Angry joins fight against knife culture

A rock legend, prominent youth worker and a high-profile Catholic priest have joined forces to curb the growing knife culture in Australia.

Rose Tattoo frontman Angry Anderson, Melbourne youth worker Les Twentyman and prominent Melbourne priest Father Bob Maguire called for a national awareness campaign to reverse an alarming increase in armed attacks.

Figures recently released by Victoria Police show 752 robberies in the 2008-09 financial year involved knives, a nine per cent increase on the year before.

A growing number of attacks involving teenagers on city streets and in railway stations across the country has also prompted calls for government intervention.

"There are racial issues, cultural issues, a lot of issues to face here," Mr Anderson told reporters on Friday.

"The real issue is, they are our kids and they are killing one another, in schools, at stations, at bus stops, at sporting events."

Mr Anderson said worried parents had approached him with their concerns.

"You talk to mums and dads - domestic violence isn't in the home any more," he said.

"It's out on the street."

Victoria will hold an amnesty next month asking people to hand in knives, with no questions asked, while new laws will allow police to conduct random body searches in designated areas.

But Mr Twentyman said more needed to be done, with a hard-hitting education and advertising campaign at the top of his wish list.

He said children as young as six were carrying weapons and schools were no longer safe.

"Teachers are telling me they are going off on record amounts of stress (leave), because they are in an unsafe working environment now," he said.

"We have to start attacking this in the school yards and the classrooms, because that's where it is all starting.

"If we can't treat it there, I don't know how we are going to treat it on the streets out here."

Mr Twentyman, who has been stabbed twice, said the use of weapons became more prevalent locally after the 1992 Australian film Romper Stomper.

The film, which starred Russell Crowe, followed the exploits of a neo-Nazi skinhead group in the western Melbourne suburb of Footscray.

"When Romper Stomper hit our town ... particularly the Asian community feared for their safety," Mr Twentyman said.

"That was when I believe the weapon thing really started to explode."

He said a big-budget advertising campaign, similar to the one used by the Transport Accident Commission to curb drink driving, was needed. continues here

'The killers' families attacked us and spat and swore at us': Actress Brooke Kinsella recounts in raw detail her brother's murder

On October 13, 2008, I saw for the first time the three men who murdered my brother Ben. They walked into a courtroom at the Old Bailey with their heads lowered, their eyes looking everywhere but at me and my parents.

I was sitting next to the dock and if I reached out, I could have touched the one nearest to me. There was no glass, no barrier - they weren't even in handcuffs. I fought the urge to jump on them, to hurt them, to scream at them and demand: 'Why?'

They were in court that day to state how they would plead. The first, Jade Braithwaite, looked ahead and said firmly: 'Not guilty.' My heart sank.

Then the second, Michael Alleyne, said: 'Not guilty,' his voice full of attitude. The third, baby-faced Juress Kika, choked on his words and mumbled so quietly that the court clerk asked him to repeat his plea. 'Not guilty,' he whispered a second time. It was then that my suspicions were realised: these men knew what they had done that night. 

Kika had given away his fear and their guilt, and I prayed everybody would see it. At last, surely, I would get justice for my brother. Some members of the defendants' families made our ordeal a hundred times more difficult. I never expected help from them, but I wasn't prepared for the intimidation, violence and pure nastiness of certain relatives.

To physically attack my friends and family, to spit on them and call them 'scum' and other disgusting names, to sing 'who let the dogs out' as we walked by, to have the audacity to tell my dad to 'walk away and have respect' - I could never understand any of it. Their behaviour was despicable. Yet every time we reported them to the court security staff and our police liaison officer, we were told that CCTV footage showed nothing.

Events came to a head the day that one person apparently said about my brother: 'So what? He's dead anyway.' These words were said to one of Ben's best friends and when he lost his temper and began shouting, a male relation of one of the defendants grabbed him by the throat and threw him against a wall. Once again we complained, but this intimidating thug was back at court the next day.

As if to add insult to injury, my sister Jade was warned she wouldn't be allowed in court if she was caught looking at the men who had killed her brother. Yet their families could physically and verbally attack us with no consequences. It seemed wrong. It was all about giving the defendants a fair trial - but when would anyone recognise the injustice done to us?...

Ben was murdered on Sunday, June 29, 2008. He was 16. I have used many words in connection with my brother over the years --annoying and lazy among them --but never did I think I would place his name next to a terrible word such as murder.

He was stabbed to death on the day I was supposed to be moving out of our family home in Islington, North London. I didn't really want to leave but my mother Deborah convinced me to give it a try after 24 years wrapped in the soft, comfy cotton wool of a home filled with noise and laughter, love and affection.

It might not have been that way. My sister Jade and I have the same father but when I was six our parents split. Our mother brought up us alone until she met George, a taxi driver who had two children of his own, Christopher and Holly. 

Over the years, George went from being my stepfather to just being Dad. And the thing I love about him most is that he gave us Ben and my 14-year-old sister Georgia. Our parents always did the best for us. Mum enrolled me at the nearby Anna Scher drama school, not because I had talent but because she hoped it would dispel my shyness. 

Even when I landed a part on EastEnders, playing Kelly Taylor, I lived at home. The role was supposed to last only eight episodes but I ended up being in the BBC show for three years. 

