-hole insufferable. I love the way sounds and lights become indistinguishable, blended, warped. But I don't go right to the edge with it. I had cocaine, Viagra and poppers at the weekend. I had GHB, I think, the weekend before. I still like Adam [ecstasy] sometimes, although it's getting less popular here.

I'm more detached during the week. I'm not saying I won't go to special events and any opening if they're during the week, but I'm usually not seeing people and being offered drugs during the week. My boyfriend is connected with a university, is away there, and anything he brings is at the weekend.

I've been gardening and decorating for several weeks and every time I've taken something I've had the house in the back of my mind. I was given some amphetamines that I thought I could use, but I haven't. No hash. There's a satisfaction in grafting from 10am to 6 and then eight in the evening to 11 or 12, and the exhaustion. So Saturday night - if we've not clubbed on Friday - is the time I need something to take me out of that, to have the energy, the sex and the obliteration.

On Sunday and Monday I'm really only interested in cookery - I'm fabulous.

Mars, 22, unemployed, London
Drugs: crack cocaine
Spends: £100 a day

I don't sell bones - that's crack - or skunk or coke or speed. What I do is sell cooking herbs [passed off as drugs] to get money to go and buy bones for myself. I feel no guilt, none. If I don't rip them off someone else will.

I've been in Camden this week. The CCTV helps me rip people off. I say, 'Don't open it [the wrap], move... the camera is turning, go...' Or, 'Take my number,' because I can take them into a shop, get a pen and write numbers and then they're not looking in the wrap.

I'll also do Tesco Express, sit like a beggar man, but I can't do the 12 pence, eight pence all day, or the 'How do I know you won't spend this on drugs?' Everyone thinks you're on crack. But my girlfriend - she does girl scams, like 'You can look at my arms, I'm clean. I need £20 for a room tonight.' I try that, but she's got the looks. Not looks for lapping - lap dancing - but men help her.

The best time was when we got some money - she stole someone's coat - and we got tickets for a train to the coast and we were superstars, that's how we were feeling.

I've smoked in all places this week. In the phone box, when I was rattling [desperate]. We have 20 places a mile from here. You can do McDonald's' toilets. And there's apartments. There's a roof near here and I get buzzed in. We both keep a glass flower tube there, hidden - she sawed it in half, one for her, one for me. Valentine's Day!

On Wednesday I visited my mother and she gave me £30. I said I'd go clean, but I went to a den near there. Now she's not answering again. She doesn't get it. It's the best feel ever, a rock [of crack]. I'm hot, I'm clever, I'm gliding. People can buy a car, go in that restaurant any time they want, but we can't buy crack without hassle. If you won the Lottery you could get crack five, six times every day and no one would be sorry. No one's bag would get lifted. I wouldn't have my cousin saying I shat up the wedding. I'd be kinder, no depression, if I had crack and the housing association hadn't screwed my girlfriend over.

I feel shit. I want £40.

Mark, party organiser, London
Drugs: 'everything short of injecting'
Spends: £50 a week on opium, £30 a week on cannabis

As a party organiser, I recognise that people like to go out at night and have a good time and that they often take drugs to help them have a good time - and there's nothing more or less to it than that. And obviously I want to enjoy myself, but I can't get out of control while I'm organising a party for a perfume company or a caviar restaurant. When I'm DJing it works better, I play better when I've had ecstasy or I'm drunk and stoned, but I don't go so far that I can't physically operate the controls. It's when I have little parties to celebrate the success of big parties that I tend to let loose, perhaps taking three or four people away to Paris (women, preferably) and having a splendid old time.

I've recently become attracted to opium. I find it wonderful, fantastic, lovely, yet one feels instantly that it's incredibly addictive for some people - the sirens ring, it's so seductive. If it was possible to get in London I'd smoke more. Last week I got a text saying some would be available at the weekend, but sadly it wasn't.

I really don't want to give the impression that drugs are a huge part of my life, as I've never been on anything for more than a few days in a row. But since I was 18, I've tried pretty much everything, short of injecting.

The only thing I've had so far today is weed. Not skunk, which my friend [dealer] doesn't sell, and I think is debilitating. I'm talking about good old-fashioned weed. I particularly like a joint - a small one - first thing in the morning with a strong coffee. A shower, when you're a little stoned, can be the most wonderful thing in the world. And then, walking outside, everything is more lovely and beautiful and it can almost brand a smile on to my face for the rest of the day. Smoking good weed and drinking double espressos, that's a really lovely thing for me; they work together wonderfully, whether I'm sitting watching pretty girls outside a cafe or working on projects into the night, when they give me the energy to work but without the jitters that would then stop me sleeping. They cancel out the bad points of each other and accentuate the good points, calming me down enough so I can concentrate on work and yet setting off the mind so it's free, fancy, flighty.

But the thing I'm really looking forward to is mushroom picking. Mushrooms are my favourite drug because they bring the rush, the open and clear mind, the laughter and the energy. And they're chemical-free. Whereas acid takes the world out and puts it in a tumble dryer, mushrooms are more like a natural progression - taking the world and stretching it.

· Some of the interviewees' names have been changed

UK adult drug taking in 2007

3.7 million adults used illicit drugs last year - 1.8m aged under 24 years old

2.8 million used cannabis - 1.5m under 24

1.2 million took a class A drug last year - 560,000 under 24

900,000 used cocaine powder - 425,000 under 24

625,000 used ecstasy - 310,000 under 24

500,000 used amyl nitrate (poppers)

476,000 used amphetamines

154,000 used tranquillisers

87,000 used LSD

69,000 used glues

65,000 used crack cocaine

46,000 used heroin

41,000 used methadone

· Sources: British Crime Survey (Home Office), Scottish Crime and Victimisation Survey (The Scottish Government), Northern Ireland Drug Prevalence Survey (National Advisory Committee on Drugs)

    Last year, nearly four million Britons used illicit drugs, O, 20.7.2008, http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/wellbeing/story/0,,2291046,00.html

Witness to murder:

I saw knife victim dying

'His efforts had a desperate knowledge about them,
a hopeless instinct in the face of an implacable fact.'
By Archie Bland

Sunday, 20 July 2008
The Independent on Sunday


Seeing things with your own eyes does not necessarily make them any clearer. Like everyone else, I have followed the spate of recent stories about knife crime – at first with sorrow, and later with grim resignation at how inevitable it is that another one will happen, and with another set of heartbreaking personal details driving home how terrible it is.

But I've also looked at the statistics, and the Home Office figures released on Thursday suggest that the crisis of violence among young people, in particular in London, is a classic media boondoggle. This is where canny tabloid editors latch on to an aspect of the facts that makes for apocalyptic reading, and ratchet these up and repeat them until a set of private tragedies begin to seem as if they belong to us all – and are given a meaning and a weight that they cannot really bear.

I know all this. But on Friday night, as I left a friend's party wondering whether to get a bus or a taxi, I noticed a foul spattered arc of blood on the pavement, and a huddle of anxious people further up the road. There were brittle voices reassuring themselves that things were going to be all right, and asking where the ambulance was, and telling each other to keep pressure on the wound, and desperately imploring someone to stay still. A long minute or two later, there was the outraged shriek of a siren.

A man had been stabbed in the neck, and none of the sensible things I knew and still know about violent crime seemed to have anything to do with it at all.

There was blood everywhere, from thin drips on the curb to a rich, dark agglomeration at his neck. Tissues and T-shirts were so sodden they were no longer any use to staunch the flow. His top had ridden up so you could see his belly rise and fall in gulps that took longer, and longer, and longer.

He made terrible, primal noises, trying to pull himself out of this horror with feeble jerks of his arms and legs. It was impossible to look away. People said he was doing really well, he was doing brilliantly, he was going to be fine, they would be here in a minute, just hold on, just please stay still. But he kept moving. It looked as if he was trying to get up. Even after the paramedics arrived, and got him on to a gurney, and gave him oxygen, he didn't stop.

"You've got to hold still, mate, or I can't keep the pressure on it," one of the paramedics said, but it was no use. He kept moving. There was nothing to be done. His efforts had a desperate knowledge about them, a hopeless instinct in the face of an implacable, permanent fact. He died about an hour later, the BBC reported the next morning. He was 27. Three people have been arrested in connection with his murder.

I wandered around for a while and then bumped into a friend leaving the same party. A few minutes later, we passed the memorial to Ben Kinsella, murdered nearby last month.

There is very little else to say. Within the parameters that have been established for this particular crisis, it hardly even counts: no one involved was a teenager. It is just an awful, incomprehensible waste. But even a string of such obscenities can't break the real Britain, which is simply too mundane to digest it.

The things I knew about crime before I will probably find I know again tomorrow. I will still go to the pub and the park and the cinema; I will still go to work on Monday morning and ask people how their weekend was and laugh at jokes and fret about things that don't matter. So will everyone else.

What more is there? The only thing I can think of is this: to turn the man who died on Friday into an abstract argument for why we're all going to hell in a handcart would be an outrageous elision of the fact that he was a real person. I know this like I know everything else I know about crime, and yet here I am, still trying to draw more meaning out of it. The truth is, I don't think there is any – except for the people who loved this nameless 27-year-old, and whose lives will never be the same again.

Is Britain becoming a more dangerous place to live? it all depends on how you look at it...

The latest annual crime statistics from the Home Office were released last week, containing police and British Crime Survey (BCS) figures. Predictably, these conflict with each other, and with most other crime statistics published.

Is crime increasing, or not? According to the Government, overall crime is down by 9 per cent, with almost five million crimes recorded by the police in 2007-08. The BCS, which asked 47,000 people about their experiences of crime, recorded a decline of 10 per cent. Yet it reported 10 million crimes – double the police figure. And BCS figures indicated almost 130,000 attacks involving knives last year, while the police recorded 22,000. The gap reflects the fact that many people do not report crimes, as they may distrust police.
 

So, what are the figures not telling us? The BCS doesn't cover youth crime, as under-16s are not included. Neither are crimes against shop workers, businesses, the homeless or those in institutions. And if someone has been mugged several times, it will count as one crime.
 

What can the figures tell us about knife crime? More than half of young victims of knife crime don't report it to the police, and 45 per cent even manage to keep it from parents. Although maintaining that "recorded crime statistics show knife crime is broadly stable", a Home Office spokesman said: "We've always recognised that figures don't tell the whole story."

Should we trust the Government's numbers? No, says the Statistics Commission. In 2006, it criticised police figures for being "an imperfect measure of crime".

    Witness to murder: I saw knife victim dying, IoS, 20.7.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/witness-to-murder-i-saw-knife-victim-dying-872396.html

Knifed on my street:

The ugly divide

that ravages our capital city

We lived side by side, but in parallel universes

Saturday, 19 July 2008
The Independent
By Deborah Orr


The living room was flooded with the white blaze of arc lights, illuminating men in silver suits as they dusted down the car of the shadow minister for Justice. They were looking for forensic evidence. So it was very difficult to believe the good news on crime figures emanating at that very moment from the television. The bit about the irrational rise in fear of crime, against the British Crime Survey's backdrop of civil calm, sat particularly badly. Just a few hours earlier, 18-year-old Frederick Moody had been stabbed to death outside his home down the road, by one of a group of children who had, witnesses say, been gathered in the area for some while. The bereaved family of the dead young man have, it transpires, lived on my street for some years. Until Thursday night, though, I didn't know that any of them existed. I doubt if Edward Garnier, the Conservative MP, whose Peugeot across the street now glimmers with iridescent fingerprint dust, knew them either.

You'd imagine, I think it is safe to assume, that living so close to such a dreadful crime, would make you feel that you were not safe and that you and your loved ones could quite easily become victims too. The weird thing is that the event has brought home the opposite message. I live among this mayhem, it happens around me, I write about it for the papers – and have done for many years now – yet I still feel this is a horror that affects other, less lucky people. In many parts of London – including this street – the wealthy and the struggling live side by side7, but in parallel universes.

When I heard the news of Frederick Moody's death I was at – of all places – the O2 Arena, watching a Leonard Cohen concert. Told on the phone that there had been a killing outside my house, I began to shake. My children, six and 10, were with a babysitter, while this horror erupted around them – and I had to get back home.

Naively, I was simply amazed to reach the end of my street to be told that I could not go any further. "But I have tiny children. I have to be with them," I told the officer, who would not give his name, and invited me instead to take down his number from his epaulette. "We've got an old disabled man out here," he replied, with what seemed almost like pride, "and we're not letting him home either".

My next-door neighbours were outside the cordon too. Their 13-year-old was alone in their house, and they were equally distressed about their inability to reach him. The children were not allowed to come out to us either. Everyone had been told to stay inside and the directive was being followed to the letter, by what seemed like hundreds of officers. A nursing mother, even, was not allowed back home to feed her baby.

The police would not tell us anything. When I asked after the victim, they even replied that they had not said that there was one. It was not until much later, thinking back, that I realised it had not occurred to me that the victim could possibly be anyone I know, even though I'm acquainted with perhaps a dozen teen-agers who live on this street.

Almost all my friends, in this multi-ethnic, area, are white. My assumption – which was correct – was that the victim was very likely to be a black boy. London is often described as a multi-cultural city, and most Londoners relish the mix. But what a crime like this brings home is that house by house, flat by flat, it is ghettoised.

My one black-British friend on this street is church-going single mother whose 13-year-old is a dream of a lovely boy. But he lives on the other side of the assumptions that I make so blithely and so casually. The consequences, in his own life, are sometimes not happy. Only the other day, he was waiting in the car while his mum popped into a shop. She returned to find the car surrounded by six armed officers. She and her son were separately questioned for 45 minutes. Top exchange was: "What do you do for a living, son?" "Nothing. I'm 13." This is stop and search in action. It is not the sensible policing it is made out to be. It is highly divisive, in a community that is remarkably divided already.

My friend and her son live in the same street as I do, but in a different world, a world that is far less benign than mine and that, therefore, follows some counter-intuitive logic. While I opted to send my sons to local schools, my friend has gone to great lengths to secure far-off schools for her boy, where he is less likely to get sucked into the street life of south London. I let my 10-year-old travel alone on buses. When her son was 10, and even older, that was simply not allowed. My friend is alive to threats all around her, and is fiercely protective of her son. I can afford to be much more relaxed. Crucially, and heartbreakingly, my friend's son is statistically far more likely to become a victim of crime, yet also far more likely to be suspected as its potential perpetrator. His experience does not encourage him to view the police as people who can protect him.

If our society is broken, that is one of the important fissures. Poor Frederick Moody lived on the other side of our street and, despite all the love and protection of his family, on the other side of that ugly divide.

    Knifed on my street: The ugly divide that ravages our capital city, I, 19.7.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/knifed-on-my-street-the-ugly-divide-that-ravages-our-capital-city-871801.html

'Leave him for dead,'

killers shouted as they fled stabbing

Saturday, 19 July 2008
The Independent
By Mark Hughes


The killers of Frederick Moody, Thursday's victim of knife crime in London, fled the scene shouting "leaving him for dead", witnesses said. The teenager was stabbed in the stomach just yards from his home in south London.

Friends of the 18-year-old Ghanaian student suggested last night that he was attacked over a minor insult during a water fight. A gang of up to eight hooded youths is believed to have lain in wait for him outside his house.

Yesterday the head of Scotland Yard's anti-knife crime operation said he believes the increase in teenage stabbings has led to a vicious circle whereby youngsters are carrying knives because they are scared they will be the next to be attacked.

Commander Rod Jarman, the Metropolitan Police's lead officer in Operation Blunt 2, the force's anti-knife crime initiative, made the comments as Mr Moody became the 21st teenager to die in an attack in London this year.

Mr Moody had spent the day at the mass water fight in Holland Park, west London, and returned home to change clothes before going out with a bag, assuring his mother Mary he would be home in minutes. Instead, neighbours rushed to tell her her son was lying in the road, suffering from stab wounds.

Paramedics tried to save him before taking him to St Thomas' Hospital, where he died. Friends said he was a hard-working business student at Kingston College. He lived in Guildford Road, close to Stockwell Tube station, with his parents Mary and Kofi, and sister Tamara, three.

One friend, who gave his name as Babs, left a water gun at the scene of the attack. He said: "The last time I saw him was at the end of this road at around six – he seemed happy. We'd been to a water fight. The next thing I knew, he had been stabbed. I received a phone call. Many of us have been crying all afternoon."

Another boy, who did not want to be named, said: "We reckon the fight started between gangs. There is violence all the time."

A 16-year-old boy was arrested at his home in Brixton yesterday morning in connection with Mr Moody's death. He remains in police custody.

In an exclusive interview following the killing, Mr Jarman said the rise in teenage stabbings was due to the number of youngsters "carrying knives in the mistaken belief it will make them safer. But it is obvious to us they are actually making the streets more dangerous".

Mr Jarman added: "Young people are driven by fear into their actions. No one has ever said to me that they are carrying a knife because they have read about knife crime in the newspapers or saw it on the television, but I would suggest it is a reasonable chain of thought."

Mr Jarman spoke on the day that figures suggested that someone in Britain becomes a victim of knife crime every four minutes. Mr Jarman said: "The number of young people being killed is on the up. In some cases it would be completely wrong to say the people being killed are violent. Many are innocent and have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"It's incredibly tragic because when a youngster loses their life, not only are the family and friends of the victim losing someone, but the killer's family will lose someone too because we will put them in prison for a long time."

