Five people stabbed after 'violent disorder' at music event in southeast London
Officers were called to the event in Nathan Way, Thamesmead, at 4.19am on Saturday where they found around 300 people, the Metropolitan Police said.
Five people, aged between 22 and 32, were discovered with stab wounds and were taken to hospital.
All five of them have since been arrested on suspicion of violent disorder, the Met said on Saturday afternoon.
Three of the suspects' conditions have been assessed as non-life-threatening, while the other two are still being looked at.
Detective Inspector Steven Andrews, who is leading the investigation, said: "Officers responded quickly to provide medical assistance to the five injured people alongside the London Ambulance Service and ensure the safety of around 300 people, who were at this music event.
"The five men who have been injured have been arrested for violent disorder and we continue to work to establish any wider involvement.
"There will be a continued police presence on Nathan Way throughout today while we continue this investigation. We encourage anyone with any information to contact police to assist with enquiries."
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Glasgow Times
14 minutes ago
- Glasgow Times
Mother of machete attack victim says ‘streets are bleeding' after killers jailed
Aspiring rapper Kelyan Bokassa said 'I want my mum' after he was mortally wounded in front of horrified passengers aboard the 472 bus in Woolwich, south-east London, on January 7. Two youths, aged 16, pleaded guilty to Kelyan's murder and having a knife. In a televised sentencing on Friday, Judge Mark Lucraft KC detained them for life and set minimum terms of 15 years and 10 months. Judge Lucraft said Kenyan's death was a 'senseless loss' of yet another young life to the 'horrors of knife crime'. One of the youths in the dock of the Old Bailey smiled as he was sent down. Bus CCTV image of two youths who cannot be named for legal reasons, who pleaded guilty to the murder of 14-year-old Kelyan Bokassa (Metropolitan Police/PA) Outside court, Kelyan's mother Marie Bokassa issued a call for action to end the bloodshed. In a statement read on her behalf, she said: 'To the Government and authorities. How many mothers like me, will it take? How many children must we bury before you act with urgency? 'Where are you? Where were you? I had no support from you when my son was alive and no support now that he is dead. A letter of condolence doesn't mean anything to us. 'Our streets are bleeding. Our cemeteries are full. Our prisons are overflowing. Pain and loss is becoming normalised. 'Our streets are no longer safe for our children. Public transport is no longer safe. Schools are no longer safe. You have lost control of London.' Marie Bokassa, centre, listens as Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Lee, from Scotland Yard, who led investigation into the death of her son Kelyan, speaks outside the Old Bailey (Rosie Shead/PA) She added: 'To the young people who carry knives, I beg you to stop before you raise up blades. Think of your own mother. Think of the mothers who will cry every night, like I do, will scream into her pillow, who will walk past her child's empty room and collapse with grief. 'Don't let a moment of anger steal your future. Don't let the streets raise you in a way your mother never would. There is no power in death, there is only loss.' Earlier, prosecutor Deanna Heer KC said Kelyan had boarded the 472 bus just after 2pm to attend an appointment at the Youth Justice Centre in Woolwich. CCTV showed Kelyan on the back seat of the top deck, with a knife in the waistband of his trousers. Ms Heer said the teenager looked around and out of the windows before taking his seat 'giving every impression that he was concerned for his safety'. The defendants, who cannot be named, boarded the bus 20 minutes later each armed with identical machetes hidden in their clothes. The pair walked towards Kelyan 'with purpose' and withdrew their blades before immediately stabbing him without uttering a word to their victim. Ms Heer said: 'Since Kelyan Bokassa was seated on the back seat, he was cornered, unable to escape as the defendants repeatedly thrust their knives towards him, smiling as they did so.' The attack lasted around 14 seconds, with the youths thrusting the machetes towards Kelyan 27 times. Ms Heer went on: 'Kelyan Bokassa had no time to reach for his own knife, which remained in his trousers, and instead tried in vain to protect himself with his school bag. 'There were several other passengers on the top deck who fled in panic when they realised what was happening. They describe hearing intense screaming from the back of the bus and the victim shouting, 'Help. Help. I've been stabbed'. 