Ben never boasted that I was his sister after I became a sort of celebrity. If anything, he was embarrassed, especially when I appeared in photoshoots for some lads' magazines. Lounging around in a bikini, I would feel glamorous and sexy, but I never considered that Ben's mates would leer at the pictures. 

My brother was always hardworking, a clown with a contagious laugh and a smile that could melt you. I had gone shopping the day before Ben's death, stopping at the internet cafe where he worked. I handed him a burger from McDonald's, which he ate in two bites. He said he would see me later, I gave him a kiss and walked away. 

I went home that night after performing in a play in Hackney to find the house empty except for Christopher. Mum, Dad and Georgia were away for the weekend and Jade, who is three years younger than me, was out partying. Ben, apparently, had come home from work before going back out to meet his friends.

When our home phone rang at 2.30am, I stumbled out of bed to pick it up, half asleep and half in fear. 'Brooke,' said Jade. 'Something's happened to Ben.' 

'What?' I whispered. There was the sound of sobbing. 'He's been stabbed,' she said. 

Christopher and I got to hospital at 3am after waiting for what seemed an eternity for a taxi to arrive. I remember kneeling in the road outside my house, crying and praying for the cab to hurry up, for Jade's words to be a big mistake, for my brother to be OK. 

As we arrived, Jade fell on me, sobbing. I begged her for information but she knew nothing more. A friend who had been at the scene had called her with the news that Ben had been stabbed. By this time, my parents were rushing along a motorway, desperately trying to reach the hospital. 

A nurse told me that Ben had a stab wound to his stomach, two to his lungs and one in his chest that had punctured his heart. 

My parents got to the hospital at 4.30am, by which time my boyfriend Ray had also arrived. Georgia, Ben's best friend and mortal enemy rolled into one, looked heartbroken. 

The surgeon came in to see us. He said Ben had lost 30 pints of blood - the average young boy's body holds seven pints. After thanking him for his efforts, someone in our group asked the surgeon about Ben's chances of survival. 'Fifty-fifty,' he replied. 

A nurse then took my parents to Ben's bedside but they returned to our waiting room just five minutes later - his condition had begun to deteriorate. Ten minutes later, the doctors came in and uttered the words that will haunt us forever: 'We're really sorry but we think he is going to die. You'd better come.'

Everyone in that room screamed. Half of us sank to the floor, our legs unable to hold the grief - the other half started lashing out, kicking walls and tables in fury. Mum and Dad were rushed in to see Ben and the rest of us descended into silence. 

After ten minutes, the nurse came to the waiting room and by the look on her face we all knew what had happened. 'Is he gone?' I asked. 

'Yes, I'm sorry,' she replied. The nurse led us, Ben's brother and sisters, to a cubicle to see his body. Nothing could have prepared me for the change death brings to a person, even within five minutes. Ben was gone and in his place was a cold, hard, yellow shell with an expression on his face that suggested anger, upset and pain. 

Mum rubbed his feet and hands to warm them up, I blew on his freckled nose and everybody else stroked and kissed him, trying to absorb as much Ben as they could. 

You would think that touching a dead body would be repulsive, but it's not when it's one of your own. If I could, I would have taken his body home and hugged it every second I could - rather that than nothing at all. 

When we arrived home from hospital later that Sunday, I wandered around the house looking for Ben, but the living room was empty, with only a Benshaped dent in the cushions to remind me. 

My sisters and I went to his room to soak up whatever he had left there. The smell of his aftershave was heavy in the air. 

Jade put on his clothes. Georgia buried her head in his pillow and cried herself to sleep, unable to understand why her big brother was gone. And I chose a sock. That stinky, sticky sock was the strongest thing smelling of Ben I could find. I wore it like a glove puppet, rubbing it like a charm, wishing it would bring him back. 

If I woke in the night and couldn't find it, I cried until it was back on my hand. I probably cried more for that stupid sock in those first few days than I did for its owner. 

The police told us what little they knew at that point. Ben, who had just finished sitting his GCSEs, had gone to a pub called Shillibeers in Islington that night with friends. A fight had erupted inside and then spilled out on to the street. My brother may have been among the people who went outside to see what was going on.

As it was near the end of the night, the bouncers refused to let anyone back in. Now locked out of the pub, my brother began to make his way home, walking up the road with a few other boys. One of them looked back and realised they were being chased. Ben and his group began to run along a long road and around a corner. At some point, my brother stopped running. For some unknown reason, he crossed over to the other side of the road. Whoever was chasing Ben and the others saw my brother as the easier target. They caught him behind a van and stabbed him, leaving him on the pavement to die. 

It's a miracle Ben's heart did not stop on that cold pavement --somehow he found the strength to stand up and walk around the corner. One of Ben's friends was one of the first to find him. Ben was heard to say: 'I'm cold... I can't breathe.' 

By the next day, police had arrested two of the boys they suspected of being the killers, while a third youth handed himself in later. 

Word about Ben's death spread rapidly and one of his female friends quickly organised a march. Almost everybody there was wearing a white T-shirt to signal peace - some of the shirts even featured a picture of Ben's face and some had messages of love. Marchers also held aloft a gigantic banner which simply said: 'Why Ben?'

If I thought that one march was going to be the end of it, I was wrong. That was only the start of a campaign to bring an end to Britain's knifecrime culture that grew so big it succeeded in changing lives and forcing the Government to review sentencing guidelines for murders committed with knives.