Mr Jarman insisted: "We want to work with schools and other services and try and change the way young people are growing up. We have to ask: how do we make sure that the people who may be violent have everything done for them to prevent them being violent?"

The Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has called upon the public to intervene if they saw someone in trouble. She did not want to live in a country "where people aren't willing to stand up for others," she told The Daily Telegraph.

    'Leave him for dead,' killers shouted as they fled stabbing, I, 19.7.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/leave-him-for-dead-killers-shouted-as-they-fled-stabbing-871807.html

Tears and fancy dress

for another victim

Saturday, 19 July 2008
The Independent
By Mark Hughes


Friends of the murdered teenager Ben Kinsella wore fancy dress to his funeral yesterday, as his sister renewed her pleas for an end to knife crime.


Ben, 16, brother of the former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella, was celebrating the end of his GCSEs last month when he was stabbed after a fight at a bar in Islington spilt on to the street.

Hundreds of mourners, some wearing wigs and oversized brightly coloured sunglasses, attended his funeral service at St John the Evangelist Roman Catholic Church in north London.

Despite the upbeat attire, the sadness was obvious: wearing T-shirts bearing anti-knife crime slogans, mourners wept as Ben's purple coffin, bearing a K for his surname, was carried into the church in Islington by members of his family to the strains of Michael Jackson's "Ben". Before the service his sister, Brooke, 24, pleaded for others to lay down their weapons. She said: "Enough is enough. Do something now to make sure your brother, sister, son, or best friend's life doesn't end the same awful way.

"The problem is far worse than imagined. It's why we have to act so quickly. We have to inform youngsters and parents of the brutal truth and work hard, right now, to get rid of this menace."

The Mass – which was attended by Richard Taylor, whose son, Damilola, was murdered; the former EastEnders stars Michelle Ryan, Gillian Taylforth and James Alexandrou; the actress Linda Robson and the Labour MP for Islington North, Jeremy Corbyn – included a poem Ben wrote before his death. It told of his happiness and hopes for his future.

"So what comes next for me?", he had written shortly before his murder. "God knows. I don't. This is my home now and I've never felt better. I'm not scared any more. There's no weight on my shoulders, no struggle. Let's just see what a future here brings. But at the moment, this is living. Not death."

Ben was a keen Arsenal fan and talented actor who had appeared in ITV's The Bill. In the days after he died, about 400 protesters marched along Upper Street in Islington and on to the scene of the killing to demand an end to knife crime.

Laying flowers outside the church, one of Ben's close friends, Brooke Dunford, 16, said: "He was a funny, bright boy. He wouldn't have wanted everyone to wear black." A card attached to the bouquet read: "The most saddest day of my life, Ben when I lost you. I will hold you in my heart forever, I love you, you hottie."

Three teenagers have been charged with his murder. Juress Kika, 18, Michael Alleyne, 18, and Jade Braithwaite, 19, have been remanded in custody until 13 October.

    Tears and fancy dress for another victim, I, 19.7.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/tears-and-fancy-dress-for-another-victim-871806.html

21st teenager

stabbed to death in London


July 18, 2008
From The Times
Ben Quinn

An 18-year-old boy was stabbed to death in London last night, becoming the 21st teenager to die violently in the capital this year.

Frederick Moody died after being attacked in Guildford Road, Lambeth, South London.

Residents told The Times that they tried to keep the teenager alive as he lay on the ground no more than 200 yards from where he is believed to live with his family. They are believed to be from Ghana.

Sharon Smith, 23, a mother on maternity leave, said that she had cradled him in her arms while another woman held towels to a wound in his side.

“He was murmuring and his eyes were just rolling into the back of his head. We were just trying to keep him with us,” she said. The two women said they had stayed with the boy until an ambulance arrived, followed by police.

Miss Smith said that she and her boyfriend had run out of their house after hearing shouts and screams. They found Frederick lying on the pavement wearing a pair of dark jeans and a T-shirt.

A group of youths said that they had heard Frederick’s killers shout “leave him for dead” before leaving the scene. While they were waiting for the ambulance to arrive, a local doctor, Dr Balaz cycled by, stopped and gave CPR in an attempt to keep the boy alive.

Friends of the family said that Frederick was a student and had a younger sister.

“His mother is completely devastated and doesn’t know what to do with herself. How could something like this happen? He was a good boy. Now the Government really has to do something to stop this,” said a man who had visited the family home.

The attack took place close to a block of council apartments. Last night the road was cordoned off at both ends by police who brought sniffer dogs.

Large crowds of local youths had gathered at the scene, as police told local residents that they believed the killers had escaped on bicycles.

The latest London killing comes a week after four men were stabbed to death in the capital within a 16-hour period. During the past weeks knife crime has been catapulted to the fore-front of public concern.

Although the British Crime Survey reported yesterday that crime is falling, figures showed that 350 knife crimes are committed in England and Wales every day. That total does not include offences involving under 16s.

In the spate of killings last Thursday a 41-year-old man was the first to die, found dead early in the morning outside a disused pub in Tottenham, North London.

At 2.30pm a 19-year-old teenager was killed in a fight in Edmonton, North London, after suffering stab wounds to his neck and head.

Barely three hours later Adnan Patel, 20, was also stabbed to death, in Leyton, East London, also in a fight. One witness said he saw the men fighting with baseball bats, kitchen knives, and golf clubs.

Later that evening a fourth man, Yusufu Miiro, 20, was stabbed to death in front of his girlfriend, in Walthamstow, East London, by a man wearing a mask from the film, Scream.

At the beginning of July Scotland Yard said knife crime was now the force’s number one priority. Paul Stephenson, Deputy Metropolitan Police Commissioner, announced the creation of a 75-strong knife crime unit to target known gang members and their associates.

Last year the number of teenagers murdered in London was 26. A total of 17 were stabbed, eight were shot and one was beaten. The youngest was 14.

    21st teenager stabbed to death in London, Ts, 18.7.2008, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4354687.ece

Knife crime menace strikes beyond cities

Thursday, 17 July 2008
By David Barrett, PA
The Independent


The menace of knife crime is not confined to cities, official figures showed today.

A detailed picture of the true extent of violence involving blades - revealed for the first time - showed that rural police forces also have to deal with hundreds of cases.

The grim picture was revealed in annual crime figures released today which included a new set of data on knife attacks in every force in England and Wales.

Serious violent crimes involving a blade have previously been bundled with other attacks, but since April last year officers have recorded them separately in light of growing public concern.

Police recorded 22,151 offences involving knives last year in England and Wales, including grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, woundings and robbery.

The statistics include a force-by-force breakdown of knife crime, with the highest number of offences - 7,409 - recorded in London.

The second highest figure was recorded in the West Midlands with 2,303 incidents. Third was Greater Manchester with 2,294.

But many rural forces also recorded hundreds of knife crimes.

Devon and Cornwall recorded 288 offences, Northumbria recorded 351 and Thames Valley 329.

Other mainly rural forces with significant numbers of knife crimes included Sussex with 274, Hampshire with 388, Kent with 327, Bedfordshire with 316, Cheshire with 224 and North Wales with 108.

The figures come on the day Home Secretary Jacqui Smith published a new package of police reforms, including a resurrection of plans to merge police forces.

A similar scheme was ditched two years ago but today's document is expected to propose allowing voluntary mergers between neighbouring forces.

Leaked copies of the Green Paper had included guidelines for police to respond to emergency calls within three hours and to less urgent incidents such as burglaries within three days.

But these targets were deleted from the final version, leading shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve to claim the Government was "in disarray".

The Green Paper includes proposals to cut red tape after a review by Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Ronnie Flanagan published in February which showed a fifth of officers' time was still spent on paperwork.

He recommended setting a target across the criminal justice system to reduce bureaucracy.

A controversial form which officers have to complete every time they stop someone in the street should be abolished, he said, and replaced with a simple receipt.

Changes he proposed could save up to seven million hours of police time a year - freeing up the equivalent of up to 3,500 officers, he added.

Vice chairman of the Police Federation, Simon Reed, said the Green Paper should give discretion back to bobbies on the beat by cutting pointless targets and slashing bureaucracy.

"We have been here so many times before, but we really must get to grips with the number of forms constables have to fill in," he said.

"Even the simplest prosecution can require 30 different pieces of paper."

Tory Mr Grieve said: "We have heard this all before.

"Labour are very good at talking about cutting red-tape and then simply not delivering.

"Despite constant rhetoric about reducing bureaucracy the fact is our police have never been so burdened by Labour diktats and Whitehall targets."

Despite the knife crime figures, overall crimes were down, the Home Office said.

It said the fall - the equivalent to a million fewer crimes - meant the risk of being a victim of crime had fallen from 24 to 22 per cent, the lowest level ever recorded since the British Crime Survey began in 1981.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith said: "Three years ago we set ourselves the tough challenge to reduce all crime by 15 per cent.

"I am extremely pleased that today's figures show that we have exceeded this with an overall crime reduction of 18 per cent. Everybody involved - the police, local authorities, healthcare practitioners and voluntary services - has worked hard to achieve this.

"The Government's priority is to build on what we have achieved so that everyone feels improvement.

"We are firmly committed to deliver further reductions in the crimes that most concern people, particularly violence involving knives and guns.

"Whilst the BCS shows violence falling by 40 per cent since 1997, with a 12 per cent fall in the last year alone, we also know that knives are still being used in the most serious violent incidents.

"The Youth Crime Action Plan published this week is just one part of a comprehensive package of tough enforcement and intensive prevention measures we have put in place to tackle violent crime wherever it occurs."


The British Crime Survey revealed that nearly 130,000 violent offences involved a knife last year.

The figure - far higher than the total recorded by police in relation to serious offences - was 6 per cent of the 2.2 million violent crimes estimated by the survey.

Recorded crime figures showed the number of firearms offences increased 2 per cent in the year to 9,803.

Recorded drug offences rose 18 per cent, mainly due to an increase in the number of people dealt with for cannabis possession.

There was a 3 per cent rise in the number of homicides, up from 759 in 2006/07 to 784 last year.

The new recorded knife crime figures - which have been collected only since April last year - showed offences involving knives included 231 attempted murders, 11,528 personal robberies, 2,359 business robberies and more than 8,000 woundings.

Home Office chief scientific adviser Professor Paul Wiles said the overall figures represented the longest recorded period of falling crime in living memory.

But he admitted that the level of falling violent crime in particular was at odds with the public's perception of their chances of being attacked.

Prof Wiles said: "It is possible to have an overall decline in violence nationally while sometimes, and at the same time, having outbreaks of violent crimes in particular places, in particular concentrations and having increases in those places."

Prof Wiles said Government statisticians first became concerned about levels of knife crime 18 months ago.

He said: "For the first time this year we have data about the use of knives and sharp instruments for more serious violence.

"They show 22,151 serious violent crimes involved a knife or sharp instrument. Those cases make up one fifth of serious violent crime."

Prof Wiles said the economic downturn might well result in increasing rates of property crimes, including burglary and theft.

He said: "Depending on the extent of the downturn, that will put upward pressure on property crime and it is a matter of at which point it triggers that upward pressure."

Prof Wiles added that the low cost of electrical goods has helped reduce rates of theft.

But he said the production of small, desirable expensive items such as mobile phones and MP3 players can increase crime.

He said: "There is a more interesting phenomenon. If you look at things historically, people have stolen certain types of things.

"They do not steal washing machines. Can you imagine dragging one down the street? They do not steal Hoovers, they steal small desirables.

"Therefore the opportunist theft rate can be very much influenced by how much the market is producing small desirable things.

"We saw that with mobile phones. They are small and desirable. We saw an increase in street robbery."

    Knife crime menace strikes beyond cities, I, 17.7.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/knife-crime-menace-strikes-beyond-cities-869974.html

9.45am BST

Crime figures down

despite alarm over knife attacks

Thursday July 17, 2008
Guardian.co.uk
Matthew Weaver and agencies
 

Despite national alarm over knife crime, the overall number of crimes is decreasing, official figures showed today.

The home office said the fall - equivalent to a million fewer crimes - meant the risk of being a victim of crime had fallen from 24% to 22%, the lowest level recorded since the British Crime Survey began in 1981.

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, said: "Three years ago we set ourselves the tough challenge to reduce all crime by 15%.

"I am extremely pleased that today's figures show that we have exceeded this with an overall crime reduction of 18."

However, the figures also showed that knife crime is not confined to big cities as previously thought.

A detailed picture of the true extent of violence involving blades showed that rural police forces also had to deal with hundreds of cases.

Serious violent crimes involving a blade had previously been bundled with other attacks, but since April last year officers have recorded them separately in light of growing public concern.

Police recorded 22,151 offences involving knives last year in England and Wales, including grievous bodily harm, attempted murder, woundings and robbery.

The statistics include a force-by-force breakdown, with the highest number of knife crime offences - 7,409 - recorded in London.

The second highest figure was recorded in the West Midlands with 2,303 incidents. Third was Greater Manchester with 2,294.

But many rural forces also recorded hundreds of knife crimes.

Devon and Cornwall recorded 288 offences, while Northumbria recorded 351.

    Crime figures down despite alarm over knife attacks, 17.7.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/17/ukcrime.knifecrime

We are all stabbing

blindly at knife crime

July 15, 2008
From The Times
David Aaronovitch

Instant experts rush to offer solutions to the latest moral panic. The truth is no one really knows what is happening
 

I awoke to an absurd discussion on the radio yesterday morning. Some chap from a northwestern accident and emergency ward was reacting to what he and many others believed were government plans to ferry young knife carriers around casualty departments as he and his colleagues attempted to patch up the victims of stabbings.

The doctor's rather obvious objection that neither the suturing medics nor the suffering patients would appreciate such a distraction, wasn't diminished by the fact that no one in government was actually suggesting any such thing.

No, ministers' ambitions were limited to having visits to the wards. Even so, the doctor summoned up an unexpected expertise to say that even such less dramatic mechanisms for confronting young people with the consequences of crime had been shown (in the US, of course) not to work.

I have no idea how he knew this, but when it comes to the prevailing moral panic, we are all experts now. Top experts, naturally, are the Government, about to unveil (or unleash?) their latest youth crime action plan.

Only yards behind are the other political parties, each with their own very definite views on what ought and what ought not to be done about knife crime, and the newspapers, whose certainty concerning remedies is matched only by their total confusion as to what the problem actually is.

Is it gangs? Is it just young men and boys? Is it just knives, or guns too? Is it all attacks with bladed instruments? Is the incidence rising or falling? Is it younger victims and perpetrators that are the problem here?

If so, what are the figures, once we subtract older people, purely domestic violence and unusual (if horrific) killings, such as that of the two French students in South London? I want to remind readers of the total pointlessness of including, for instance, the murder of a husband by his wife's brother in a statistic that is then used to indicate the problem of casual street crime.

And if people think that they know what is going on, perhaps they could explain to me why knife crime was almost static in London between the second half of 2007 and the first half of 2008, had increased by nearly 20 per cent in Northumbria, but had halved in Derbyshire.

Had there been a sudden outbreak of divorceless marriage in Derby round about 1992? Or a fashionable run on shivs in Newcastle this January? And what differences in parenting, imprisonment, policing, schooling or social conditions help us to understand why knife crime levels in Scotland are 3.5 times higher than in England or Wales?

I am not saying that nothing is happening. I am saying that in most discussion of this subject - and particularly in those involving politicians and the media - there is darkness rather than light.

That this is a fully-fledged moral panic is evident when the father of the recently murdered Jimmy Mizen speaks about couples who have told him that they were thinking of not having children at all because they fear their children being murdered.

This - statistically, at any rate - is half as sensible as staying childless because of a fear of filial suicide. As far as we can tell, violent crime, which had climbed for three decades, has now fallen by something like 40 per cent since 1995, and the proportion of that involving knives has not changed much. True, one problem with these statistics is that they don't include the under-16s. They will soon, and that at least we can all agree about.

So, for this problem that - in so far as we can quantify it - isn't much worse than it was, and is carried out for reasons we don't fully understand, we now have a plethora of instant solutions. Much of this involves prison, not just for knife wielders, but for that very different category, knife carriers.

With Gordon Brown knife carriers get jail or “community payback”, with David Cameron they can “expect” a spell in the slammer. Meanwhile, for the Liberal Democrats, Chris Huhne derides the Government for being in past denial about knife crime, but may care to explain why, in their January 2007 document Together We Can Cut Crime the un-denying Lib Dems failed to mention the word “knife” or “knives” on a single occasion.

Are knives so epiphenomenal, that they have taken just 18 months to become a big social problem? “Prison is the only place for knife carriers,” opines The Daily Telegraph, adding - without an iota of supporting evidence - that “the ‘shock' of a spell in prison, even of short duration, will be far more potent deterrent than one of Miss Smith's hospital visits”.

That depends, doesn't it, on why you are carrying the knife in the first place, something that we still don't know. No, I'm sorry, of course we do. It's the Daily Mail's “breakdown of the family and education system”. Or, as David Cameron put it, too many young people “do not recognise a sense of right or wrong”.

And the evidence for this contention is what, precisely? Of all the things that I imagine I observe about young people today, a failure to discuss moral or ethical values is the least characteristic.