'They describe both defendants making quick, forceful movements towards Kelyan Bokassa as he tried to defend himself.' The bus driver activated his emergency alarm just before 2.27pm and the defendants fled when the vehicle stopped at Woolwich Ferry. Kelyan stumbled down the aisle to the stairs, where another passenger went to help him. The boy was heard to say: 'Take me to my mum's. I want my mum,' before his legs buckled, bleeding heavily from a wound to the leg. Members of the public flagged down a passing police car and officers found Kelyan had collapsed and his body was limp. Despite attempts to save him, Kelyan died at the scene at 3.23pm. One of the machetes was thrown into the River Thames, but was later recovered by police. The defendants were quickly identified from CCTV on the bus and arrested. In a victim impact statement read in court, Ms Bokassa said: 'At least my son is at peace, and those two kids are going to have a really tough time. 'I ask myself what has happened to those two boys that has resulted in that terrible act of violence, and I cannot imagine how can they be so angry. 'What they did was horrific and I do not know what has led them to do this, and maybe I will never.' The court heard both defendants have previous convictions for carrying blades in public. Floral tributes are left next to a bus stop on Woolwich Church Road in Woolwich, south London (Jordan Pettitt/PA) Samantha Yelland, senior crown prosecutor for CPS London North, said: 'This was a savage and sustained attack on a 14-year-old boy which was carried out in broad daylight on a busy bus. 'We worked closely with police and were thankfully helped by clear CCTV evidence which both placed the defendants on the bus and showed one of them discarding the machete. They had little choice but to plead guilty.' Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Lee, from Scotland Yard, said it had been a 'deeply troubling' case. She said: 'The harsh reality in London is that violence disproportionately affects young black men and boys. 'The fact we're seeing so many teenagers like Kelyan die should be at the forefront of the minds of every politician, every policy maker and everyone who wants better for children growing up in London. 'Without this collective effort, we won't be able to tackle knife crime in its entirety. 'And while I am pleased that Keylan's mother, Marie, has been spared the emotional turmoil of a trial, I know that she still desperately seeks to understand why three young lives could be considered so disposable.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘Dodgy guys who dress just like him': meet the team behind far-right activist Tommy Robinson
The Tommy Robinson outriders were early to Epping. Wendell Daniel, a former Labour councillor who is now a film-maker for Robinson's Urban Scoop video platform, turned his microphone to a young woman on the edge of the protests in the Essex town. 'Look into that,' he said pointing to the camera. 'Talk to Tommy, tell him you want to see him coming down here.' 'Tommy,' she responded, 'I think you should definitely come down because you will help out the situation so much more.' Robinson, 42, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, was quick to respond: 'Hear you loud & clear, I'm coming to Epping next Sunday ladies & bringing thousands more with me,' he said on X. The actor and rightwing activist Laurence Fox was coming along too, he added. For days, Epping has been the scene of demonstrations outside the town's Bell hotel after the charging of an Ethiopian asylum seeker – recently arrived on a small boat – with sexual assault against a local girl. With the deputy prime minister, Angela Rayner, and the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, talking up the risk of the disorder spreading further, it had appeared the perfect opportunity for Robinson, with a so-called 'migrant hotel' providing the focus. Twenty-four hours later, Robinson appeared to have gone cold on the idea. It might not benefit him and it might not benefit Epping, he mused on camera. It might appear an awkward volte-face, but Lucy Brown, once a right-hand woman to Robinson, chronicling his every stunt and provocative comment for social media for two years, had seen it all before. It was, the 34-year-old suggested, an insight into both his frustrating tendency to act on instinct and a reliance on the colourful team behind him, an inner circle that includes the son of a Krays' gangster, the Canadian publisher of a far-right platform and a Sikh convicted of being part of a robbery in which a shop worker was threatened with having his throat slashed. 'He's very reactive,' Brown said of Robinson. 'It's often just what comes into his head. He's very quick to believe his own myth. It takes probably a bunch of messages from people saying, 'Don't do it'. And finally he has to begrudgingly say: 'Oh, maybe it's not a good idea'. 