We weren't able to bury Ben until almost three weeks after he had died because the defence lawyers kept asking for more tests to be done on him, including having the skin from his hands peeled off to look for scientific clues that might help their case.

We were finally allowed to bury Ben on July 18, the day before my 25th birthday. We chose St John's Church in Duncan Terrace, Islington, because it held 1,000 people, but even that wasn't large enough to accommodate all those wishing to pay their respects to Ben. Those who couldn't fit inside the church lined the streets outside.

As the service ended and the coffin was lifted to be taken out of the church, we played our final song for him. We had chosen Calvin Harris's I Get All the Girls - one of Ben's favourites, despite him never getting all the girls. The church erupted when the music began to play --people were laughing, crying and dancing in the aisles. 

The sight of my brother's coffin being lowered into the ground will always haunt me. All I wanted to do was jump down into the grave and stay with him - anything to stop him being alone in the cold and dark. 

Amid the grief of those first few months, there were occasionally some pleasant surprises. Ben's headmaster turned up with my brother's GCSE results - A-stars in art and English, and As and Bs in every other subject. Ben had been promised £100 for every A-star. I know how he would have jumped up that morning, impatient to claim his prize. He would have been smiling with excitement while at the same time trying to act cool. 

My initial solution to coping with grief was simply to get drunk and cry myself to sleep, then start all over again the next day. Three months after Ben's death, however, I began to worry I was starting to forget him, feeling guilty because I was crying less. The first time I really laughed I hated myself. The first time I enjoyed eating something I almost vomited it back up. The first time I concentrated on a TV programme without thinking of Ben, I wanted to die. 

I was seriously going to do it. It was just a question of finding the right time and the right way so that my family wouldn't suffer. I knew they would be angry with me but once everything had calmed down and they realised one of us was with Ben, they would feel better. 

I stopped wearing my seatbelt while in a car, I drove recklessly, I walked down dark roads late at night praying to be attacked - I was tempting fate as much as possible, but it really didn't matter. If God didn't help me, I knew I would do it myself. 

Then one day I was out with Georgia, trying to cheer her up. Something stupid I said made her smile and then laugh, shocking me into reality. I couldn't leave her, too. 

I was also amazed at Mum's strength. She dealt with her bad days by going off to have a 'nap', which was really a little cry, before coming back downstairs with her 'Mum face' on. But she couldn't face returning to her job as a secretary at a school, where there were children the same age as Ben. It also went deeper than that - she practically became agoraphobic. 

Dad didn't work either. As a taxi driver, he occasionally had to deal with rowdy passengers. He was angry enough - he didn't need a confrontation to set him off. 

Mum eventually persuaded the council to move us to a new house. My parents' bedroom was opposite Ben's and every morning they had to wake up and look into their son's empty room.

The day came when we each had to take something from Ben's room to remember him by. The rest of his belongings were to be put in boxes and stored. 

I started in his wardrobe, where his clothes still smelled of him even five months on. I chose my favourite jumpers - one that he wore at Christmas and the one he was wearing the last time I saw him, the last time I hugged him. 

Finally, as I went to leave, I looked up at his shelf. I debated whether to take some aftershave to remind me of his smell but there was little left in the bottle - hardly surprising given the amount he used to splash on to impress the girls.

At the back of the shelf, I spied Ben's toothbrush and took it down, amazed that I nearly walked away without this treasure. I know he will be cracking up, wondering why I would want his old toothbrush. 

Mum and Dad threw themselves into painting my flat as well as their own new house, getting everything ready for our first Christmas without Ben. 

We tried our hardest that Christmas Day but instead of jumping up at 7am as usual, we lay in bed crying. There was no rush to open our presents, no excitement. We toasted Ben at the dinner table, then went our separate ways, unable to put on brave faces. 

The months leading up to the Old Bailey trial on April 27 this year were some of the hardest I have experienced. I was depressed and it didn't help that I had nothing to do, despite auditioning for various parts. I became selfish and angry, taking everything out on Ray, who had moved into the flat with me. Mum and Dad were beginning to fall apart and my sisters became withdrawn. 

Then one day I finally snapped while Ray and I were having an argument. I remember kicking the furniture and being unable to speak. Apparently, I went into the kitchen and picked up a knife and tried to lock myself in the bathroom with it. 

I'm not sure what I was going to do but Ray took it off me and calmed me down. I knew something had to change. I couldn't keep hurting people. I had to fix myself up to face the trial. 

My family had previously been shown around the Old Bailey to get us ready for the coming weeks. We also met lawyers representing us and Ben. But nothing really prepared us for that first day. As we battled through the crowds of reporters at the court entrance, I realised the trial was going to be huge. 

Each day I came out of the courtroom with my head pounding. Listening to the evidence from eyewitnesses and forensics experts, it seemed to be an open and shut case. But the icing on the cake was the covert recordings police had made of the defendants as they travelled to court and ID parades in a prison van. 

Their words were vile but invaluable. Not only did they speak about how they had committed the murder, they discussed getting rid of knives, made up alibis, planned to 'sort out' witnesses and joked as if the whole situation meant nothing to them. 