We have been here before. Guns last year, flick knives in 1958, razor gangs in 1938, skinhead aggro in 1970 (when steel-capped boots were the weapon), mods and rockers in 1964, young men and boys stabbed or shot or stomped by other young men outside pubs, clubs, dancehalls and stadiums.

In many cases it was just luck that separated the victim from the perpetrator. That point was poignantly made by Alice Miles in these pages recently.

I can't help wondering whether what may be behind any recent real rise in knife crimes, is precisely the recent unreal moral panic over knives. Everyone hears that everyone else is carrying, so they carry too; and if you buy a ticket for the fatal lottery sometimes you win.

It is striking, of course, that almost all those involved in casual knife fatalities are young males. In The Times yesterday there was a story about young girls self-harming, suggesting an unpleasant symmetry - the brothers stab others, the sisters stab themselves. But we start, don't we, with offended masculinity, fear and peer pressure, and work from there?

We might look at actually giving the recent £3 million anti-knife advertising campaign some time to work, at developing non-prison forms of deterrence, at televising court procedures in cases of violence, at simultaneously diminishing the amount of violence-as-entertainment on television and in cinemas, at outlawing violence against children, at reinstituting civility in the public sphere, starting with ourselves. Anything but the present pathetic apology for a national discussion.

    We are all stabbing blindly at knife crime, Ts, 15.7.2008, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/david_aaronovitch/article4333210.ece

Action pledged on knife crime

after five killed in a day

July 12, 2008
From The Times
Adam Fresco,
Crime Correspondent,
and Philip Webster

New measures to tackle youth and knife crime will be announced next week after five people were stabbed to death within a day.

Four men were killed in London within 16 hours of each other and another died in West Bromwich. A sixth man is fighting for his life.

Downing Street suddenly released a statement from the Prime Minister promising action after he had spoken to Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, about yet another bloody day in the capital.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is expected to confirm plans for new parenting programmes in areas with the most problems, fresh powers for the police to control gangs and shock warnings to youngsters about the dangers of knives.

A senior officer is likely to be put in charge of fighting knife crime. There will also be measures to take children home if they are on the streets at night and early intervention where they are at risk of drifting into crime. Ministers will not match Conservative proposals for all youngsters caught carrying knives to face imprisonment, which they say are impractical and would swiftly fill prisons.

One of those killed in London was aged 19, the 20th teenager to die violently in the capital this year. Another was attacked in front of his girlfriend by a hooded man in a Scream-style mask.

Elsewhere, a 20-year-old man was stabbed to death on Thursday night in West Bromwich. Last night in Bolton, Greater Manchester, a 19-year-old man was in a serious condition after being stabbed outside a video store. In Sheffield a young man was shot dead in a suspected gang-related attack.

The Metropolitan Police said last week that combating the growing number of stabbings was now their number one priority. Sir Ian said that his force was doing everything to solve the latest cases. Nine people, including three women, have been arrested over the five attacks in London.

The first victim, Gennar Jaronis, 41, from Latvia, was found dead early on Thursday morning at the rear of a disused pub in Tottenham, North London, that has been used as a squat.

The second man was killed at about 2.30pm after a fight in Edmonton, North London. Witnesses said that police tried to revive the 19-year-old found with stab wounds to his neck and head outside a suspected drug den. Three hours later Adnan Patel, 20, was stabbed to death in Leyton, East London, during a fight with a group of men. A witness said: “I looked out of my window and saw six Indian adult men fighting. They were armed with a golf club, an aluminium baseball bat, a wooden club and eventually I found out a kitchen knife.”

Yosufu Morrow, 20, was stabbed to death at 8.30pm in Walthamstow by a masked knifeman. He was visiting his girlfriend in a block of flats and was attacked in the stairwell. It is believed that the murderer was waiting for him. Detectives want to speak to a man in his late teens or early twenties seen running from the scene. He was wearing a hooded top and a white full-face mask from the movie Scream.

A fifth Londoner was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries after being found early yesterday in Willesden.

    Action pledged on knife crime after five killed in a day, Ts, 12.7.2008, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4318934.ece

'I was drunk.

The blade went straight into his eyeball'

In another terrible week for murders,
the Guardian's former prison columnist
was given rare access to young offenders
who have used knives

Saturday July 12, 2008
The Guardian
Erwin James

Forensic experts scour the scene after a stabbing in north London at New Year. Henry Bolombi became the first teenager to die in such an incident this year. Photograph: Andrew Parsons/PA

In another venue, the group of young men sitting around the table chatting amiably would look like any group of ordinary teenagers who might meet up in a college or a club. The difference is that this table is in B wing of Parc young offenders institution, near Bridgend in Wales, and the young men are serving sentences ranging from two years to life.

We are talking about knife crime, of which most of them have first hand experience. They are aware of the concerns people outside have about the levels of violence among young people, but say that is just how it is.

"You've got to have protection," says Justin, who recounts an attack on one of his friends in a burger bar when another boy took some of his friend's fries. "He was stabbed in the stomach," he says. "He almost died, and nobody was arrested." Justin was 14 when he was arrested for attempted murder.

The biggest surprise is that violence, and offences involving knives in particular, are so widely accepted as part of life among these young people. Carrying a knife, and being prepared to use it, appears to have become routine for a significant number of teenagers.

I asked if anybody had any ideas of how to stop it. "Brooke Kinsella's right," says Daniel, 19, who is serving three years for burglary. The others start to nod. "They should make us go in the army, do some army training."

Kinsella, the former EastEnders actor whose brother, Ben, was stabbed to death, made an impassioned plea: "I want politicians to consider bringing back national service. If these evil people want to fight so badly, let them fight for their country."

I asked the group if any of them considered themselves to be evil. "We're not evil," says, Kevin, 19, who is serving four years for wounding. "I never really wanted to hurt anybody when I was fighting. But it's different now.

"When my dad was a lad and he had disputes, there was rules. He went over the fields and they fought with their fists. Now people are more frightened and they carry weapons in case it gets out of hand. The rules have changed."

Luke, 20, from Bristol
Serving four years for wounding

I'd never been in trouble before.This thing happened in a moment of madness.

I worked in the building trade. I took home two grand a month. Don't smoke. I never touched a drug in my life. I like a few beers, but I never went over the top.

When this happened I was working away in London for the whole week. I came back and was going to go out with my girlfriend, but she was going out herself. I thought stuff it, I'll go out myself. I got into town and met some of the boys. They had been out for a while so I was playing catch up, drinking loads, a bit faster than them. And then we went clubbing, we were having a wicked night. No drama, until I went to the kebab shop after.

There was a group of lads there and straight away you could tell something was going to kick off. It went quiet as me and my mate walked in. I knew it was going to start.

One of them was giving me the awkward eye, looking at me; I could see him out of the corner of my eye. I looked over to him and said, 'Aright?' And he got real funny with me, so I was like, oh, fuck this.

I just said fuck off then, whatever, and I looked at his mate and he pushed me in the back. And then like, I said 'What's you're problem?' I got frightened then, I realised there was loads of them, so I was like, 'I don't want to fight. There's loads of you, just leave it, leave it.' And 'cos there was loads of them I put my hand in my pocket and on my keys I had a little blade to cut cardboard boxes at work.

I was drunk, but I put it in my hand, clutched it in my fist.

If you ask me truthfully, I just don't know what I was thinking, I really don't. I had it clutched in my hand, ready to go. I was urging them to stop.

I could see a guy standing to the left of me with his fist clenched. So I thought, I'll watch him, I'll watch him. Then he hit me, and I just whacked straight back at him and the blade went straight in his eyeball and blinded him. And that's the biggest mistake of my life.

I don't know what else to say really, I'm so sorry for what I did to him. If I was sober I wouldn't have done that, no way would I have done that. I found out at court that he went back to his friend's house and stayed there all night before he went to hospital the next day.

I remember glimpses of him, and, he was just stood there like, bleeding down his face.

Then my mate dragged me away and we jumped in our car and left. When I heard how serious it was I turned myself in.

Since I've been in here I've had my eyes opened. I've driven my car outside before after drinking, but there are guys in here doing six years for drunk driving and running someone over.

When I get out I will never do anything wrong ever.

I've worked hard to make sure things are going to be alright when I get out. I've had a lot of help in here.

I've run marathons on the running machine in the gym for charity. There is a 22 week army course in here which I have done and the army careers man said they would take me if I keep going the way I have. My dream when I get out is to be in the army and one day be a sergeant.

Martin, 19
Serving three and a half years for wounding

I'm in for a stabbing. I stole my first car when I was 12. I hung around with people a lot older than me then. I think I was used a bit, but I thought about myself as one of the boys. I moved out of my mother's 'cos I didn't get on with my step-father, and I moved in with my father. And that's when I started getting into trouble.

I've got a younger brother and sister but they haven't been in trouble, just me. I got arrested after stealing my first car, but it didn't put me off. I loved the buzz of getting chased. Sometimes I got caught, sometimes I got away. I stole fast cars, sometimes just a couple of years old. It was a real buzz. It was just my life, that's how it was. I got arrested loads of times, they gave me cautions at first, but after I had to go to court. This is my ninth time, but my first time for serious violence.

What happened was, one night I was out drinking with all my mates, and having a good time and that, and then one of the boys offered us back to his house for a party. We went there and it was all right, there was music and some girls and this guy was there with a couple of his mates. We was just having a good time.

I left and went to get some more money to get some more drink and when I got back to the party I couldn't see my mates. I had another drink and then one of the girls said her phone had gone missing. The guy was still there, standing outside the front of the house with his two mates, so I went out and asked them if they had taken it.

He denied it. He said: "Are you calling me a thieving bastard?" I lost it then and started fighting with him and then his two mates joined in and I knew I was getting jumped. I managed to pull myself away and ran back in the house to see if I could find my two mates, but they still weren't there. As I walked back through the kitchen, I thought the only way to protect myself was to pick something up to hit them, I though it would just scare them off.

As I went outside I pulled the knife out and he just come running towards me. As he swung for me I stabbed him in his shoulder. I was so off it I went back into the house to the party. I was arrested about 10 minutes later.

When he phoned the ambulance the police came as well. The knife went through his arm, through his shoulder and out the other side. As I pulled it back out the blade snapped and stayed in him, so he had to have surgery as well. They said if it had been a couple of inches over to the left I'd be doing life.

I pleaded guilty. I was lucky to get the sentence I got. I offered in court to apologise, but nothing came back. My girlfriend is pregnant and she's waiting for me. That gives me hope.

Aftab, 19
Serving four years for drugs offences

I've been stabbed, when I was 15. I had trouble with this guy before. We had arguments. We used to be friends, well not friends, but we knew each other, living in the same area and hanging out together sometimes. I was just going round doing my business. A few times I got in trouble with the police - I was just trying to make a living.

Then me and this guy, him and his friends, I think they started to see me as a rival. There was bad feeling, they made threats. I wasn't worried. I could look after myself. Then one day he came up to me in the street and we started arguing. He got too close, so I spat in his face and we started fighting. I had a couple of my mates with me and they broke it up, pulled me off, and he left.

A few weeks later, I'm walking down the street with my mates, and this car pulls up and it's him. He's got his friend with him. The two of them get out and I started fighting with the one I'd spat at, and then the other one comes over. I never felt it. I thought he slapped me, and then he started jabbing into me. I was on the ground. He was punching at me.

My top was ripped but I didn't feel a thing. I didn't know at first that my top was ripped, then I saw it, but I didn't know, I couldn't feel what he was doing to me. Then one of my mates shouted: "You're stabbed." It was at the side of my back, here. I put my hand over it like that and it was all wet, and hot.. It was all wet, and hot with my blood.

As soon as I knew, I felt like a victim. When they heard my friends shouting, they ran back to the car and drove off. I lay there, I felt sick. Then the ambulance came and took me to hospital. When I woke up my father was there, he was upset, and angry. I wasn't angry, but I felt like a victim. It didn't make me want to carry a knife afterwards, not really.

I didn't want that kind of trouble. I still did my business after. I didn't think about prison, about getting caught dealing. But now I'm in, it doesn't bother me. I don't want to come back, but I'm out in 2010 and then I'll have to see what happens.

Jason, 19
Serving four years for grievous bodily harm

I've been in here a year. I don't like it. I'm a scaffolder on the out. Now I'm doing four years. Someone approached me and accused me of robbing his DVD player. I didn't rob it but I had it like and I wasn't giving it back. And he went off and phoned his brother to get his back up.

I left and got in my car and drove away. Later I was driving down the road with my father and I seen 'em. So I thought this has got to be sorted so I pulled over. I got out and called over to them, I said this has got to be sorted out.

My old man came over and then the guy got a bit of fencing and battered my old man over the head with it. So they were having a little tussle on the floor and his brother came running over and started kicking my old man when he was down.

So I went and pulled out the knife I kept in my works bag, that I take to work to cut the heavy line. I just stabbed him, and I stabbed his brother. I stabbed him once through his lung, and once through his forearm, and then his brother I stabbed him once through his arse and once through his leg.

To me I thought I was using reasonable force. When I saw my father getting hurt, I just thought I had to do what I had to do. Then I left them there in the street and got in my car and drove off. When the police came for me it was attempted murder.

It was on a main road and there were about 14 witnesses. I did explain to the police that I didn't even know that I had done so much damage. Till I got to the police station I thought I had only stabbed one of them.

When they say to me, explain how it happened, I think, well you've never been in that situation. You turn blank. I honestly thought I had only stabbed one of them. I didn't even know I stabbed one of them twice and then the other one twice. It was a big shock when I was sitting in the police station and they read it all out.

When I got remanded I had letters from the lawyers saying I was looking at nine years or at least six years. When I went to court the lawyer told me to brace myself for a six year IPP (Indeterminate sentence for the Protection of the Public with a six year tariff). In the end I only had four years, as a lot of people in the community supported me.

But when I look back I'm gutted by what I did. They said that a fraction to the left on one boy it would have cut his main artery. The other had an embolism in his brain caused by the knife wound, but he recovered, thank God. They could easily have both died and I would be doing 30 years.

I see myself as being a dangerous person but I don't like it. I don't want people to think I'm dangerous. In here I've done violence reduction and drug reduction. Out there it is all about reputation, don't fuck with me like, but I want to walk away in future if there is trouble. I think it's more of a man to walk away.

Kevin, 19
Serving three years for burglary

From the age of 11 I've been in crime till now. I started with theft, then car crime and things like that. I don't know when I am going to stop. I think, on the out, I needed help with my psychology and things like that, but I didn't get it, there was no one there to help me.

So for me its sort of an achievement, coming to prison. Because you can get qualifications. I've done the Enhanced Thinking Skills course, and drug awareness course. I've done education, writing and other learning. And I've had help from talking to people.

I was stabbed when I was 16 and owed a drug dealer £60. He sent his son to beat me up. Me and him ended up fighting. I'd been in trouble before that. But I wasn't really into fighting. But I'd always carried knives, 'cos I felt scared of other people, for my own protection.

All my boys, all my friends, carry knives, to blend in. Anyway, when the the drug dealer's son came for me it was in the street. I'd just left our house when he jumped out of a car and confronted me. I stood up to him, but then he pulled out a knife and stabbed me in the side, and that was about it. I went down, I wasn't sure what happened.

When I felt the blood I realised I was hurt. I was as angry, I wanted to do it back to him. But I never had a knife on me. Some people gathered round and then I woke up in hospital they told me that the tip of the knife grazed my gut. The police asked who it was, but I never told them, I didn't want it to go further.

Nobody apologised to me afterwards, and nothing was done about it. I just left it. It was one of those things that happens to people like me. After that, though, I never went anywhere without a knife. The kind of knives I carried were like kitchen knives, penknives you buy in stores, stuff like that.

· Erwin James's blog can be found at erwinjames.co.uk

    'I was drunk. The blade went straight into his eyeball', G, 12.7.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/12/knifecrime.youthjustice

7pm BST update

Police arrest fifth man

in connection with murder

of French students

Thursday July 10, 2008
Guardian.co.uk
James Sturcke
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk
on Thursday July 10 2008.
It was last updated
at 19:16 on July 10 2008.

Detectives tonight arrested another man in connection with the murder of two French students whose bodies were discovered a London bedsit.

Daniel Sonnex, also known as Dano, was arrested in Peckham, south-east London, at 6.30pm, shortly after police issued an urgent public appeal for information of his whereabouts.

Police said Sonnex, 23, had connections with the New Cross area of south-east London, where Gabriel Ferez and Laurent Bonomo were killed on June 29.

Ferez and Bonomo, both 23, were tied up and repeatedly stabbed in the head, neck and torso before the bedsit was set alight. Bonomo had been stabbed 196 times and Ferez 47 times.

They were living in London while working on biochemistry research projects at Imperial College.

Earlier today, unemployed Nigel Farmer, 33, of no fixed abode, appeared before Greenwich magistrates charged with killing the two students.

He is also charged with one count of arson and a count of attempting to pervert the course of justice. He was remanded in custody to appear at the Old Bailey in October.

Police are also continuing to hold a 35-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman who were arrested last night in connection with the killing.

A 21-year-old man arrested at the weekend was released without charge.

Farmer was arrested early on Monday after walking into Lewisham police station.