'He'll just rush in, straight away, whatever feels right at the time. He just does not think. Which is why he falls in [to] prison all the time, because he's always saying stuff that he shouldn't.' Brown was with Robinson at some of the key moments early in his rise, including escorting him to what would be a highly lucrative first meeting with Steve Bannon, the former chief strategist to Donald Trump. Bannon thought he was ex-army, a bemused Robinson disclosed to her at the time. Brown left Robinson's side after a bruising falling out, but suspects that his enthusiasm for Epping dulled when he was alerted by his entourage to appeals from leading figures in the local protests for him to stay away. Robinson may appear to be a one-man band, marshalling his significant following in the UK and a trans-national far-right community that is particularly strong in the US thanks to Bannon and Elon Musk. This week, Robinson sent out an email to followers to raise £106,000 to fund an upcoming demonstration, according to one recipient. In truth, the 42-year-old sits at the centre of an ecosystem of long-term acolytes and more recent hangers-on, who are key to facilitating what even his harshest critics will admit is a successful campaign to put himself at the heart of national debate. When Robinson judicially reviewed his 'detention in solitary confinement and treatment' at HMP Woodhill, where he was jailed for repeating false claims about a 15-year-old Syrian refugee in defiance of a court injunction, the judge ruled against him on the grounds that it was for his protection and he had enjoyed '80 social visits, not including those from family members'. On leaving prison, Robinson told a friendly podcaster that he had planned from his cell a 'Uniting the Kingdom' demonstration in London to be held on 13 September, all with the help of regular communication with his lieutenants. Who then is Team Tommy? Brown, who at one point moved to Bedfordshire to work more closely with Robinson, stopped working with him seven years ago, but the core around him has remained remarkably stable for at least a decade, according to Joe Mulhall, director of research at Hope Not Hate. On leaving HMP Woodhill, Robinson had words of thanks on the steps of the prison for Ezra Levant, the Canadian owner of Rebel Media, a social media platform similar to the better known Breitbart, for helping his family while he was in jail. Nine years ago, he had started paying Robinson £200 a video for Rebel. The platform generates revenue through donations from viewers and crowdfunding campaigns. Brown, who was the helping hand with the camera at the start of that relationship, said Robinson had become a big earner for the businessman. 'Ezra Levant is very important, definitely kind of like the show runner, and it's fascinating seeing him still around,' she said. 'He is the one that goes down to the court cases with [former Sun journalist] Dan Wootton and spins the story to make sure that everyone knows that Tommy's actually the victim, guys. He is perpetuating the Tommy myth despite seeing him up close and personal. But it is a business to him.' While it was with Levant that Robinson did his first interview after leaving jail, the second was on a podcast called The Dozen hosted by Liam Tuffs, son of Peter Gillett, a registered sex offender who was said by Reggie Kray to be his 'adoptive son'. Tuffs, who runs a security firm and has described his father as an 'animal' and 'narcissist', has interviewed figures such as Laurence Fox (in a episode entitled 'British Culture is under Attack') but he has also featured Adam Kelwick, the imam at the Abdullah Quilliam mosque in Liverpool (an episode entitled 'Death Cult or Peaceful Religion? Muslim Leader Quizzed over Radical Islam'). 'He's a friend of Tommy that now and again would go on stage and compere for him,' said Brown of Tuffs, who is regarded as a calming influence on Robinson, who has been diagnosed with ADHD. 'I've watched him sidle his way in. He likes to tell people that he helps Tommy get sober, but I'm not sure if we can trust that Tommy is sober, to be honest with you.' It was Tufts and Guramit Singh, a former leading member of the English Defence League (EDL), who was with Robinson at the Hawksmoor restaurant on London's Air Street last month when they were asked to leave because staff 'felt uncomfortable serving him'. Singh, from Nottingham, was sentenced in 2013 to seven years and three months in jail for his role in a robbery during which a shop assistant was pinned the ground and made threats to slash his throat if he did not hand over cash. There is a further tranche of Robinson devotees at Urban Scoop, the so-called 'independent journalism' website to which Robinson is a consultant. It was set up by Adam Geary, better known as 'Nem', and one of Robinson's closest advisers since the rough and ready days of the EDL. Robinson today emphasises the peacefulness of the protests he organises and the relationship with the police that he has sought to build. But Brown said that those who crossed him were well aware of his ruthlessness. In his biography, Tommy, the Hope Not Hate founder, Nick Lowles, reported how Robinson failed to visit his cousin, Kev Carroll, a former leader of the EDL, for six months when he was on remand after he was caught wielding a machete while standing on the bonnet of a car. 