It was sickening to hear them describe in their street slang how they had killed Ben, saying it was a 'quick ting, go down the road, boom boom, ghost, back up'. 'Ghost', as we would discover, meant 'gone' or 'dead' - so the culprits knew instantly what they had done that night. They had intended to kill someone all along. 

Some members of the defendants' families made our ordeal a hundred times more difficult. I never expected help from them, but I wasn't prepared for the intimidation, violence and pure nastiness of certain relatives. 

To physically attack my friends and family, to spit on them and call them 'scum' and other disgusting names, to sing 'who let the dogs out' as we walked by, to have the audacity to tell my dad to 'walk away and have respect' - I could never understand any of it. Their behaviour was despicable. Yet every time we reported them to the court security staff and our police liaison officer, we were told that CCTV footage showed nothing. 

Events came to a head the day that one person apparently said about my brother: 'So what? He's dead anyway.' These words were said to one of Ben's best friends and when he lost his temper and began shouting, a male relation of one of the defendants grabbed him by the throat and threw him against a wall. Once again we complained, but this intimidating thug was back at court the next day. 

As if to add insult to injury, my sister Jade was warned she wouldn't be allowed in court if she was caught looking at the men who had killed her brother. Yet their families could physically and verbally attack us with no consequences. It seemed wrong. It was all about giving the defendants a fair trial - but when would anyone recognise the injustice done to us? 

Certain things stick in my mind from those seven weeks of the trial. Hearing witnesses talk about Ben's wounds. Listening to a description of the way his blood splattered on the road. Discovering Alleyne had 72 specks of Ben's blood on his jeans. 

The court was told that Braithwaite, 20, was involved in the original fight at Shillibeers that night and had been chased away. Unable to handle being 'disrespected', he had called Alleyne, who arrived with Kika just as Ben and his friends were looking for a cab. The defendants had shouted that someone 'was going to die' that night. 

A witness testified that my brother said: 'Why are you coming to me? I haven't done anything wrong,' before he was kicked in the stomach, punched and stabbed 11 times. 

The jury spent two days deliberating their verdicts - for most of that time we sat outside a cafe near the court. Then on June 11, Mum got a call to say we should make our way back to court immediately because verdicts had been reached. 

The court was packed yet you could have heard a pin drop as the foreman of the jury, dressed in his best suit, stood up. In the second it took him to reveal the verdict on Braithwaite, I nearly passed out in fear. There were cries of 'Yes!' and then cheers from the public gallery as he said: 'Guilty.' Alleyne, 18, and Kika, 19, were also convicted. 

Sentencing was adjourned until the next day but we had been warned that the minimum tariff for murder with a knife was 15 years and it was unlikely the defendants would get more than 18. I was hoping for 25 years or more. 

At court before the sentencing, Mum had been brave enough to read out an impact statement describing the pain of losing her son. 'The people who murdered him knew nothing about our Ben, not a hair on his head, a bone in his body, not anything about our wonderful son,' she said. 

'They had never met him before or spoken to him - they just cruelly took his life away with knives for no apparent reason. We had brought Ben up to always walk away from trouble. This sadly cost him his life.' 

The judge then ordered the defendants to serve a minimum of 19 years before they become eligible for parole. As the trio were led from the dock to begin their sentence, the public gallery broke into applause. The defendants sneered and made gun gestures with their hands, while their families shouted abuse and spat. 

One aspect of the law angered us. The tariff for murder with a knife starts at 15 years, but if you use a gun it starts at 30 - is there much difference between these two deadly weapons? 

Ben is dead. He is never coming home. My parents have lost their son. My siblings and I have lost our cherished brother. Ben has lost his future.continues here

How sad, how sad it is, that a sister must feel such pain, must forever grieve for her brother, no words of comfort can stem such pain, can hold back the flood of “what ifs”, nothing can replace the uniqueness of another ,we are all, though they tell us different. Yet Ms Kinsella has provided a service, unknowingly perhaps, but a service, to all those other sisters, all those other siblings, the fathers, the mothers and the families and friends. You see Ms Kinsella had renown to call upon, recognition to harness, we see it here as she candidly gives the other side of the coin, writes of the true face of our injustice system, a system whereby the wholly evil receive parity and the victim nothing.

How dare such people spit at the bereaved ,how dare they attack them, disparage them and give them further torment, Ms Kinsella, under a nationalist system justice would be served and you and your family, would be treated with the respect you deserve, not forced to endure the humiliating incidences you describe in your article. Is it not bad enough to lose someone you love, bad enough to lay night after night, coiled up tight with longing, to feel evil for laughing, evil for enjoying, to watch as your family teeter unsteadily through such terrible times, only for evil to attack you further.

You state emphatically that the courts did nothing, that these yobs and unwanted filth were permitted free-reign, whilst you and yours suffered further, what country is this now, when those beside themselves with loss must endure further, when officials permit, sanction and beget malevolence. Further Ms kinsella, the murderers of your dear brother should not be here, should not be here to kill upon our streets, or are they ours now, for evil swaggers along them, incongruous brown eyes regard their prey and we are left to them now.