Officers said forensic work at the ground floor flat in Sterling Gardens could continue for several more weeks.

Detectives have renewed their appeal for witnesses who may have seen anyone at the property on the day of the attacks.

Six days earlier, Bonomo disturbed an intruder stealing a laptop computer.

Experts found no evidence of forced entry after the murders, suggesting that keys might also have been stolen.

Two Sony handheld games consoles were also taken and credit cards are believed to be missing.

Ferez's parents, Françoise and Olivier, this week appealed for those responsible for their son's death to give themselves up.

"You will not be able to live in hiding forever," it said. "You may be scared and feel like a coward, but you must recognise this terrible mistake you made."

    Police arrest fifth man in connection with murder of French students, G, 10.7.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/10/knifecrime.ukcrime2

2.15pm BST

Two more dead

in wave of London stabbings

Monday July 7, 2008
Guardian.co.uk
Rosalind Ryan and agencies
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk
on Monday July 07 2008.
It was last updated
at 15:16 on July 07 2008.

A young man and a 14-year-old boy died from stab wounds at the same London hospital today, increasing the toll of the recent spate of knife attacks in the capital.

The man, in his early 20s, was pronounced dead at the Royal London hospital in the east of the city where he was being treated for multiple stab wounds in his chest and arm after being attacked at an address in Bethnal Green, earlier today.

A 14-year-old boy who was stabbed three weeks ago, also died at the Royal London hospital today. David Idowu, 14, was stabbed in south-east London on the evening of June 17. It is believed he suffered two wounds in the attack, one to his stomach and the other to his chest.

Detective inspector Bernie Galopin, from Southwark CID, said: "Nearly three weeks after the attack on David he has lost his life, and this will now be a murder investigation.

"In light of David's death our immediate thoughts are with his family and friends and getting justice for them."

A postmortem examination and an inquest into Idowu's death have been ordered. Officers from the Metropolitan police's homicide and serious crime command will now handle the murder inquiry.

On June 17, the ambulance service called police to Great Dover Street in south-east London, following reports of a stabbing. Paramedics flew Idowu by air ambulance to hospital where he remained in a critical condition until today.

Police believe he may have been involved in "an altercation" with a group of youths in nearby Tabard Street.

The deaths are the latest in a spate of stabbings that continued over the weekend.

Two security guards were stabbed in Oxford Street, central London, on Saturday, while a man in his 20s was attacked with a knife on Putney Heath, in south-west London, early on Sunday morning.

A 25-year-old man was stabbed in the mouth in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, as he waited for a taxi early on Saturday, while a 19-year-old man was being treated in hospital after a "potential stabbing" in Sheffield.

Three men and a teenager were attacked with knives in Salford, Greater Manchester, on Friday night, and a 19-year-old man was stabbed in the stomach in Merseyside.

Two men and a 16-year-old are due in court today in connection with a stabbing at a working men's club in Sunderland during the early hours of Saturday morning.

In a separate incident, Graham Mitchell, 39, from Newcastle, is charged with the attempted murder of a 25-year-old woman and a 26-year-old man who were stabbed in Newcastle on Saturday.

Idowu's death brings the number of teenagers killed in London to 19 this year. The majority have been the victims of stabbings - either involving knives or other sharp objects - but some have been shot or violently beaten.

The government confirmed today that accident and emergency departments in hospitals will be expected to contact police when patients are treated for stab wounds in the same way that they already have to report gunshot wounds.

    Two more dead in wave of London stabbings, G, 7.7.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/07/knifecrime.ukcrime2

Teenagers killed

in London street violence this year

Since the beginning of the year,
19 teenagers have died during attacks in the capital

Monday July 7, 2008
Press Association
The Guardian
This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday July 07 2008 on p10 of the UK news section.
It was last updated at 14:16 on July 07 2008.

The death of 14-year-old David Idowu brings the number of teenagers killed in London this year to 19. He died at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel almost three weeks after being stabbed on Great Dover Street, SE1.

January 1 Henry Bolombi, 17, died from a single stab wound to the chest. He was attacked as he walked home in Edmonton, north London, after celebrating the new year.
 

January 5 Faridon Alizada, 18, of Bexley, south-east London, died from three stab wounds to the chest after being attacked in Verona House, a tower block in Erith.

January 21 Boduka Mudianga, 18, known by his middle name Louis, died after being stabbed in a street brawl in Silver Street, Edmonton, north London.

January 26 Fuad Buraleh, 19, of Hayes, West London, died from a head injury. He was beaten minutes after getting off a bus in Dean Gardens, Uxbridge Road, Ealing.

February 19 Sunday Essiet, 15, died from a stab wound after being attacked following a row between groups of youths in Invermore Place, Woolwich.

February 23 Tung Le, 17, of Deptford, south-east London, is attacked during a row outside a nightclub in Cockspur Street. He died from a stab wound.
 

February 29 Ofiyke Nmezu, 16, known as Iyke, of Edmonton, suffered a head injury in an attack with a brick on February 15. He attends hospital two weeks later where he died from a skull fracture.

March 13 Michael Jones, 18, died from severe head injuries and a stab wound to the chest after being attacked by an intruder at his home in Stanley Road, Edmonton.

March 14 Nicholas Clarke, 19, died from a gunshot wound to the head after a shooting at the Myatts Field Estate, Brixton.

March 27 Devoe Roach, 17, died after apparently being stabbed in the chest in Stamford Hill, north London.

March 27 Amro Elbadawi, 14, of West Kilburn, died from a stab wound after being knifed in Queen's Park, west London.
 

May 3 Lyle Tulloch, 15, from Peckham, south London, was fatally stabbed in a stairway of a block of flats.

May 10 Jimmy Mizen, 16, is attacked with a shard of glass in a bakery in Lee, south-east London.

May 24 Rob Knox, 18, is stabbed to death in a fight outside the Metro Bar in Station Road, Sidcup.

May 28 Sharmaarke Hassan, 17, died in hospital after being shot in the head in Camden, north London on May 24.

June 2 Arsema Dawit, 15, is stabbed to death in a block of flats near Waterloo station.

June 29 Ben Kinsella, 16, died after he is stabbed in York Way, Islington.
 

July 3 Shakilus Townsend, 16, is stabbed in Beulah Crescent, Thornton Heath, south London, and dies overnight in hospital.

July 7 Southwark schoolboy David Idowu, 14, died almost three weeks after being stabbed in an attack.

    Teenagers killed in London street violence this year, G, 7.7.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/05/knifecrime.ukcrime2

Five held over Shakilus Townsend killing

· Sixteen-year-old girl among those in custody
· Tributes suggest victim caught up in gang culture

Monday July 7, 2008
The Guardian
Rachel Williams
This article appeared in the Guardian
on Monday July 07 2008 on p6 of the UK news section.
It was last updated at 09:44 on July 07 2008.

A photograph issued by the Metropolitan police of 16-year-old Shakilus Townsend who was stabbed in Thornton Heath, south London. Photograph: Metropolitan police/PA

Five people, including a teenage girl, have been arrested over the murder of 16-year-old Shakilus Townsend, who was beaten with a baseball bat and stabbed after being chased down a south London street.

Four men, aged 16, 17, 18 and 22, and a 16-year-old girl were in custody last night in connection with the attack, which left the teenager, the 18th to die from knife violence in London this year, pleading for his mother as he lay bleeding in a witness's arms.

The arrests on Saturday night and yesterday morning came as tributes and pictures posted on the internet suggested the teenager, known as Shak or Bugz, was caught up in London's gang culture. He was repeatedly referred to as a "fallen soldier", and one photograph on the social networking site Bebo shows him posing with a kitchen knife as he leans against a car, with the caption "Dullwichz killer Bugz", while in another he holds a gun.

Other images include youths wearing baseball caps and hooded tops with bandanas around their mouths and a group of young men in Dulwich - which they call Duppytown - being talked to by police.

Pictures of Townsend appear on the profile of a hooded youth who shows himself gripping a hunting knife. Above the shot is the slogan "My shank does the talking", and a stock image of a knife dripping with blood.

Comments online suggested the attack on Townsend, who died in hospital the next day, was related to a girl. One friend wrote: "Da girlz pic daat set up Bugz iz in ma Bebo, wen man catch her she is fuked." Elsewhere, he added: "Chicks are all snakes, coz of wun Shaks ded" and also: "Ride wiv a weapon, neva fist fight". On Saturday a relative visiting the scene of the stabbing in Thornton Heath said a girl had "set him up", adding that Townsend had been in minor trouble when he was younger but had since reformed.

A resident has told how she tried to save Townsend after seeing two teenage boys with their faces covered punching, kicking and hitting him with a baseball bat.

His stepmother called for violent teenage criminals to be sent to Iraq, saying they behaved badly because there was "no punishment".

Townsend's death came less than a week after the stabbing of Ben Kinsella, also 16 and the brother of former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella, which sparked a 400-strong protest march and calls for urgent action from police and politicians. Yesterday hundreds of young people gathered in north London for a candlelit vigil at the spot where Kinsella was set upon and knifed repeatedly after leaving a bar at about 2am a week earlier.

His sister Brooke was among those who went to North Road, Islington, at the same time yesterday to see wellwishers laying candles and lanterns alongside the flowers left at the scene. Three youths have been charged with Kinsella's murder and remanded in custody until October.

Policing minister Tony McNulty yesterday called on judges and magistrates to use their powers to impose tougher sentences on people carrying blades, saying that carrying a knife was so ingrained in some youngsters that it was in the "collective DNA".

McNulty told Sky News Sunday Live: "I think the recent tragedies are appalling." But he said people realised the problem was not something the government could solve alone. "It's not a cop-out to say this is something that goes to the heart of our entire society. The last couple of weeks when I've been discussing this, people have accepted that and that's a start."

The home secretary, Jacqui Smith, is considering forcing doctors to notify stabbing injuries to the authorities to allow police to gather information about incidents that might otherwise go unreported. McNulty said: "There is a balance between an individual's privacy in turning up at casualty and the National Health Service providing those figures so we all know the full extent of knife use."

    Five held over Shakilus Townsend killing, G, 7.7.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/07/knifecrime.ukcrime1

14,000 knife victims a year

Sunday, 6 July 2008
The Independent on Sunday
By Jonathan Owen


Knife violence in Britain is far worse than official statistics suggest, with almost 14,000 people taken to hospital for injuries caused by knives and other sharp weapons last year.

According to the latest Department of Health statistics, an average of 38 victims of knife wounds are admitted to accident and emergency departments across the country every day.

An analysis of hospital admissions data for England and Wales by the IoS revealed that assaults and injuries from knives and sharp implements, together with sword and dagger injuries, resulted in 12,340 people being admitted last year – 446 of whom were no older than 14. This is an increase of 19 per cent on the 10,372 admissions five years ago. The latest figures from Northern Ireland and Scotland bring the total number of victims in Britain to 13,795 each year.

Dr Tunji Lasoye, A&E consultant at King's College Hospital, London said: "In a nutshell the numbers of stab victims coming into A&E have gone up. It used to be that we would see isolated cases at weekends, but now it is nearly every day of the week. And the age of the victims has gone down. We used to see people in their early 20s; now they are in their mid-teens. And 10 per cent of the victims we see now are girls, which wasn't the case four or five years ago."

The latest statistics from hospitals in England alone highlight an 88 per cent jump in the number of children suffering stab wounds – from 95 in 2002-03 to 179 in 2006-07. And among 16- to 18-year-olds, there has been a 75 per cent rise from 429 to 752.

New figures provided to the IoS under the Freedom of Information Act highlight how the number of people being prosecuted by magistrates for possessing knives has rocketed up from the 4,489 in 1997, the year Labour came to power. By 2006, that figure had jumped to 7,699.

Most were not jailed, with just 14 per cent ending up in prison for little more than three months on average. Suspended sentences leapt from nine in 1997 to 552 in 2006.

The revelations undermine claims by the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, last week that knife crime "is not more serious than it has been previously".

Government assurances are based on results from the British Crime Survey, which has recorded "knife-enabled crime" as remaining stable at between 5-8 per cent of all violent crimes in the past decade.

But a report by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College appears to confirm the IoS findings, noting that knife crime "suffers from a lack of research on the nature, extent, cause, motivation, frequency and possible growth of knife carrying".

London remains the centre of what is increasingly viewed as a nationwide epidemic. Fatal stabbings of teenagers in London total 14 since the start of the year. In total, 18 have been murdered, compared with 27 for the whole of last year.

The capital accounted for more than a third of all under-16s taken to hospital with stab wounds last year, and has seen numbers of teenagers needing treatment rise from 139 in 2002-03 to 324 in 2006-07.

Hundreds of people were due to attend a rally held early this morning in Islington, north London, where one of the most recent victims, 16-year-old Ben Kinsella, was stabbed to death last Sunday. Yesterday it emerged that the youngster had written a letter to Gordon Brown as part of his schoolwork, warning that knife violence was becoming "part of our culture".

Detectives continue their investigation into the knife murder of 16-year-old Shakilus Townsend in south London last Thursday.

In response to growing public concern about knife crime, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) will issue new guidance tomorrow, calling on all forces and crown prosecutors to charge anyone over 16 caught in illegal possession of a knife. This will extend to under-16s already "known" to the police.

Acpo wants hospitals to notify police of all patients with stab wounds, in the same way that they do with gunshot victims. The police now want to use hospital records to identify knife-crime hotspots.

Campaigners calling for tough action were not impressed by the Met's announcement on Friday that just 75 officers – a fraction of its 30,000 strength – will run a new taskforce against knife crime across London's 32 boroughs.

Lynn Costello, co-founder of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, said: "We have to get tough. We've let our kids get away with murder for years and now they are literally getting away with murder – or think they can."

Additional reporting by Brian Brady and Andrew Johnson

    14,000 knife victims a year, IoS, 6.7.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/14000-knife-victims-a-year-860857.html

Massacre in Flat 12

French students Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez
were tied up, tortured and stabbed 243 times
in an act of unbelievable savagery.
What can explain the slaughter in SE14?
David Randall investigates

Sunday, 6 July 2008
The Independent on Sunday


For all the relentless murdering in London in recent times, you could always tell yourself that things here had not reached the stage of Miami in 1980, when homicides were committed in such quantity and with such hour-by-hour regularity that local mortuaries had to hire a refrigeration truck from Burger King to handle the overspill. But then, a few days ago, came news of a crime that, for sheer exaggerated and revolting ferocity, rivalled anything perpetrated by the drug crazies and psychopaths of Miami-Dade County all those years ago.


Two French graduate students – model, modern Europeans in their studies, their lives and their looks – were tied up in a south-east London flat, probably tortured, and stabbed more than 200 times. The scene where they lay dead, and disfigured beyond recognition, was then set explosively on fire. If George Orwell in his famous essay thought the English murder was declining from the middle-class crime passionnel to Americanised senselessness in 1946, heaven knows what he would make of the killing of Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez in 2008.

What shocked was not that they were admirable young men – high-profile murders very often do involve the loss of a virtuous life – nor that the perpetrator's apparent gain (a couple of paltry electronic gadgets) was so pathetically small. What sent a jolt through even Britain's crime-hardened capital was the number of hacks with a knife rained down on the heads, necks and backs of the two young men as they lay bound beyond any retaliation on the floor of their rented flat: 243. It takes long enough just to count them. To inflict them, with the hand juddering each time at the resistance of the human body, and to keep on and on and on until 243 is reached is to enter a realm beyond even the psychopathic.

That total could suggest these killings were the work of more than one assailant. To try to answer this question – as well as many of the others raised by the nightmarish nature of the attack – we need to go back to Sterling Gardens, New Cross on Sunday evening, the last time its inhabitants knew normality. It was around 10pm, just after the final of Euro 2008 came to a climax, that the residents of this street of new-build flats and homes heard – and felt – a loud, tremulous series of noises. To one, it was "a very strong sound"; to neighbour Sarah MacIntyre, "I thought a bridge on the railway line had collapsed"; and to Henry Chuks, who lived above the murder flat, "two or three loud bangs ... it sounded like a big fridge had fallen down".

Whatever it was, it drew a good number of them into the crescent-like street, and they quickly saw the source of the bangs: flames coming through the shattered living-room window of flat 12, on the ground floor of Admiral Court, a modern, three-storey gabled block in this back-water street. Several neighbours ran over to see if there was anyone trapped inside. They banged on the door, but got no response. A few of them rushed to get water to throw through the windows. Soon afterwards, the fire service arrived. Inside they discovered the bodies of Bonomo and Ferez.

It took a little time to learn their identities, the extraordinary viciousness of their wounds (Bonomo was stabbed no fewer than 196 times, perhaps as many as 100 times after he was already dead; Gabriel Ferez 47 times and badly burned) and that, six days before, a laptop had been stolen from the flat. Bonomo, who rented the place (Ferez lived about 10 miles away in South Norwood), had emerged from the shower at about 6am on the morning of Monday 23 June to find an intruder hurriedly leaving with his computer – a black Packard Bell. The thief had forced open a living-room window. Police later arrived and the room was dusted for fingerprints.