'I'm 52 years old and I've got nothing to show for it,' Carroll later wrote. 'You give Tom everything and he just wants more and more until you have nothing left to give. And then he doesn't want to know you.' Lowles recalled how Robinson doorstepped him at his home alongside 'self-confessed bomb-maker' Peter Keeley to accuse him of paying people to 'make up information about him'. His behaviour towards a female reporter at the Independent, after she investigated his finances, compelled her to apply for an interim stalking order. What, then, keeps people by Robinson's side? 'A lot of these guys around him seem to have the same kind of modus operandi of 'protect the source' – because I guess they'll probably make money as well from association with him', said Brown. 'Many of them have their own little YouTube channels, with varying degrees of success.' There was a darkness to her experience with Robinson, she said. She remembered 'the dodgy guys that look and dress just like him' and the drink and drugs binges. Her memoirs, The Hate Club, are expected to chronicle some of the sleazier moments in her time with him when she self-publishes next month. Robinson has admitted to past heavy drug use while denying claims that he used donations to buy cocaine and pay for the services of sex workers. But he has a charisma that lures people into his circle, said Brown, who is married to Sascha Bailey, the son of the photographer David Bailey. 'It's like being around Peter Pan or something,' she said. 'You just have to keep up the myth. You're either in or out. He wines and dines them all, you know. 'Come out. We'll go for drinks'. He schmoozes people, and he knows what they want. That's something I noticed when we were working together – he knows what people want to hear.'
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Gregg Wallace speaks out after MasterChef sacking
Gregg Wallace has spoken about his sacking from MasterChef after inappropriate behaviour while working for the BBC - but insisted he is "not a groper, a sex pest or a flasher". Wallace, 60, has apologised after a report, commissioned by the cooking show's production company Banijay UK, found 45 out of 83 allegations were substantiated. In an interview with The Sun, he said: "I know I have said things that offended people... I understand that now - and to anyone I have hurt, I am so sorry. "I don't expect anyone to have any sympathy with me but I don't think I am a wrong 'un." 1:34 MasterChef co-host John Torode also had an allegation that he used an "extremely offensive racist term" upheld, as part of the same investigation. Torode, who insisted he had "absolutely no recollection" of the alleged incident, has not had his contract for the show renewed. Wallace has now defended Torode, saying: "I've known John for 30 years and he is not a racist. "There is no way that man is a racist. No way. And my sympathies go out to John because I don't want anybody to go through what I've been through." At one point, Wallace became tearful during the interview when describing the impact of the investigation on his family. "I have seen myself written about in the same sentence as Jimmy Savile and Huw Edwards, paedophiles and sex offenders. That is just so, so horrific." In respect to the specific allegation of unwanted touching, Wallace denied groping a woman and said that, while he was attempting to flirt with her, he did believe the contact it was consensual. "She gave me her phone number. I considered that to be intimacy. It was 15 years ago. Me, drunk, at a party, with my hand on a girl's bum," he said. He also accepted he had briefly appeared with a sock on his private parts in front of four colleagues in MasterChef studio. But he said his is not a flasher, and people were either "amused or bemused" but not distressed. On the broader allegations about using inappropriate language, Wallace accepted the criticism and suggested that some of his conduct could be explained by his autism and his background. "I know I am odd. I know I struggle to read people. I know people find me weird. Autism is a... registered disability. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not real." He also blamed his former career: "I'm a greengrocer from Peckham. I thrived in Covent Garden's fruit and veg market. In that environment that is jovial and crude. It is learned behaviour." Wallace told the newspaper he is now scared to appear in public: "I go out now in a disguise - a baseball cap and sunglasses, I don't want people to see me. I'm scared."