Our leaders support their importation, support the evil that causes such pain, they follow a truly quite appalling agenda, wrap it up as humane and set it lose amongst the common people and should any resist, as I, then it is we that are evil, we that must be brought down, we that face the full force of the law, whilst the monsters prowl our streets, striking to fancy. How many sisters mourning out there, how many families, how much blood split in the name of an experiment, you see that is quite what it is, an experiment, a social-engineering lesson for the elites, can the common people ,the body-politic live amongst the other, can distinct cultures and peoples co-exist in peace.

Of course the elites do not face this, the elites, in their gated communities do not suffer injuriously, merely the common folk, the people, yet history tells us that distinct peoples can never live together that, difference always cause conflict, race is thee greatest difference yet it is not all, non-white and non-white do not live in peace, therefore to import their conflicts to this once green and pleasant land is akin to murder, murder vast, they, the government, of present and past have blood on their hands.

Yet who listens to a nationalist, who ever pays heed, today they bemoan our countries fate, yet few lift hand to against it, all wait for something ,all expect the comet and whilst waiting blood flows, the rich milk us and brown becomes this countries colour. There are good and bad in all races, yet non-whites show a remarkable predisposition for savagery, their own history gives the truth to this, yet our leaders pile them in, they know, they actually know, that these people come to steal our resources, that many hold an anti-white anti-western outlook and many are predisposed to barbarity, yet they do nothing, traitors all.

I am so sorry Ms Kinsella, so very sorry, if only they had listened to us, if only they had believed us, instead of attacking us as haters, your brother may very well walk among the living, your family never having known the humiliation of attacks by families of murderers. Yet they never listen Ms Kinsella, never even gave it thought, they walked completely over the wishes of the people and today we see the result, London isn’t ours anymore and many other cities follow suit, each year our numbers fall and still they keep open the gates, so many murders Ms Kinsella, so many rapes, so many attacks, so much pain, rivers of blood do flow Ms Kinsella, they just rarely remark about it.

Of course non-whites are attacked, in most case by those of same race and their families pain is the same, yet in our case, the case of whites, it is all the more tragic because had they not been here many would live, most knife crime is carried out by blacks, there is no disputing this, no argument, none cane give statistics showing this not to be the case. So each and every white child, each life snuffed out, each baby taken from a parent, each brother taken from a sister, each and all of the white victims would, should the poisonous, treacherous vermin that passes for our leaders, have listened been alive today.

Of course there are some that have been slain by a white hand but in the main it is non-white, perhaps it is time to truly realise the enormous toll placed upon this land and people or will you see more of us dead, more of us suffer in the name of your dammed experiment. Ms Kinsella you were able to tell your story to the people and for that we thank you, AAWR and indeed nationalists everywhere wish you well, we hope now that this is the end, that you and yours do not suffer more. Yet there are families Ms Kinsella that have no voice, that suffer as your own, that endure, nationalists of many parties strive to bring their story to the masses, to combat the, shall we say, reticence of the media in reporting them, so many of us collate the information, a truly depressing task and strive to let the people see, here at AAWR we have the “Incidence Map Project”, which not only presents the information textually but visually.

It is not comprehensive, in fact far from it, updating it crushes ones spirit and lowers ones mood for weeks after, yet in one form or another it is there and it tells part of the story, at one time a number of us worked upon it, perhaps we will again. I would hope that nationalists and those with an interest link to it, in order that the people out there can really see the damage immigration has wrought, thank you.

MENTAL TESTS ON STABBINGS SPREE MAN

Police are assessing the mental health of a 19-year-old man who was detained by members of the public after eight people were stabbed in a town centre.

Officers were called to Keighley, in West Yorkshire, after reports of a number of stabbings in two separate incidents.

The first victim was attacked at about 10.15pm on Thursday in Victoria Street, while the others were injured about two hours later in North Street.

A 24-year-old man received stab wounds in the first attack. He remains in a stable condition in hospital.

At about 12.30am on Friday, a second incident happened in North Street in which "a further seven members of the public received injuries caused by a knife", said West Yorkshire police.

A force spokesman said that of these seven, four people were detained in hospital and all are said to be in a stable condition. They are three women, aged 44, 26 and 51, and a 30-year-old man.

The spokesman said: "Police have arrested a 19-year-old local man in connection with both incidents. He had been detained by members of the public near the Wetherspoons bar.

"The 19-year-old is being held in custody ... and is currently being assessed for mental health issues." continues here

Gang fight closes A&E for six hours after one man is stabbed and another is injured

A hospital had to be shut down for six hours after a fight broke out following a street murder.

Relatives of the victim, Sanjay Alexander, attacked his suspected killer when the man turned up with knife wounds at the hospital where Sanjay had been treated.

Two police officers who were already there dealing with the stabbing, were injured as they tried to break up the fight.

Patients and staff at Ealing Hospital, in West London, fled as the family of Mr Alexander, a 21-year-old student, set on the 28-year-old man outside A&E at 2pm on Thursday.



Police had to drag them away from the suspect before sealing off the hospital.

A policewoman suffered a broken rib and another officer was injured as they tried to break up the fracas.

Dozens more officers were called to the scene to control the situation.

Incoming patients, apart from maternity cases, were diverted to other hospitals until the police cordon was lifted at around 8pm.

Mr Alexander was fatally wounded following a row shortly after 1pm on Thursday in nearby Hayes.

Locals said they believed he had been stabbed up to eight times.

He was taken to the hospital, where he later died from his injuries.