The murder investigation, led by Detective Chief Inspector Mick Duthie, an experienced officer who, like his 40 colleagues on the case, had never seen the like of the injuries inflicted on the students, soon picked up other details. One resident saw two men hammering on the window of the flat just before the fire broke out. Another talked of seeing a white man running from the flat that evening. And, on Friday, police said that both the students' mobile phones had been taken on the Sunday, as well as a pair of Sony PSP handheld videogame consoles. The serial number of one of them: S01-06113169-C.

And, by the end of last week, a full portrait had emerged of the two victims, together with fragments of their last hours before the attack. Both were biochemistry students at Polytech' Clermont-Ferrand who had been selected for a three-month secondment to Imperial College, London, and for whom brilliant futures were predicted. Bonomo, from Velaux near Aix-en-Provence, had been student union president in France and was immensely personable and popular. His cousin, Claude Bonomo, said of him: "He was a fantastic, fun-loving, exuberant guy." His fiancée Mary Bertez, to whom he last spoke on the phone early on Sunday morning, said that Bonomo gave her "10 months of a happiness I had never experienced until then" and added that she would "never stop thinking about him". They had been due to marry later this year.

Gabriel Ferez, from Prouzel near Amiens, was widely travelled, a compulsive reader of history, worked during his holidays at an Amiens hospital, and also attended a Mexican university last year. His father Olivier said: "Gabriel is, was, the most intelligent, affectionate, wonderful son anyone could ever want. He had such a bright future and now that has gone." As the attack came, the pair were playing a computer game together. They were due to return home at the end of July.

Before any suspicious minds could pose the ritual question about Bonomo and Ferez's connections (about whether, for instance, they could have been involved in drug-dealing or something else that placed them in contact with vengeful gangs), DCI Duthie answered it. "We cannot find anything in these two young men's backgrounds," he said, "to suggest they were involved in any criminality, that they had done anything wrong, either in Britain or in France or elsewhere."

What clues then – apart from the thefts or any forensic findings withheld by police for operational reasons – are there? Not many. No weapon has been found, but there are traces of what police call an "accelerant" (petrol, or something similar, to you and me) used to set the fire going. Forensic test results on these – and a container – are awaited. The use of an accelerant suggests some level of pre-meditation by the attacker(s), not a trait usually found in a crack crazy who slaughters two men for a couple of phones and game devices. What it is increasingly associated with is an attempt, often futile, to destroy DNA evidence.

Perhaps most significantly, there is no sign of a forced entry. This suggests a key was used, or that the door was opened by Bonomo. To get inside flat 12 means first ringing the block's outside bell-pushes, and so giving those inside a look at any caller before they open the entrance door with its well-polished brass handle and letter box. Hence, the perpetrators had a key (there is no evidence that one was recently lost or stolen), were known to Bonomo, were sufficiently plausible-looking to be let in, or were already inside.

There have been suggestions that the pair's killing was a case of mistaken identity, that they happened to bear a resemblance to someone with whom a gang had a feud. But the excess of the violence used hardly suggests a "hit".

Police say privately that their strongest line of inquiry is that this attack was a robbery. They arrested a 21-year-old man in a south-east London street at 3.40am yesterday, and he is now being questioned. The key could be Bonomo's still-missing laptop. Maybe its contents gave its thief – or someone to whom he sold it – the idea that the student had money worth returning for. Police say the pair's bank cards may have been taken, and speculate that they were tortured to obtain their PIN numbers. If so, it was by a thief (or thieves) who brought to the scene of the crime a psychotic frenzy that was not sated until their strength to raise the knife was utterly exhausted. They would have left flat 12 looking as if they had just finished a shift at an abattoir.

Last night, at Admiral Court, the flat's three windows were covered. One has been blacked out; another is boarded up, and a third is encased in blue tarpaulin. It could be the scene of a small house fire. But it's not. It was a massacre in there. The French press, doing no more – and probably a great deal less – than the English tabloids would if the victims were British and the location were Paris, have not minced their words. France-Soir said that London was turning into one of the most hazardous cities in Europe. Libération said there had been 17 (now 18) stabbings so far in London this year, and Le Parisien wrote: "These two gifted French students were massacred in a notoriously dangerous area of the British capital."

One French respondent to Le Figaro's website, writing under the name of "Gin", said: "I've lived in London for 10 years and there are many places known for robbery, violence and murder where I don't go. The embassies and consulates won't tell you that, so you have to find it out for yourself. These poor students were in a zone where you should never walk, let alone live."

Maybe they're right. Perhaps London is becoming a feral no-go area, where you're as likely to meet the sharp end of a knife as a smile. Not so much SE14 as Dade County-on-Thames.
 

Additional reporting by Sophie Clayton-Payne and Ian Griggs

    Massacre in Flat 12, IoS, 6.7.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/massacre-in-flat-12-860887.html

Family sees teenagers in court

over Ben murder

Friday, 4 July 2008
PA
The Independent


The family of teenager Ben Kinsella today came face to face with the three youths accused of his murder.


Ben's mother Deborah, father George and sister Jade sat in Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court hand in hand as the teenagers appeared in the dock.


Juress Kika, 18, Michael Alleyne, 18, and Jade Braithwaite, 19, were remanded in custody until October 13.


Ben, 16, the brother of former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella, was stabbed repeatedly in York Way, Islington, at about 2am last Sunday.


He had been on a night out with friends at the nearby Shillibeers bar when a fight broke out inside.


Detectives believe several youths were ejected from the bar and trouble continued down the street.


Ben died in the arms of his friend Louis Robson, 16, son of Birds Of A Feather actress Linda Robson.


On Tuesday, up to 400 protesters marched in Upper Street, Islington, to the scene of the killing to demand an end to knife crime.


Miss Kinsella joined the march wearing a T-shirt with a photograph of Ben as a baby on it.


Kika and Alleyne were arrested late on Monday night at an address in the Chadwell Heath area of east London, while Braithwaite was arrested in Bethnal Green, also east London, on Tuesday.


An 18-year-old man arrested in Islington on Monday has been bailed to return to a London police station in mid-August pending further inquiries.

    Family sees teenagers in court over Ben murder, I, 4.7.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/family-sees-teenagers-in-court-over-ben-murder-860073.html

I want my mum,

said stabbed 16-year-old

Friday, 4 July 2008
PA
The Independent

The latest teenage victim of London's knife crime crisis pleaded for his mother as he lay dying in the street.

One witness cradled gravely-wounded 16-year-old Shakilus Townsend in her arms as he said: "I don't want to die."

Police said he was attacked by a masked gang armed with knives and baseball bat in Thornton Heath, south London.

Officers said they were hunting three black teenagers who ambushed Shakilus, known as Shaki to his friends, stabbing him in the chest and beating him around the head.

The youths had pulled up their hoods and covered their faces in bandanas for the planned attack.

They also want to trace a black girl, aged in her mid-teens and wearing a floral dress, who stood back with up to eight others and watched the sickening attack.

Police have recovered two knives, one of which was described by a witness as 18 inches long.

The death brings the toll of teenagers killed in knife attacks in the capital this year to 18.

The detective leading the investigation said it was "another senseless incident in which a young life has been taken away by a knife".

It came as three teenagers appeared in court in the north of the city accused of stabbing 16-year-old Ben Kinsella to death at the weekend.

Tunisian Hamouda Bessaad, 34, was stabbed to death in Old Kent Road on Monday, while Dee Willis, 28, died after a knife attack in Peckham the next day.

Meanwhile Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson gave details of a 75-man taskforce dedicated to targeting gang members.

He said tackling knife crime was the force's "number one priority" and officers would continue the tough stop-and-search regime to flush out those carrying weapons.

Shakilus died at St George's Hospital, Tooting, south London, just after midnight, after the attack in Beulah Crescent.

Police said Shakilus' parents, Nicola and Derek, and his four siblings, who live in Deptford, south-east London, were "devastated".

Residents spoke today of how they desperately tried to save the teenager as blood poured from his chest.

Dee Bamina, 35, attempted to stem the bleeding with a bath towel after another neighbour took him into the communal doorway of her block of flats.

She said: "I think a group of boys must have been after the boy. All I heard was them saying 'get him from the other side'.

"I tried to ask him his name and to tell him to calm down and lie down because he was trying to get up and go."

She said the boy was saying "I don't want to die" and "where's my mum, I want my mum". The 16-year-old told her he did not know his attackers.

Detective Chief Inspector Cliff Lyons said: "This is another senseless incident in which a young life has been taken away by a knife.

"Given that this happened outside a block of flats in broad daylight, I am certain there are people who will have witnessed this murder.

"I would urge those people to come forward and speak to the police to help us bring justice to Shakilus's family and friends."

He added that the attackers were not believed to be from the area because they ran off in different directions looking for a way to escape.

Witness Richard Higgins, 17, said: "I thought he had tripped at first then I saw the knife. It was a big kitchen knife, maybe 18 inches. He had stab wounds on his stomach and one big long wound on his chest."

His mother Matilda Higgins, 43, said: "The blood drained from me when I heard what had happened on my doorstep. I am frightened every time my son leaves the house and I do not breathe until I hear his key in the lock."

A 17-year-old boy who lives near where Shakilus was attacked said stabbings were common.

He said: "If he hadn't died, no one would have cared about this, it would have just been another stabbing.

"You grow up around here, you always see the yellow boards around and then you wake up and see 20 police vans outside.

"How are the police or the Government going to be able to sort this out if we as kids don't know why this sort of stuff's going on?"

Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks, in whose constituency Shakilus was stabbed, said: "This is yet another brutal assault, another tragic loss of a young life."

* Anyone with information should call the incident room in Sutton on 020 8721 4205 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

    I want my mum, said stabbed 16-year-old, I, 4.7.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/i-want-my-mum-said-stabbed-16yearold-860159.html

4.45pm BST Update

Police taskforce will target knife crimes

as Met's 'number one priority'

Friday July 4, 2008
Guardian.co.uk
Lee Glendinning

A dedicated taskforce is to be established to target gangs in an effort to stem the knife crime epidemic.

The Metropolitan police today declared that tackling knife crime was its number one priority.

Metropolitan police deputy commissioner Paul Stephenson said that officers would be deployed to the 32 worst affected London boroughs "with immediate effect''.

The announcement came as a 16-year-old boy became the 18th teenage victim killed of the capital's spate of street crime this year.

Shakilus Townsend suffered multiple injuries when he was attacked in Thornton Heath just before 2pm yesterday, and died in St George's hospital, Tooting overnight.

Witness described the teenager crying out for his mother and saying "I don't want to die" as he lay injured and dying in the doorway to a block of flats.

A Metropolitan police spokesman said Townsend had been stabbed more than once. The weapon had not yet been identified and no arrests had been made.

Police believe the murder could have been gang-related. "We are retaining an open mind as to motive at the moment, but what we can say is that gang-related activity is one line of inquiry that we are looking into," the spokesman said.

One neighbour, Dee Bamina, 35, told how she had frantically tried to help save the teenager by stemming the bleeding from a wound to his chest with a bath towel.

"I think a group of boys must have been after the boy,'' she said. "All I heard was them saying 'get him from the other side'."

Bamina said she saw a gang of four or five boys aged 15 to 19 with scarves covering their faces. One was carrying a baseball bat.

Townsend told her he did not know his attackers, she said.

"I tried to ask him his name and to tell him to calm down and lie down because he was trying to get up and go."

She said the boy was saying, ''I don't want to die," and, "Where's my mum? I want my mum".

Richard Higgins, 17, described hearing the screams of his neighbour who was standing over the teenager.

"I thought he had tripped at first then I saw the knife. It was a big kitchen knife, maybe 18 inches. He had stab wounds on his stomach and one big long wound on his chest."

The attack came days after Ben Kinsella, 16, was killed outside a bar in Islington, north London, at the weekend.

On Monday, Hamouda Bessaad, 34, was stabbed to death on Old Kent Road, in south-east London, and a day later Dee Willis, 28, died after a knife attack in Peckham.

Detective Chief Inspector Cliff Lyons, who is leading the investigation into Townsend's killing, said: "This is another senseless incident in which a young life has been taken away by a knife.

"Given that this happened outside a block of flats in broad daylight, I am certain there are people who will have witnessed this murder. I would urge those people to come forward and speak to the police to help us bring justice to Shakilus's family and friends."

A 17-year-old boy who lives nearby said he felt stabbings were a regular occurrence.

"If he hadn't died, no one would have cared about this. It would have just been another stabbing.

"You grow up around here, you always see the yellow boards around and then you wake up and see 20 police vans outside.

"How are the police or the government going to be able to sort this out if we as kids don't know why this sort of stuff's going on?"

    Police taskforce will target knife crimes as Met's 'number one priority', G, 4.7.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/04/knifecrime.ukcrime2
 

3.30pm BST update

French student

found dead in New Cross

was stabbed 196 times

Thursday July 3, 2008
Guardian.co.uk
Lee Glendinning and Matthew Taylor

Two French exchange students found dead after a fire in south-east London were the victims of a ''frenzied, horrible and horrific attack'' having been bound and stabbed repeatedly in the head, neck and torso before the house was set alight.

Laurent Bonomo, of Velaux, and Gabriel Ferez, of Prouzel, both 23, were found lying in the living area of the ground-floor bedsit. Bonomo had been stabbed 196 times with up to 100 injuries inflicted after he was already dead, police said. Ferez had 47 wounds.

Detective Chief Inspector Mick Duthie, of the Metropolitan police, today described their injuries as the worst he had seen in his policing career. "These were two young French students who were visitors to our country and had been in London for only a matter of weeks. They were talented students working on a dream project.

"The level of violence used on these two victims was excessive - it was horrendous. The extent of the injuries are horrific. Everyone working on this case, including myself, has been deeply shocked by what we have seen. I have never seen injuries like this throughout my career.''

The pair arrived in London in May to study bioengineering and DNA at Imperial College under an exchange programme with the Polytech Clermont-Ferrand in central France. Their three-month placement had been due to finish at the end of this month.

Detectives said they believed a burglary at the rented flat six days earlier, in which a laptop was stolen, could be linked to the case.

Police were called to the fire in Sterling Gardens, a residential cul de sac in New Cross, at about 10pm on Sunday.

The fire started with an explosion, police said; the property was severely damaged and there was a smell of flammable liquid. It was extinguished quickly but the men were dead before it took hold.

A white male was seen running from the block shortly after the explosion. No weapon has been recovered, and forensic examinations at the scene are said to be ''extremely complex''. Duthie said: "I do not know why these boys were killed or who killed them. I do believe, however, that whoever is responsible must have been bloodstained when they left.

"I would not say this was a professional attack. I would say it was a frenzied, horrible, horrific attack. "I imagine it would take some considerable amount of time to inflict the nature of the injuries."

Bonomo had spoken to his girlfriend in the early hours of Sunday morning. He and Ferez were thought to have been playing computer games together when attacked. Police said there was no evidence of forced entry and keys may have been used, allowing an attacker to surprise them.

A neighbour, Christina Ramires, 32, from Brazil, said she arrived home five minutes after the bang. She said a Spanish friend, also a neighbour, told her she saw two men banging on the window of the flat prior to a "very strong sound" that she took for an explosion.

Ramires said that when she arrived she could see through the open door of the flat, which was blackened and greasy. It had also been broken into three or four months ago, before the students moved in, she said. Another neighbour, who did not want to be named, was told by police after the burglary six days ago that one of the students had been in the shower and disturbed the intruder, who ran off.

Duthie said it may have been a case of mistaken identity. "We cannot find anything in these two young men's background to suggest they were involved in any criminality, that they had done anything wrong. They were here as students."

A college spokesman said Bonomo had been studying a parasite that can spread from cats to human foetuses. Ferez's research was on using bacteria to create ethanol for use as fuel.

Nicky Crowhurst, 25, a student who shared a laboratory with Ferez in the biochemistry building, said he was a "really nice guy ... it's a huge shock. I can't believe it. Him and his mate were always in the lab. They had only been here a little while. He was a quiet guy but really friendly."

Professor Steve Matthews, who worked closely with Bonomo, said he was an intelligent young man with a bright future. "They were both very likeable chaps. Laurent was particularly mature and well-rounded. He was a keen tennis fan and looking forward to following the French players at Wimbledon. "We are all stunned and shocked, to say the least. Our thoughts are with their families and Laurent's girlfriend."

Sir Roy Anderson, the Imperial College rector, said the thoughts of the community were with the men's families. "Laurent and Gabriel had bright futures ahead of them and it is dreadful that their lives should end so soon," he said.

Members of the victims' families travelled from France to identify their sons' bodies this morning. Duthie appealed for anyone who knew the men at Imperial College or saw anything strange in New Cross on Sunday night to come forward. "I need to build up a picture of these two young men. What were they doing in the hours leading up to the murder?''

"I also appeal to those people who worked with and knew Laurent and Gabriel at Imperial College. What were they like? Where did they go? Who did they meet? Where did they socialise? This attacker was horrific. I ask everybody - please rack your brains.''

    French student found dead in New Cross was stabbed 196 times, G, 3.7.2008, https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jul/03/knifecrime.ukcrime1 

French students tortured

and 'horrifically murdered'

in East London

July 3, 2008
From Times Online
Adam Fresco, Lucy Bannerman

Two French students have been found dead with multiple stab wounds in an East London flat, it was confirmed last night.

A double murder inquiry has been launched after the bodies of the two men, believed to be in their twenties, were discovered on Sunday, when firefighters were called to deal with a fire at the address in Sterling Gardens, New Cross.

A police source said the pair had been "horrifically murdered" adding that it was believed they may have been tortured before being killed and their flat set alight.

Post-mortems on the two bodies showed they were stabbed in the head, the neck and the chest.

Scotland Yard was expected to identify the two students at a press conference this morning. They are thought to be exchange students doing research at Imperial College. French media reports said they were from the Polytechnic of Clermont-Ferrand, in central France.

Their families have been informed and were received yesterday by the French consul general in London.

Police and other emergency services were called at 22:10 on Sunday evening.

The fire was quickly extinguished and the mutilated bodies of the two men were found in a ground floor flat.

They had only been here for a few weeks before being murdered, and had been intending to stay for three months - the length of their contract.

A spokesman for London Ambulance Service said that two ambulances, an officer and a medical team were sent to the scene, where the two men were immediately pronounced dead.

A police source said that officers were keeping an open mind as to why the students were killed, but added that there was no immediate indication why they were so brutally attacked.

An incident room has opened at Sutton under DCI Mick Duthie and detectives are working with the Fire Brigade on the cause of the fire.

DCI Duthie said: "I am appealing for anyone who was in the area of Sterling Gardens at any time over the weekend, and who may have seen or heard anything suspicious near the address, to get in touch.

"I am particularly keen to hear from anyone who may have seen anyone near the premises around 21.30 on Sunday."

    French students tortured and 'horrifically murdered' in East London, Ts Online, 3.7.2008, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4260043.ece

4.30pm BST update

Kinsella murder

sees hundreds

march against knife crime

Tuesday July 1, 2008
Guardian.co.uk
Sam Jones and Lee Glendinning

Hundreds of friends and family of Ben Kinsella, the 16-year-old who was stabbed to death on Sunday morning, marched through the streets of London today demanding an end to knife crime.

The 400-strong group stopped outside the home of London mayor Boris Johnson, claiming he had not contacted them over the killing.

"This is where Boris Johnson lives and he hasn't bothered to get in touch with us," one of the group yelled, adding sarcastically, "he cares about London".

Johnson, who placed a strong focus on tackling knife and gun crime during the mayoral election campaign, and lives close to the scene of Ben's murder, said today: "I understand the strength of feeling and indeed welcome this public expression of hostility towards the hideous problem of knife crime in our city.

''I deeply regret that another young person has lost their life to violence and my thoughts are with the family of this young man."

Protesters wore white t-shirts with messages saying "fallen soldier, rest in paradise" and "don't use a knife, get a life" as they marched through Islington in front of a banner, which was written in blood red paint: "Why Ben?"

Four people aged in their late teens were arrested this morning in connection with Ben's murder.

This afternoon the march stopped outside the front of the Shillibeers bar, where the 16-year-old was stabbed to death on Sunday.

The teenager had gone to the bar in Carpenters Mews, North Road, Islington, on Saturday night to celebrate finishing their GCSEs.

Trouble broke out and some customers were told to leave.

It is believed Ben was then stabbed in the torso several times in York Way, near the junction with North Road.

Brooke Dunford, 16, who organised today's march had printed leaflets, sent emails and text messages, and used Facebook to let everyone know about the protest, which began at Islington Town Hall.

She wore a t-shirt with "18?" written on it, as a reference to whether she could be the 18th teenager knifed to death in London this year.

"It's ridiculous. When is it going to stop? I never thought it would happen to such a good boy. Someone who never had a bad bone in his body.

"If by doing this today I have made one person rethink taking out a knife then I have done my bit. That would be one more person going back home to his mum."

Linda Robson, the Birds of a Feather actress, also joined the march, with her 16-year-old son Louis, who had cradled Ben in his arms as he lay dying.

Robson said the families had been in close contact since Ben's death.

"Brooke [Ben's sister] sent a lovely text to my daughter saying, 'I haven't got a brother now, can we borrow yours some time'."

Earlier today, the Metropolitan police said one of the four suspects was arrested at a house in Islington yesterday afternoon.

Two were detained at a house in Chadwell Heath, east London, late last night and the fourth at a house in Bethnal Green, also in east London, this morning.

Two 16-year-old boys arrested earlier were released on police bail yesterday.

Detective Chief Inspector John Macdonald, of the homicide and serious crime command, said: "We have had a good response to our appeals so far.

"But we are still keen to speak to witnesses - in particular anyone who saw the stabbing itself, or anyone who has information about the identity of the suspects.

"If you can help, please contact us as soon as possible."

Ben's family yesterday described him as "a true angel" as they appealed for young people to lay down their weapons.

His sister, Brooke Kinsella, a former EastEnders actor, read a statement paying tribute to "one of the kindest, gentlest and most talented boys God has ever created".

"Ben was the 17th teenager to be killed in London this year, and our hearts go out to every family who has also suffered this awful tragedy," she said. "Now truly is the time to stand up and put an end to this.

"Please, please, let us learn from Ben and every other child that has been stolen from us."

The 24-year-old said she, her parents, Deborah and George, and her sisters, Jade and Georgia, were determined to ensure that the streets were made safe again.

"Please, boys and girls, put down your knives and weapons and think about the pain and suffering they will cause," she said. "Parents, please talk to your children and encourage them to stop all this violence."

It emerged today that Ben had recently written an essay for a school creative writing task in which he described dying from a stab wound.

Yesterday, police recovered two knives from the area close to where he was killed, but Scotland Yard would not say whether they were connected with the attack.

Anyone with information is asked to call 020 8345 3985 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.

    Kinsella murder sees hundreds march against knife crime, G, 1.7.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jul/01/ukcrime

4.15pm BST

Sister pays tribute

to stabbed teenager Ben Kinsella

Monday June 30, 2008
Guardian.co.uk
James Orr and agencies
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk
on Monday June 30 2008.
It was last updated
at 18:08 on June 30 2008.

The sister of a 16-year-old boy stabbed to death following a violent street brawl today described him as her "true angel".

Brooke Kinsella, a former EastEnders actor, broke down as she told how her brother Ben Kinsella was "one of the gentlest boys God created".

He died early yesterday after being repeatedly knifed by a gang of youths who had chased him from a nearby pub.

Friends said they believed his murder was a case of mistaken identity and revenge for a bottle attack on another youth.

His 24-year-old sister, who played Kelly Taylor in the BBC soap, said: "Yesterday, we tragically lost not only a beautiful son and brother, but a true angel. He was one of the kindest and gentlest boys God created.

"Please, boys and girls, put down your knives and weapons and think about the pain and suffering they will cause."

Kinsella was attacked in York Way, north London, after being caught up in a fight at the nearby Shillibeers pub.

His death puts the number of teenagers to die violently in the capital this year at 17. Twelve died from stab wounds.

Yesterday, one of Kinsella's friends said he had phoned him as he was chased by his attackers.

David Dugdale, 17, said his mobile phone rang just after 2am.

He said: "He was panting hard and sounded like he was running away from people. He was just screaming 'help me, help me' and then the line went dead. It was horrific."

Kinsella's sister said his family was "determined to fight in his memory to make the streets safe for our children".

"Please can we waste no more time and come together as a country to ensure that no other lives are wasted," she said. "Now it truly is the time to stand up and put an end to this."

Witnesses have told how up to 50 people were involved in a mass brawl near the Shillibeers pub late on Saturday night.

Police believe Kinsella was innocently caught up in the dispute between revellers leaving the pub and a group of youths outside.

Two 16-year-old youths were arrested shortly after the attack and have been released on police bail.

Today, detective superintendent Vic Rae, of the Metropolitan police's homicide and serious crime command, appealed for witnesses to come forward.

"At this moment in time we believe there were four black males involved in the stabbing," he said. "They were about the same age as Ben or slightly older."

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, condemned the murder, saying: "I deeply regret that another young person has lost their life to violence, and my thoughts are with the family of this young man."

    Sister pays tribute to stabbed teenager Ben Kinsella, G, 30.6.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/jun/30/ukcrime.knifecrime

Boy, 8, hanged himself

over cancer deaths

of mother and grandfather

Son used school tie in cry for help, says father

June 7, 2008
From The Times
Aditi Khanna

A boy aged 8 used his school tie to hang himself after his mother and his grandfather both died within the past 12 months.

Joshua Aldred was found unconscious by his grandmother in his bedroom at home in Lytham St Annes yesterday. He was taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital but attempts to resuscitate him failed.

Joshua was dealing with the double tragedy of losing his mother, Sarah, to breast cancer three months ago and his grandfather, John, to prostate cancer in July last year.

His father, Jason Aldred, paid tribute to his “beautiful” son and said that he felt it had been a cry for attention rather than a suicide attempt.

Mr Aldred said: “Outwardly this loving and happy child, who had a great network of family and friends to support him, coped admirably. He missed his mother and spoke of her often. Our very close relationship was of immense support to both of us. A tragic accident at home occurred when Joshua’s sadness at the loss he had experienced at such a young age has resulted in this tragedy.

“The family are sure he expected only to injure himself slightly and are devastated that this cry for attention resulted in the loss of such a beautiful boy.

“Joshua’s school life was happy and they have been monitoring him closely after the death of his mother. He was playing happily with no change in his school work.”

Joshua attended the independent King Edward VII and Queen Mary School in Lytham St Annes.

A statement posted on the school website said: “We are shocked and saddened by news of the death of Joshua Aldred. He was a delightful eight-year-old who will be very sadly missed by everyone.

“We are talking to the children and their parents in the preparatory school and are providing support to them.”

A school spokesman said that Joshua loved music and sport. He said that students’ reactions to his death ranged from “tearful to thoughtful”.

Lancashire Police were keen to halt rumours that Joshua had been the victim of bullying.

“This is not the case,” said one of the officers compiling a report on the boy’s death for the coroner.

“It would appear that the boy has taken the deaths in his family very much to heart and that what happened to his mother and grand-dad was dwelling on him.”

A postmortem examination that was carried out yesterday showed that Joshua’s death was consistent with hanging.

According to NHS figures released last year, more than 4,000 children under the age of 14 attempted to take their own lives in 2006. A total of 69 attempted to hang or suffocate themselves and two tried to take their lives by drowning.

Thirteen children leapt from a great height, while four lay or jumped in front of a moving vehicle. One child deliberately crashed a car. The figures were contained in a report by the Information Centre for Health and Social Care, a body that was set up by the Government to analyse the details behind nearly a million admissions of both adults and children to accident and emergency departments each year.

A free and confidential helpline for children needing to talk to someone about personal problems is run by Childline on 0800 1111.

    Boy, 8, hanged himself over cancer deaths of mother and grandfather, Ts, 7.6.2008, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4084315.ece

Parents of stabbed children arrested

Girl of four and boy of five are dead
and a baby girl is fighting for her life

Sunday, 1 June 2008
The Independent on Sunday
By Ian Griggs


Two young children died from stab wounds and a baby girl was fighting for her life yesterday after an incident at a family home in Surrey on Friday.


A five-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl were found seriously injured at the house in Park Lane, Carshalton, and died shortly after midnight, while a six-month-old baby was in a critical condition with suspected stab wounds.

All three children were initially taken to the A&E department at St Helier Hospital, but the baby girl was later transferred to Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in Westminster, where her condition was described by police yesterday as "serious".

A 39-year-old woman and a 35-year-old man, identified locally as the parents of the children, were arrested in connection with the stabbings.

The Metropolitan Police said officers were called to the house at 10.30pm on Friday. "Police and London Ambulance attended and found three children suffering serious injuries, believed to be stab wounds," a spokesman said.

"We believe we know the identity of the deceased; however, we await formal identification and confirmation that all family members have been informed."

Neighbours near the semi-detached house, which has been taped off by police, said they saw paramedics trying to resuscitate "a tiny bundle" on Friday night. One, who did not wish to be named, said that she saw officers carrying a "limp little body" out of the house. "It was obviously a child," she said.

Jim Duffy, who lives a few doors down from the house, said he saw a woman come out of the house with blood on her back but she did not appear to be injured.

"We saw them bringing a child out and then half an hour later they came out with another child and then a woman who had blood on her dress," he said.

"She was dressed in Indian-style clothes and they took her into an ambulance, not a police car.

"Later, a chap came out. He was quite calm and the police were being quite calm with him. They didn't handcuff him at first and he sat in the front of the police van making a telephone call."

Sen Gupta, who lives opposite the house, said the family was from a Tamil area of Sri Lanka.

"They moved in less than a year ago and she was still pregnant. Obviously she has had the baby now," said Mr Gupta.

Mr Gupta said a group of Sri Lankan people came to the house soon after the incident and told police they had lived in the house with the couple but had moved out because of "problems".

"The police came out and spoke to them. They must have been telling them the children had died, because they started screaming and crying," he added.

Mr Duffy said that after a man arrested in connection with the incident had made a phone call, police put him in the back of a police van. "They later put him in the cage at the back of the van and he seemed to have some sort of argument with the police but he didn't look like he was resisting arrest," he said.

He added that he saw police bringing a small evidence bag out of the house. "If it contained the weapon then it must have been very small. It was so small we couldn't see what it was.

"Carshalton is an oasis and it has become a popular area because house prices are reasonable. You don't get fights or brawls and even the kids are well behaved so this is very unusual."

Fellow neighbour Pat Thomas told how she watched the street fill up with emergency vehicles on Friday night.

"When we heard the fire engines I looked out and I saw a paramedic carrying the baby scooped up in his arms. Next they came out with the children. There were so many ambulances, five or six, that I was expecting them to bring out more people. But when the man and the woman walked out, quite normally, I couldn't believe it."

A post-mortem examination on the bodies of the children is expected to be carried out this week.

    Parents of stabbed children arrested, IoS, 1.6.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/parents-of-stabbed-children-arrested-837815.html

Stop and search:

the hunt for Britain's knives

Nine black and Asian teenagers
have been stabbed in London so far this year.
Andrew Johnson reports

Sunday, 1 June 2008
The Independent on Sunday


The man on the park bench in Hammersmith, west London, was not happy. His responses to the police's stop and search were hostile, hinting at racial harassment – he was black – and worse. He demanded their warrant numbers. Nevertheless, he turned out his pockets and held his arms up, as parents in the children's playground opposite looked on.

Known to the police as a drug dealer, he was clean on this occasion. No drugs, and no weapons. One of his friends was less lucky: a check revealed an outstanding warrant for unpaid fines of £575 and he was carted off to the police station.

Last Friday afternoon, members of Hammersmith and Fulham's robbery squad were out patrolling. Searching for stolen phones; searching for drugs – but especially for knives.

The Home Secretary, the Mayor of London and the police argue that it is the most effective weapon: robberies and knife crime are inextricably linked. The police point to a 50 per cent drop in street robberies over the past couple of years and attribute it directly to stops and searches "disrupting" criminals.

"There are 13- and 14-year-olds for whom carrying a knife is becoming culturally acceptable," said Sergeant Stewart Ratcliffe. "The same people are doing street robberies. We find all kinds of knives – kitchen knives, machetes, we found one kid with a small axe. You'd be amazed what you can hide down the front of your trousers, over your thigh."

Sergeant Ratcliffe's counterparts around the country are under pressure to take more of these weapons, and the people who carry them, off the streets.

By last weekend, the number of teenagers knifed to death in London had risen to 11 this year, with the stabbing of the young actor Robert Knox, 18, in Sidcup, south London, in the early hours of last Saturday.

Of the 11 victims so far this year, nine were black or Asian. The last two stabbings, of Jimmy Mizen and Robert Knox, both white, appeared to propel the issue up the news agenda.

The resultant media barrage on knife crime saw the launch of a £3m government advertising campaign aimed at teenagers, but this was immediately derided by ethnic-minority youth workers. Several questioned whether resources had been targeted effectively and if the people making the decisions had a full understanding of what was happening on the streets.

The police are trying to analyse precisely this. According to the Met, there is a knife-related incident every 52 minutes in London and victims are more than twice as likely to suffer knife-inflicted as they are gun-related violence.

A survey of youth crime which was considered by the Metropolitan Police Authority – the body that oversees policing for the Mayor of London – last week found that the busiest period for youth crime is between 3pm and 5pm, when the schools spill out.

According to the British Crime Survey, widely held to be the most authoritative estimate of crime in the UK, "knife-enabled crime" (any crime where a knife has been seen) has remained stable at between 6 and 7 per cent over the past decade. Similarly, while the numbers of murders in the UK have been rising overall, the numbers involving sharp instruments – which includes bottles, glasses and screwdrivers – has remained stable.

An internal Scotland Yard report reveals, however, that the murder rate for victims aged 20 and under has trebled in the three years between 2005 and 2007. The biggest increase is in victims under 10, as tragically illustrated by the fatal stabbing of two children aged five and six in Carshalton on Friday night.

It is no surprise that many find the statistics confusing. A report by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College noted this "area [knife crime] suffers from a lack of useful, specific, reliable, longitudinal research on the nature, extent, cause, motivation, frequency and possible growth of knife carrying. Without [this], designing and implementing programmes to reduce the incidence of knife carrying will be difficult."

Few surveys actually ask whether the knife carried is a penknife, which can be carried for lawful reasons, or something altogether more sinister like switchblades.