A short time later, the suspected killer arrived needing treatment for knife injuries believed to have been sustained in the fatal stabbing of Mr Alexander.

After being pulled away from Mr Alexander's family, the man was transferred to another hospital by ambulance.

He was treated for his injuries and arrested in connection with the stabbing before being released into police custody yesterday.

Four others, two men and two women, have been arrested over Mr Alexander's murder. continues here

Jury sees Kinsella stab footage

CCTV footage of teenager Ben Kinsella moments after he was fatally stabbed has been shown to a jury in the trial of three men charged with his murder.

The 16-year-old was stabbed 11 times after leaving a bar in Islington in June last year, the Old Bailey heard.

Juress Kika, 19, and Michael Alleyne, 18, and Jade Braithwaite, 20, all from London, have all pleaded not guilty to his murder.

Ben's sister, former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella, was also in court.

'Argument broke out'

The court heard that Ben died after leaving the Shillibeers bar in York Way on 29 June 2008.

An argument had broken out in the bar between a youth known only as Alfie and a friend of Mr Braithwaite's named Osman Ozdemir, the court heard.

Prosecuting, Nicholas Hilliard QC said: "Alfie and Ben Kinsella knew each other although Ben Kinsella was not part of the dispute."

A boy called Michael allegedly heard Mr Braithwaite say: "Tell your boy if he wants trouble, I've got my tool on me and it will open you up."

The court heard that Ben and his friends left the bar shortly before 0200 BST, when they were chased by the defendants. They allegedly caught up with Ben and killed him.

Mr Hilliard said: "They managed to catch up with the deceased, knocked him from his feet at the rear of a parked van and, as he lay on the ground, launched a lethal attack upon him in which a total of 11 stab wounds were inflicted."

One of the stab wounds was to Ben's heart, two went into his lungs and damaged an artery, the court heard.

CCTV footage showed Ben stumbling from behind a van after being fatally wounded.

Mr Hilliard added: "No-one suggests Ben Kinsella was anything other than totally blameless. continues here

Revealed: Police blunders that left knife thug free to murder Harry Potter actor

A serial knife attacker was found guilty yesterday of murdering teenage Harry Potter actor Robert Knox.

Cannabis addict Karl Bishop, 22, refused to hear the jury's verdicts at the Old Bailey.

As he awaited sentencing, it emerged that he was accused of a knifepoint robbery in March last year. But even though he had already been jailed for a knife attack, detectives failed to follow up the complaint.

This meant that two months later he was free to kill 18-year-old Robert with two 12in kitchen knives during a bloodbath in a suburban bar.

Friends of the family said Robert's father Colin believed his son would still be alive today if the complaint had been dealt with correctly. Two Scotland Yard officers have been disciplined over the scandal.

Robert was stabbed to death last May at the Metro Bar in Sidcup, South-East London, as he confronted Bishop over threats made to his younger brother Jamie, then 17.

During the frenzied 90-second attack, Bishop - whose face was 'screwed up in rage' - stabbed six people 11 times with the two knives. In an apparent reference to the Dirty Harry films starring Clint Eastwood, he said: 'Who's going to make my f****** day?' before lashing out. 

Robert was knifed five times. The fatal stab wound ruptured an artery close to his heart and he died in hospital soon afterwards. 

The attack came after a series of run-ins between Robert and his friends and Bishop. In the same bar a week earlier, Bishop, from Sidcup, threatened Robert for having the temerity to stand up to him following a row over a lost mobile phone. He warned: 'I'm going to come back next week and someone is going to die.'

After carrying out his threat at the Metro Bar, Bishop was overpowered by onlookers. Cut and bruised, he begged police to protect him from the angry crowd. But as he was led away, he winked and smirked. 

Later that evening, he came face to face with some of his victims in hospital and hurled a volley of abuse in which he threatened to rape their relatives. He told a police officer to take him straight to Belmarsh prison, saying: 'I'm going down anyway. I don't mind, I get gym every day, meals, just take me there.'


His reaction to learning that Rob had died was: 'Yeah, sweet.'

In the melee, Tom Hopkins, 18, Nick Lee Jones, 20, Charlie Grimley, 17, Andrew Dormer, 16, and 22-year-old Dean Saunders were all stabbed by Bishop. Mr Saunders was almost paralysed after being knifed in the neck. He spent months at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire and still has difficulty walking unaided for any length of time.

Two days before his death Robert had finished filming the role of Marcus Belby in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which is due out this summer. He was also celebrating being offered a part in the final instalment of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

He had been acting since joining a drama school at the age of 11 and had already had parts in ITV's The Bill and BBC's When You've Gone with Nicholas Lyndhurst. His father and mother Sally separated a year ago.


Colin Knox collapsed in tears yesterday as the jury unanimously found Bishop guilty of his son's murder plus three counts of wounding with intent.

Mr Justice Bean, who heard impact statements from both of Robert's parents, will pass sentence today.

In her statement read to the court, Sally Knox said: 'As a mother and parent, I can never forgive the person responsible for taking my son Robert's life, or the devastation that has been caused by these actions.'


During the trial, prosecutor Brian Altman QC described Bishop as a habitual knife carrier who 'carried knives like others carried pens in their pockets ... he quite happily thinks little or nothing of stabbing others as if it were some occupational hazard'.