The Home Office-sponsored Offending, Crime and Justice Survey 2005 found that 4 per cent of 10- to 25-year-olds surveyed had carried a knife during the previous 12 months. Of those, four in 10 said it was a penknife and fewer than one in 10 said they had used it to threaten someone. Only 2 per cent said they had actually used it to injure someone.

But on the streets, at the sharp end, so to speak, the police of Hammersmith would beg to differ. On Friday, they were stopping and searching. Their area, like so many in London, is a mix of upmarket period properties in tree-lined streets, three-storey terraces, and pockets of 1960s housing estates and tower blocks.

It is to one of these estates that the police were called by a woman complaining that three youths were smoking cannabis outside one of the blocks.

As the car pulled up, one of the youths was spotted throwing a joint into the bushes. The threat of a sniffer dog and arrest if he didn't retrieve it, opposed to a caution if he did, saw the 20-year-old rooting through the bushes as his mother looked on.

The drugs were confiscated and after an initial flare of anger, the youths were let go.

A few minutes later, on the same estate, the police stopped a youth on a moped after he whizzed past the inside of their unmarked car. He was "a known thief", and had been warned about dangerous driving before. The moped was seized: it will cost him £200 to reclaim it.

"He's been arrested for assault in the past, and is linked to petty thefts and robberies," Sgt Ratcliffe explained. "He's also known to transport people on the back of his moped to and from robberies, so anything we can do to disrupt that activity we will do."

Driving around in their unmarked Mondeo, it was not long before they spotted a youth aged around 16, on a bike riding "without purpose" along Shepherds Bush Green.

He was arrested for robbery on the Green last month, and there he was, back at the scene, providing the police with the "reasonable grounds" they needed to search him. He recognised the police and succumbed to the search – a frisk, a look through pockets and the top of the shoes – without complaint. He said he was only going to visit a friend.

The search – including a quick weapon scan with a metal detector – revealed nothing. The necessary forms were filled in and he was sent on his way.

One of the tactics police used was to "stop for a chat" and see how a suspect reacted. Grabbing a pocket, running away or throwing something away, would give them additional grounds for a search.

And so it proved when the car pulled up next to two youths on bikes during a patrol of a low-rise 1930s estate.

One of boys, aged about 16, instinctively touched his top jacket pocket. A search turned up a small bag of cannabis, which the youth mumbled had cost him about £10. He was judiciously vague about where he brought it from. The police checked his mobile phone, which had a picture of a gun for a screensaver. But he had no real weapons secreted about his person.

His cannabis confiscated, he was given a caution. And so the patrol continued. A few other youths, known to the squad, were stopped. None was armed.

And there lies the nub of the problem. Home Office research has stressed how problematic it is trying to track down knives in this manner – the most recent report in 2003 noted that, out of almost 19,000 people stopped and searched, 7 per cent were found to be carrying offensive or dangerous weapons; of these, only 203 were arrested. The report noted that "hit rates are surprisingly low".

Despite the total yield for a four-hour patrol being just a couple of bags of cannabis, the police in Hammersmith were adamant that stop and search is an effective measure.

"It's about robbery, street crime and knife culture," Sgt Ratcliffe said. "It is all linked. The people who are carrying out robberies are also carrying the knives.

"Stop and search is an essential tool in taking them off the streets and hampering their ability to commit crime."

Additional reporting Sara Odeen-Isbister

    Stop and search: the hunt for Britain's knives, IoS, 1.6.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/stop-and-search-the-hunt-for-britains-knives-837826.html

Amar Aslam, 17,

beaten to death in weekend of violence

May 27, 2008
From The Times
Steve Bird

An Asian teenager was beaten to death in a park in West Yorkshire after pitched battles between rival gangs of youths.

The severely battered body of Amar Aslam, 17, was found in a walled wildlife garden in Crow Nest Park, Dewsbury, at 7.30pm on Sunday. His death was feared to have been the culmination of a series of fights between youths in the park over the weekend.

It remains unclear whether the boy was in a gang and killed by a rival group or was an innocent bystander targeted by youths who beat him and left him for dead. While police are keeping an open mind about the motive, it was not thought to be racial.

Three local males, two aged 15 and one aged 20, were arrested in connection with the killing yesterday.

Amar’s death is the latest crime in a violent Bank Holiday weekend that left Robert Knox, 18, a Harry Potter film actor, dead from stab wounds in Sidcup, southeast London. Last night Karl Bishop, 21, from Sidcup, was charged with Mr Knox’s murder. He is due to appear at Bexley Magistrates’ Court this morning.

Also at the weekend two black teenagers were wounded after shootings in Camden and Archway, North London. A 19-year-old man was in a critical condition in hospital after being found stabbed outside East Ham Underground station on Sunday night, and a second man, also aged 19, was arrested after he was found near by with head injuries.

Two youths suffered knife wounds after gangs clashed outside a Nando’s restaurant in Nottingham on Sunday evening, and on Friday night James Graham, 29, was beaten to death in Hendon, northwest London.

In Dewsbury, businessmen and a family friend of the victim expressed concern about the “intimidating” gangs of youths meeting at the park, which is between a number of housing estates including Dewsbury Moor, the run-down estate where the schoolgirl Shannon Matthews lived. Detective Superintendent Chris Thompson said that he was “very confident” that there were a large number of young people who had seen the attack.

Amar suffered such a “sustained and brutal” assault that it was not clear initially what caused his death. His body was discovered by two people walking in the park.

A source close to the victim’s family said that the Bank Holiday had been marred by violence between gangs. The man, who did not wish to be named, said: “There was fighting between a white gang and a non-white gang. There is a belief that there may be a link between that and the killing. His family are absolutely distraught.”

Ibrar Ali, a neighbour, said last night that the teenager, who is believed to have attended Birkdale High School, had been saving up to visit family members in Pakistan. His father and brother are currently in the country. Mr Ali added: “Amar was a quiet lad. He was certainly never any bother, he was quiet and often alone.”

Mr Thompson said that the good weather had attracted crowds of young people to the park. “It is very important that they come forward to establish the events leading up to this incident,” he said.

The park was sealed off by police while they conducted a fingertip search of the area. A post-mortem examination revealed that Amar died from severe head injuries.

Kanuroy Patel, the owner of nearby Roy’s Minimarket, said: “There are often gangs of young people hanging around the park. It is really intimidating. It is terrifying when this happens in your area.”

Bilal Sadiq, 18, added: “There has been two Iraqi men and one Asian man terrorising and lashing out at people in the park during the day.”

Shahid Malik, the Dewsbury MP, who lives a short distance from the murder scene, said that he was shocked by the killing, but called for calm. “It is crucial that people put their faith in the police, stay cool and not jump to any conclusions,” he said.

Amar had been wearing white tracksuit bottoms, black trainers, and a “Bench” top. The walled garden where his body was found had been transformed recently into a wildlife garden with seating, mosaics, plants and shrubs. It is surrounded by terrace houses and former textile mills. A short distance away is Dewsbury Moor housing estate, home mainly to white people. A few miles away is Savile Town, a predominantly Asian estate.

This latest death comes six months after Ahmed Hassan, 17, a Heckmondwike Grammar School pupil studying for four A levels, died at the town’s railway station from a single stab wound. Two teenagers are due to stand trial at Leeds Crown Court, West Yorkshire, next month, charged with his murder.

Dewsbury was also the home of Mohammad Sidique Khan, the suicide bomber who led the attacks on London in July 2005.

Racial tensions in the town have been exploited by the British National Party, which received its highest vote there in the 2005 general election.

    Amar Aslam, 17, beaten to death in weekend of violence, Ts, 27.5.2008, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4007714.ece

Young 'Harry Potter' actor

is killed in knife attack

Rob Knox, 18, is the 14th teenage victim this year
of the capital's gang and knife culture,
as Met increases stop-and-search

Sunday, 25 May 2008
The Independent on Sunday
By Andrew Johnson


An 18-year-old actor became this year's 14th teenage victim of London's knife and gun street culture yesterday when he was stabbed in a brawl outside a bar in Sidcup, just two weeks after 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen was knifed to death outside a bakery in nearby Lee.

Four other young men were treated for stab wounds after a fight broke out in Sidcup shortly after midnight. A 16-year-old was stabbed in the chest; a 21-year-old is in hospital after being stabbed in the neck; and another youth was treated for a hand wound. Police said a 21-year-old man had been arrested.

The man who died was named yesterday as Rob Knox. He is understood to have had a minor role in the next Harry Potter film. A statement from Warner Bros released yesterday said: "We are all shocked and saddened by this news ... our sympathies are with his family."

An internal Scotland Yard report obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveals that, while violent crime is generally falling in London, the murder rate for victims aged 20 and under "has more than doubled in the past three years". It adds: "The 11- to 20-year-old age group has also nearly doubled in gang [and] public order type violence."

As if to underline the point, a boy of 17 was fighting for his life last night after being shot in Archway, north London, in an incident being investigated by Scotland Yard's Trident squad.

On Thursday, London's Metropolitan Police Authority will hear grim details of research into life on some of the city's streets for young people. The report highlights fear among teens who say they are scared to travel on public transport, to leave their own "endz" or postcode areas, and that dinner-money theft is so common it is hardly reported. Of children interviewed who said they had been victims of crime, just 47 per cent said they had reported it to police, indicating that actual crime could be twice as bad as official figures. It adds that despite this, young people are suspicious of stop-and-search powers, which the Met is stepping up to try to combat knife crime.

The sentiments were echoed by the Children's Commissioner for England yesterday. Sir Al Aynsley-Green said: "There is a balance here: on the one hand for young people to feel safer by police [presence], but on the other making sure new powers don't create further antagonism by increased stopping and searching."

Alf Hitchcock, Acting Assistant Commissioner of the Met, said the force was working on community initiatives and tougher policing to clamp down on knife culture. Measures include sending police to schools to talk to pupils, an anonymous texting service to report crime, to begin next month, and a nationwide "one strike and you're out" policy.

"If you are caught with a knife and there is an aggravating factor, such as you are in school, you will go to court," he said. "It's a long-term effort," he said, adding that no single measure would solve the problem, which involves social deprivation, parenting and criminality.

The toll

Teenagers killed in 2008 nationally:

Henry Bolombi, 17, 1 Jan 2008;

Bradley Whitfield, 16, 1 Jan;

Faridon Alizada, 18, 5 Jan;

Alex Holroyd, 19, 10 Jan;

Boduka Mudianga, 18, 21 Jan; Faud Buraleh, 19, 26 Jan;

Joe Dinsdale, 17, 11 Feb;

Sunday Essiet, 15, 19 Feb;

Tung Le, 17, 23 Feb;

Ofiyke Nmezu, 16, 29 Feb; Ahmed Mohammed Ibrahim,

17, 10 Mar;

Michael Jones, 18, 13 Mar; Nicholas Clarke, 19, 14 Mar; Devoe Roach, 17, 27 Mar;

Amro Elbadawi, 14, 27 Mar; Robert Spence, 17, 2 May;

Lyle Tulloch, 15, 3 May;

Jimmy Mizen, 16, 10 May; Nathan Lyons, 17, 13 May;

Rob Knox, 18, 24 May.

    Young 'Harry Potter' actor is killed in knife attack, IoS, 25.5.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/young-harry-potter-actor-is-killed-in-knife-attack-834024.html

5.15pm BST update

Child protection board

launches investigates death of 'starved girl'

Friday May 23 2008
Guardian.co.uk
David Batty and agencies
This article was first published
on guardian.co.uk on Friday May 23 2008.
It was last updated at 18:11 on May 23 2008.

The board overseeing child protection work in Birmingham today launched an independent inquiry into the death of seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq, alleged to have been starved at her home.

The Birmingham Safeguarding Children Board said it had "now commenced a serious case review, an independent examination into the circumstances surrounding the death of Khyra".

"The findings of this review will be made public in due course following the completion of the criminal process," the board said in a statement.

Police are still awaiting the results of a post-mortem examination on Khyra's body, but sources said the girl was believed to have died of starvation.

She and her five siblings are reported to have been in an emaciated state when paramedics were called to their home in Leyton Road, in the Handsworth area of Birmingham.

Khyra's mother, Angela Gordon, 33, and her partner, 29-year-old Junaid Abuhamza, have appeared in court charged with causing or allowing her death through neglect.

All agencies involved in child protection in Birmingham will conduct internal reviews as part of the inquiry into her death.

"This is partly to provide information to other investigations but, equally importantly, it is to find out if there are any gaps in the processes, procedures or guidance which could have made a difference," a Birmingham City council spokesman said.

"If any are found, immediate changes will be made without waiting for the findings of the investigations."

The council expressed its sympathies to Khyra's family and pledged to take care of her siblings, who have been taken into foster care.

"Khyra's death is a tragedy, and our thoughts are with her family, friends and the local community within which she lived," the spokesman said.

"All those people can be reassured that the city council and all other agencies involved are doing everything they can to find out what happened and look after her brothers and sisters to the best of our ability. "

Council psychologists were offering support to pupils and teachers at Khyra's school, Grove Primary, in Handsworth.

The council spokesman added that efforts had been made to update and reassure the local Labour MP, Khalid Mahmood, who has been critical of the handling of Khyra's case.

Yesterday, he accused the council of taking a "head in the sand approach" and said it needed to do more to reassure the local community.

The MP said some council officers had been instructed not to talk to him about Khyra, who died at Birmingham Children's hospital after paramedics were called to her home early on Saturday.

It has also been claimed that some of the children in the house may have eaten scraps of bread left out for birds in a neighbour's garden.

Mahmood told reporters on Wednesday that the siblings had been removed from school by their mother 10 weeks ago after claims of bullying.

He was told that an educational social worker had paid a visit to the family home, but no follow-up checks were made.

    Child protection board launches investigates death of 'starved girl', G, 23.5.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/may/23/childprotection.justice

5.15pm BST

Two charged with neglect after girl dies

Wednesday May 21 2008
Press Association guardian.co.uk
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Wednesday May 21 2008.
It was last updated at 17:10 on May 21 2008

Two people have appeared in court, charged with neglect, after a seven-year-old girl died, police said today.

The girl, from Handsworth, Birmingham, died of starvation, ITV News reported. West Midlands police named her as Khyra Ishaq.

Angela Gordon, 33, and 29-year-old Junaid Abuhamza, believed to be Khyra's mother and stepfather, appeared before magistrates in the city.

The report said a neighbour in the Leyton Road area described seeing children at a house grabbing bread that had been thrown out for birds.

West Midlands police refused to confirm that starvation was the cause of death.

In a statement, the force said: "We can confirm that a seven-year-old girl was taken to hospital on Saturday 17 May, where she was pronounced dead. Her cause of death has not been confirmed at this stage.

"Police are conducting inquiries, and a man aged 29 and a woman aged 33 have been charged with neglect and appeared before Birmingham magistrates on May 19. They have been remanded to appear again on 28 May.

"As proceedings are active, we cannot comment further at this time."

    Two charged with neglect after girl dies, G, 21.5.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/21/ukcrime2

Anti-Semitic violence nears record level

Saturday, 17 May 2008
The Independent
By Emily Dugan


The number of anti-Semitic attacks in Britain has reached its second-highest level ever, MPs have been told. Figures from a charity show 547 such incidents were recorded last year, of which a record 114 were violent assaults.

The Community Security Trust (CST), which works to protect the Jewish community from persecution, collated the figures by counting every recorded anti-Semitic assault, threat, act of abuse, mass-produced literature and damage and desecration of Jewish property across the country.

Just this week, anti-Semitic graffiti was daubed across the pavements and walls of the orthodox Jewish neighbourhood of Stamford Hill in north London. CST say similar incidents happen in Britain every day.

Mark Gardner, a spokesman for CST, said: "We have over twice as many incidents being reported to us per annum now than in the 1990s. We're concerned that what we're seeing is not merely because of a difficult time internationally and in the Middle East, but that it's becoming more endemic and we're really, really concerned about that."

Mr Gardner said the usual allies of British Jews fear showing support would further the Zionist cause. "In the 1990s, when Jews faced attacks from the far right there was a lot of sympathy from the liberal left establishments, but today the same voices simply see anti-Semitism as something useful to Zionists.

"Jewish people are feeling increasingly isolated in this struggle as far as traditional allies are concerned. It's disappointing that people who accept fears expressed by other minority groups are so quick to slap down fears expressed by the Jewish community." In a Commons debate on the issue this week, the Cohesion minister Parmjit Dhanda said the number of incidents of anti-Semitism was worryingly high, and called on the Government to continue to bear down on the problem. "We do recognise that there is no room for complacency," said Mr Dhanda. "The number of such incidences in the UK remains far too high. The Community Security Trust recorded 547 incidents during the course of 2007. Although this represents an 8 per cent fall over the previous year, it is still the second-worst actually on record."

Jon Benjamin, the chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said they were "extremely encouraged" by the Government's response. He said anti-Semitism had been a reality in the Jewish community for years in Britain, but there had been further signs it was getting worse.

"We know our community buildings have to be secure, and our schools need security," he said. "The quality of life for Jews here is good, but there are perceptible changes, such as the graffiti this week. People wearing head coverings to synagogue on a Saturday morning can feel somewhat vulnerable."

The total of incidents is slightly down on last year's record, but the most alarming change is the number of these that were violent assaults. This figure has risen to 114, the highest since CST records began in 1984.