Bishop himself admitted he regularly carried knives for 'protection innit?'. He said that at the time of the stabbings the 'red mist' had descended and he 'didn't care' what happened. continues here

Knife crime 'fuelled by brutalised refugees' from war-torn regions of Africa

Knife crime is being partly fuelled by a brutalised generation of refugee children who have come to Britain from "vicious war-torn regions" of Africa, the head of the Government's equalities watchdog has warned.

Trevor Phillips, the chairman of Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, said that one of the causes of knife crime was a lack of integration for refugee children who had witnessed untold horrors in their early lives.

He said: "There is a very specific issue for some minority communities in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds. We have had a generation of refugee children who have come from unimaginable levels of violence, absolutely terrifying situations.

"We admit them - rightly - and then we plonk them in schools and we expect behave like everyone else. You look at the names of those who are involved, they come from Congo, they come from east Africa and so on. 

"I don't think anybody has been very keen on saying it. Let's recognise what it is that is making it happen. It is not the fact that they are black but the fact that they have come from vicious, wartorn regions."

The comments come amid widespread concern about knife crime. Figures earlier this summer revealed that one person is the victim of such a crime every four minutes and the Home Affairs Committee said that it will be launching an inquiry into knife crime in November.

Last year, teenage Angolan refugee Roberto Malasi was jailed for 30 years after he admitted stabbing to death an 18-year-old student and shooting dead a woman cradling a baby at a christening in a two week period. 

The Old Bailey heard that the killings were the culmination of his horrific "upbringing of pitiless persecution" in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Sir John Nutting QC, his defence lawyer, said that Malasi was influenced by witnessing scenes of daily violence in his early teens, including people being "hanged, shot and burned to death". 

Campaigners welcomed the comments from Mr Phillips. Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, said: "This is another courageous intervention from Trevor Phillips. If we are to tackle these problems we must have a frank analysis of where they stem from. 

"The black African community now numbers 694,000 and has overtaken the black Caribbean group as a result of high net migration in recent years. This is a further consequence of our failure to control immigration."

Damian Green, the shadow immigration minister, added: "Obviously knife crime is a much wider problem than just affecting immigrant communities. But what Trevor Phillips has illustrated a wider problem with integration. As well as having no control over the numbers the Government has failed to integrate new arrivals successfully."

A spokesman from the Home Office said: "Violent crime is an extremely complex issue with many different drivers. With knife crime, we are concerned about the number of young people involved and the age of both victims and offenders." continues here

Senior black MP in impassioned lament of self-image 'crisis' among young men seduced by 'bling' and crime

Middle-class parents who go out to work are helping fuel a crisis of confidence in young men and boys, a Labour minister warned.

David Lammy said an entire generation is growing up with inadequate male role models, unable to control their own emotions, and seeing crime as a short cut to wealth and power.

The dangerous crisis in masculine 'self-image' is not just confined to working-class estates, he added.

'There are also children in Middle Britain whose parents become strangers in a culture of long working hours,' he said. 

'Boys, young men and grown men are struggling to find their place in society.' 

Mr Lammy, a junior minister at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, said far too many young men have 'unhealthy attitudes towards sex, money and violence'.

A 'bling culture' and a collapse of responsible fatherhood means some are being lured into gang and knife culture. 

Echoing the title of U.S. rapper 50 Cent's smash album, he said youngsters are inhabiting a world of 'get rich or die trying'.

The minister said 59 per cent of black Caribbean children are looked after by a lone parent - but warned that children of all races and social backgrounds are suffering because they have no father in their lives.

His analysis flies in the face of years of Labour family and welfare policies that have been based on the notion that all types of families are just as good as each other, and that both mothers and fathers should be encouraged to go out to work.

Mr Lammy, Labour's most senior black MP and a friend of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, said many adolescents are growing up struggling to control their emotions.

Writing in this week's New Statesman magazine, he said: 'An inability to delay gratification - whether with food, alcohol, money or sex - is becoming a hallmark of our age.'


Many adolescent males, he added, carry knives or guns not because they hope to use them but because they are seen as symbols of status and power.

'The issue is one of self-image,' Mr Lammy said. 'In a warped world of gang culture, carrying a weapon has come to be associated with being a man.

'Rather than being seen as a risk, the knife confers "respect".'

He added: 'In society, the fetishisation of money and growth of consumerism add new pressures.

'In a bling culture, criminality easily becomes a short cut to symbols of wealth and power that will otherwise take years of hard work to achieve. continues here

BLOODY BRITAIN: KNIFE ATTACK EVERY FOUR MINUTES

A VIOLENT knife attack happens every four minutes in Britain, new figures released tonight have revealed.

As it emerged that 130,000 incidents of being wounded or threatened with a knife took place last year, the Government was this evening again accused of failing to crack down on crime.

The shocking total does not include those blade incidences committed by under-16s.

And it means that more than 350 knife crimes are committed in England and Wales every day.

The figures from the British Crime Survey - which will deepen public concern about knife crime following a spate of violent murders - disclosed that more than 22,000 of those offences were serious.

There were 231 attempted murders, nearly 14,000 robberies and more than 8,000 woundings.

Nearly one in eight violent crimes involved school-age children and 52 per cent were committed by criminals aged 16 to 24.

Shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve said: "The fact that violent crime has risen by 80 per cent under Labour and the scale of knife crime on our streets, officially recorded for the first time, is a shocking indictment of Labour's failure to tackle crime and its causes.

"Our police have been tied up in so much red tape that they can only spend 14% of their time on the beat fighting crime." continues here

Note that the knife holder in the picture is a white man, whilst knife-crime is overwhelmingly a black crime, media spin or downright lying...

Pubs to be forced to search customers for knives

The Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, will today announce a series of measures to tackle knife crime, following a spate of stabbings described as "shocking and tragic" by Gordon Brown. 


The plan was finalised after the Prime Minister met the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, at Chequers yesterday to discuss the crisis. Ms Smith has written to police chief constables to highlight their powers under the Violent Crime Reduction Act to crack down on licensed premises that could be at the centre of unruly and criminal behaviour. 

The police are to force pubs and clubs associated with knives or guns to search people on entry, under threat of losing their licences. Trading standards officers are being told to step up test purchasing to stop sales of knives to under-18s.

People convicted of carrying a knife will be made to visit A&E departments to see the impact of stab wounds, and to meet families of victims, as well as those imprisoned for knife crime. Youth forums will be extended to encourage young people to stay away from knives. 

The new measures will focus on knife hotspots in London, the West Midlands, Manchester, Merseyside, Lancashire and Essex. 

Ms Smith said: "I am absolutely shocked at the tragic and senseless loss of life we have seen recently. I want to reassure everyone that the Government is taking the issue of knife crime very seriously." She added: "We must tackle this violence head-on. That is why I am today outlining further tough measures, coupled with early intervention and support for parents." 

The Home Secretary has pledged to "increase the visibility of sentencing" for knife-related crime, in an attempt to reassure the public that the courts are coming down hard on offenders. But she rejected calls from David Cameron to have all knife offenders sent to jail, saying: "It is simplistic and wrong to pretend that prison is an easy answer." continues here

epidemic, says Government adviser

A culture of greed and rudeness is fuelling teenage knife and gun crime, the Government's behaviour adviser has warned. 

In a furious diatribe, Sir Alan Steer declared that adults are partly to blame for rising teenage violence because youngsters pick up on antisocial behaviour around them. 

He attacked a growing 'greedy culture' and warned that children are copying adult hostility towards others. 

Parents especially need to accept their responsibility to set a good example to their children, he said. 

Sir Alan, headmaster of an East London comprehensive, spoke out as he prepares to publish proposals for improving behaviour in schools on Monday. 

He is expected to say that heads and teachers need more help to deal with parents who undermine their authority and call for schools to have parent support advisers to help families enforce discipline. 

Speaking ahead of the document's launch, Sir Alan said the increasing number of killings of young people was 'connected to a violent sub-culture'. 

He went on: 'But we bear some responsibility. Sometimes as adults we don't model the behaviour we would want youngsters to follow. continues here

I’m afraid Sir Steer, that there is more to it than that, although it has to be said that, “a culture of greed and rudeness” is part of the problem, essentially the problem began with liberalism. The, lets all protect the human rights of the offender brigade, yet it is more than even that, the problems of which we are now having to cope, are the result of so many factors, what mainstream commentators seem to forget or refuse to acknowledge, is that it is predominantly blacks who commit this offence, that it is the negro that once again poses a threat to our way of life. It doesn’t help that our children have been fed upon a diet of violence, pumped out by a malevolent film industry, it doesn’t help that liberalist values have underpinned domestic law enforcement and it doesn’t help that this “community” have been taught to hate. Negroes are more prone to violence, more likely to pull out a knife, this has been the case since before I was born yet it is still rarely acknowledged, instead we pussyfoot around, careful not to upset a community whilst new families mourn. It is certainly the case that amongst the young of our own community, values have slipped and violence has come of age, many young whites exhibit savage behaviours and to are prone to violence, yet even when this factor is taken into account, one is still drawn to the fact that, the black community is more violence prone than any other. Until central government address all the issues correctly, until they drop liberalism and start again to protect the law abiding citizen, then this spiralling violence will continue, gang culture will continue to become endemic and more young people will lie cold in the ground. 14

Muslim leader in call for Sharia law in UK

A MUSLIM leader believes knife attackers should be locked up for 42 days like terror suspects.

Sarfraz Sarwar, 60, said he couldn't see the difference between the knife crime epidemic and those accused of plotting and carrying out terror attacks.

Mr Sarwar, of Gordons, Pitsea, also backed calls for Sharia law to be introduced in Britain and said public flogging should be carried out in town centres.

His comments follow those made by Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, who said aspects of Sharia could be used to settle Islamic disputes, but not in the courts.

Mr Sarwar said: "What's the difference between knife criminals and suicide bombers?

"They should do exactly what they do with terrorists, "They should hold them for 42 days, question them and put them in prison and solve the problem."

He said Sharia law would act as a deterrent in solving crime in Britain.

He added: "If anybody is caught with a knife then give them ten lashes in the town centre.

"Sharia law is not controversial. It's a deterrent. Muslim countries don't have half the problems we have because Sharia law is there."

Aspects of Sharia law involve stoning, lashings and cutting off hands.

Mr Sarwar continues to run a minorities support group in Basildon. He was the leader of the Basildon Islamic Centre, in Laindon, before it was burnt down in 2006. continues here