The Conservative MP Paul Goodman said that while many places of worship were targets for hate crime, synagogues were becoming singularly dangerous. "Only one religious institution in Britain is under threat to such a degree that those who attend are advised not to linger outside after worship, namely the synagogue," he said.

    Anti-Semitic violence nears record level, I, 17.5.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/antisemitic-violence-nears-record-level-829984.html

Two held over Oxford Street stabbing

Wednesday, 14 May 2008
The Independent
By Joe Sinclair, PA


Police were questioning two men today in connection with the murder of a man fatally stabbed in Oxford Street.

Steven Bigby, 22, from Hackney, east London, was stabbed in the chest on Monday afternoon in a row which erupted after a drink was thrown.

Two men, aged 18 and 19, were arrested last night and are being held at an east London police station, a Metropolitan Police spokesman said.

A post-mortem examination at Westminster Mortuary confirmed the victim died of a single stab wound to the heart.

It was also reported today that Mr Bigby was awaiting trial for the rape of a 16-year-old girl and that, in a separate case, he was due to go on trial for wounding with intent and violent disorder.

The murder was the latest in a spate of stabbings and homicides which prompted police to step up the fight against knife crime.

A stop and search team of 15 officers was deployed on the streets of the capital last night, the first of up to 10 squads which will hit knife-crime hotspots across London in the coming days.

Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Tim Godwin said the "fairly-in-your-face" policing would be intelligence-led and with the support of the community, with whom they had shared information.

Police will be able to stop and search people under Section 60 of the Public Order Act, which does not require reasonable suspicion.

The Home Office has provided an additional 100 knife arches and 200 wands for the operation.

Mr Godwin said: "We really, really, really have to do something about carrying weapons on the streets of London, that results in when you have a barney (with someone) you end up stabbing them instead of hitting them.

"You can't do this from police action alone. It has to be with the full support and commitment of the community."

He said: "Our objective is not about harassing anybody. It's about making everybody as safe as we can in London and if people walk around with knives it dramatically reduces your safety because you could end up with it stuck in you."

Areas to be targeted under Operation Blunt II could include schools, transport hubs and pubs in the boroughs worst affected by knife crime.

Mr Godwin said stop and search was the "natural reaction" to the "horrendous events" of the past few days, adding that he saw it being carried out "long-term".

Some 27 teenagers were murdered in the capital last year.

Since the beginning of this year 13 teenagers have been murdered, including nine stabbings and a shooting.

Mr Bigby died after two groups of black men clashed outside a McDonald's restaurant.

Before the arrests, detectives said they were hunting four black men aged between 20 and 30 who fled the scene.

One of the men was wearing a red T-shirt, another a white T-shirt, the third was in a vest and muscular, while the fourth wore dark clothing.

There were four people in one group and at least three people in Mr Bigby's group.

Acting Detective Chief Inspector Bob Mahoney said yesterday: "Two groups of black men came together. A drink was thrown. The incident escalated very quickly and Steven was fatally stabbed.

"At the moment we are treating it as a spontaneous incident.

"There is nothing to suggest that this is a gang-related crime or linked to any other incidents. We are still looking into it.

"There is a possibility that the four men were walking up and down on Oxford Street during the afternoon. It is possible they may have been seen promenading."

Forensic tests are being carried out on the knife which was recovered at the scene.

After the first night of the stop and search initiative, a police spokesman said no information was yet available on how many people had been stopped or arrested.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith gave her full support to the operation, which came as new guidelines to magistrates suggested some offenders caught carrying knives could be punished with a fine.

The range of sentences when someone is found with a bladed weapon - but it is not used to "threaten or cause fear" - should be from a fine to 12 weeks' imprisonment, the Sentencing Guidelines Council said.

The Home Secretary said: "(Secretary of State for Justice) Jack Straw and I have agreed that we will work with the courts in London to ensure that the gravity of knife crime is taken fully into account in sentencing, and action will be escalated so that custody will be much more likely for possession of a knife."

    Two held over Oxford Street stabbing, I, 14.5.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/two-held-over-oxford-street-stabbing-827854.html

Teenager arrested in hunt

for south-east London killer

Tuesday May 13 2008
Guardian.co.uk
Haroon Siddique
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Tuesday May 13 2008.
It was last updated at 18:08 on May 13 2008.

Police investigating the murder of a teenage boy in south-east London arrested a 19-year-old man in connection with the killing today.

Jimmy Mizen, described as a "gentle giant", was stabbed to death in an attack at the Three Cooks bakery in Lee on Saturday.

His attacker seized an advertising board, forced his way into the bakery shop and wrecked the premises.

Jimmy, 16, received a fatal slash wound to his throat during the onslaught, dying in his brother's arms after being attacked with a shard of glass when he refused a challenge to fight.

It is not clear whether the victim knew his attacker.

A Metropolitan police spokeswoman urged the media not to speculate about the identity of the teenager currently in police custody, saying that could prove prejudicial to the investigation.

Yesterday, police appealed for more witnesses, saying they had retrieved CCTV footage gathered from the surrounding area.

Detective Chief Inspector Cliff Lyons, of the Metropolitan police homicide and serious crime command, said a forensic science examination had recovered "significant material".

Lyons, who is leading the investigation, said the incident was "not being linked to any ongoing police investigation, neither does it have any racial or gang element".

Jimmy – who had gone out that day to buy his first lottery ticket - was the 13th teenager to be murdered in London this year.

His parents, Barry, 56, and 55-year-old Margaret, paid tribute to him yesterday.

"He was happy-go-lucky, loved his family, loved his guitar and playing rugby in the garden," his mother said.

Her husband said his son was a "dear, dear, sweet young man, we loved him dearly. On the night of his birthday he was going out with his friends and we cuddled him. That is just a great, great memory".

Asked about the parents of her son's attacker, Jimmy's mother said: "What can you really say to them?

"You can imagine, that's their child, they held that boy in their own arms as a baby. They must be in pain. It's so painful that their child has been so cruel and so wicked."

    Teenager arrested in hunt for south-east London killer, G, 13.5.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/13/ukcrime
 

5pm BST

Knife crime 'not increasing'

Tuesday May 13 2008
Guardian.co.uk
Elizabeth Stewart
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Tuesday May 13 2008.
It was last updated at 16:58 on May 13 2008.

The fatal stabbing of a man yesterday in one of London's busiest shopping streets in broad daylight has again thrown up headlines about knife crime in Britain.

Boris Johnson, in accepting the office of London mayor, pledged to rid the capital of the "scourge" of knife crime.

Just hours beforehand, 15-year-old Lylle Tulloch had been stabbed to death in stairwell in Southwark, the 12th teenage fatality in London this year. Since then, 16-year-old Jimmy Mizen was murdered in south-east London, and yesterday a young man in his twenties was knifed outside a McDonalds in Oxford Street.

Incidents such as these have fuelled the public perception that knife crime is out of control, yet this is not borne out by the statistics.

According to the British Crime Survey, knife-enabled crime (any crime involving a knife) over the past decade has remained stable at around 6-7% of all crime, comprising 30% of all homicides.

In fact, the most recent crime survey by the Metropolitan police showed that knife crime has actually dropped by 15.7% over the past two years, from 12,122 to 10,220 incidents.

Nevertheless, that still amounts to a knife-related incident every 52 minutes. Knife crimes were also four times more prevalent than gun crimes; and the risk of serious injury was more than double than that for gun crime – statistics that will give the London mayor and his newly appointed knife tsar, Ray Lewis, pause for thought.

Concern over stabbings is not limited to the capital, however. The prevalence of knives on the streets has increased in recent years, according to the Police Federation of England and Wales which will be discussing knife crime and gang violence at the organisation's annual conference next week.

Knife crime affects young people disproportionately. Statistics show that teenagers in London, particularly those between the ages of 17 and 20, are the most likely to be victims of knife crime, according to the Metropolitan police.

Also notable is the increase in violent crimes committed by 15 and 16-year-olds. According a survey compiled by the Youth Justice Board (YJB), violent offences committed by 16-year-olds rose from 17% in 2004, to 25% in 2005, while those perpetrated by 15-year-olds climbed from 20% in 2004, to 26% in 2005.

Related to this is the increased number of young people arming themselves with knives. The YJB survey reported a 12% increase in the number of teenagers carrying knives since 2002, with the proportion of girls carrying knives rising sharply in recent years, from 15% in 2004 to 21% in 2005.

One in five of those convicted for possessing a knife were aged between 10 and 17 in 2006, according to Home Office statistics.

In their report, the YJB asserted that the increase in children carrying knives was primarily out of fear of bullying or attack, the perception that all their peers carry knives, or to gain "street cred".

"There is an overlap between teenagers who carry weapons and those who have been victims of knife crime," Enver Solomon, deputy director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies told the Guardian.

"If someone has been a victim of crime, they might carry a weapon because they feel unsafe. They don't inherently want to stab someone; it's just that the knife in the pocket makes them feel secure. The majority of children are carrying pen-knives, not machetes," he said.

Simply clamping down on the supply of knives – such as the installation of metal detectors at schools or equipping police with mobile metal detectors, as Mayor Johnson recently suggested – is not sufficient to address the problem, he added.

Instead, the mayor should focus on the social conditions in a cluster of boroughs that have generated a disproportionate number of the capital's knife crimes. Quoting Metropolitan police studies, Solomon said 2% of London wards have been responsible for 10% of all violent crimes involving teenagers.

"If you examine the conditions in these wards, these are areas of high social deprivation, social exclusion and lack of opportunities for young people," he explained. "The focus should not be on enforcement, but rather on opportunities for kids, through youth support services, peer mentoring schemes and employment opportunities for school-leavers."

Home Office measures to tackle knife crime have included an amnesty in 2006, which resulted in almost 100,000 knives being handed in, the doubling of the maximum penalty for possession of a knife from two to four years' imprisonment, giving teachers new powers to search students for weapons, raising the minimum age for knife ownership to 18 and, most recently, imposing a ban on samurai swords.

But focusing on deterrence is inadequate, said Solomon, adding that the key to reducing knife crime was creating a safer environment for youngsters as well as increasing opportunities for young school leavers.

"You have to look at the social drivers. Why do young boys slip into the illegal drugs economy? It's not a positive choice, but for some of them it seems to be the only choice. You have to use a range of policy levers to tackle this problem."

    Knife crime 'not increasing', G, 13.5.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/13/ukcrime.boris

Midday BST update

Barrister shot dead

in London police siege

Wednesday May 7 2008
Guardian.co.uk
Vikram Dodd, crime correspondent, Esther Addley and Sadie Gray
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk
on Wednesday May 07 2008.
It was last updated

at 12:17 on May 07 2008.

A gunman shot dead after repeatedly opening fire on police during a five-hour stand-off in an exclusive west London square has been named locally as a practising barrister who may also have recently served in the British army.

Mark Saunders, 32, shot at officers three times from a flat in Markham Square, Chelsea, just off Kings Road, and armed police from the CO19 unit returned fire each time.

Scotland Yard said he was pronounced dead shortly after he opened fire for the third time at 9.30pm yesterday. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was informed and an investigation into his death began last night.

Officers were this morning investigating the claims that Saunders had served as a soldier, according to the Press Association.

Chelsea siege suspect Mark Saunders He was an expert in family law, specialising in the division of assets after divorces, and was regarded as a rising figure in his field.

Saunders graduated from Christ Church, Oxford, with a law degree and was called to the bar in 1999. He worked from QEB chambers in London.

His entry in Chambers & Partners Guide to the Legal Profession said: "Mark Saunders enters the up-and-coming category after a volley of praise.

"Observers note that despite his youth he has a 'maturity, unflappability and lack of hesitation in his addresses' that puts one in mind of the hoariest proponents of the law."

He was found in the £2.2m flat when, following the third burst of gunfire, officers stormed the property after apparently using stun grenades. Eyewitnesses reported seeing green flashes and hearing several loud bangs before the police carried out their raid.

Saunders is thought to be the first person shot dead by Metropolitan police officers since Jean Charles de Menezes was killed in July 2005 at Stockwell underground station after being mistaken for a terrorist suspect.

It is understood he was killed by an officer, and did not shoot himself; police sources said last night they were confident the investigation would find he had been killed lawfully.

A spokesman for the IPCC said: "The commission will independently investigate the fatal shooting of a man in the Kings Road area of Chelsea tonight.

"At 9.50pm the Metropolitan Police Service referred the incident to the IPCC."

Officers were called to the property shortly before 5pm after Saunders reportedly began shooting from the rear of a house in Markham Square. They were shot at and returned fire.

A police negotiator arrived at the scene, but shots were again heard at 9pm, and then at 9.30pm, shortly after which Saunders was fatally injured.

The armed officers had been patrolling London in an armed response vehicle, which has special permission to carry arms and is designed to respond to rapidly emerging firearms situations.

Witnesses said the siege began after a woman, believed to be Saunders' girlfriend or former partner, was seen leaving the block of flats in tears.

One woman, who declined to be named, said Saunders had begun shooting from the rear of a house in Markham Square in the direction of her own property, in the adjoining Bywater Street, with a shotgun. The two houses' gardens back on to each other.

She said he began shooting at random into her house from a second-floor flat, without opening his window.

He fired into one of her second floor bedrooms, breaking the window and sending shot spraying over pictures in the room.

She was outside with a friend, heard gunshots, and went upstairs to see Saunders re-loading the gun.

The woman, who was not named, said: "It's just very strange. I think it's going to hit me tomorrow, I don't know why someone was shooting at my house.

"I have no idea who he is, I've never seen him in my life. I had been sitting outside with a friend five minutes before. At first I thought they were firecrackers, or that he was shooting at a cat or something in a tree; but then I saw the shotgun."

Police cordoned off 200 metres of the exclusive area and told residents and workers in shops and restaurants nearby to stay indoors.

A woman who lives next door to the house where Saunders was, said she had heard a total of six shots. "I was making dinner for my two children just before 5pm when I heard shots. I heard three shots before the police arrived, then I heard three more after the police came."

Earlier, Linda Logan, 45, described how she could see armed police training weapons on a house in the square, three doors down from where she was visiting friends. She said: "It's shocking. I can see three police gunmen crouching outside my window, watching and aiming at a house further along.

"Earlier in the afternoon we heard a little cracking noise, which sounded like a builder had thrown a piece of concrete out of a window. We didn't take much notice at the time, but then about 15 minutes later there was another cracking noise and then a short succession of more cracks. We still didn't realise they were gunshots.

"Then we looked out of the window and saw that Kings Road had been shut off and there were armed policemen running past the house."

    Barrister shot dead in London police siege, G, 7.5.2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/07/ukguns.london

Mother mourns

her 'irreplaceable' sons

found dead in car

Tuesday, 6 May 2008
The Independent
By Lawrence Conway


A grieving mother has paid tribute to her "irreplaceable" sons after the bodies of the two young brothers were found in a parked car.


The deaths of Paul Ross, six, and Jay Ross, two, are being investigated by Strathclyde Police who discovered the car, north of Glasgow, on Saturday.

The boys' mother, Giselle Ross, said: "Paul and Jay were beautiful boys who were well-loved by all the family and everyone who knew them. They did not deserve to die.

"Paul wasn't even allowed to play outside in case he came to any harm.

"Both boys loved their mum – they were real mummy's boys. They are irreplaceable and are greatly missed by all the family."

A man was found at the scene with severe burns. He remains in a critical condition in hospital.

Post-mortem examinations have been performed and police said the deaths were being treated as murder.

The boys, from the Royston area of Glasgow, were discovered late in the afternoon in a lay-by near the Campsie Fells beauty spot in East Dunbartonshire. Police have been searching area for evidence.

Elizabeth Davidson, the headteacher at Royston Primary School, where the older boy was a pupil, said: "Paul was a lovely, well-behaved, quiet young boy. I'm certain that children who knew Paul and his brother will be devastated when they learn of this tragic news. The school has been made aware of the incident and shall be supporting the mother in any way it can. Our thoughts and prayers are with her at this sad time."

Local people spoke of the shock at the deaths of the two boys, who lived in a flat with their mother.

The boys' father was estranged from Ms Ross, who lost her own mother a few months ago.

One neighbour said: "It's just so sad; it's a terrible thing to have happened. I live next door and my heart goes out to them."

Another woman said: "Words can't describe it. I used to see the mother passing by with the two wee boys, one of them in the pram. I think she must be in a terrible place.

"We were at mass on Sunday and everyone was talking about it.

"I didn't know the family well but I did know the grandmother quite well.

"The mother and grandmother were very close and the mum was devastated when she passed away, heartbroken. To bury your mum not long ago and then bury your two babies is just awful."

A neighbour of the boys' father, who lives in the Cowcaddens area of Glasgow, said he thought the man worked as a taxi driver.

"We used to see him around sometimes with the boys, usually about once a week," he added. "Everyone is in shock here, it is a horrible thing to have happened."

The lay-by where the boys were found is popular with visitors because of the views across Glasgow and its location near the Campsie hills. Flowers have been laid at the scene by well-wishers.

A spokeswoman for Strathclyde Police said yesterday: "We are following a positive line of inquiry."

    Mother mourns her 'irreplaceable' sons found dead in car, I, 6.5.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/mother-mourns-her-irreplaceable-sons-found-dead-in-car-821606.html