Mother’s heartache as yet another teen is stabbed to death
THE heartbroken mother of a teenager stabbed to death near Prince George’s school yesterday paid tribute to the “loving” young man who was trying to turn his life around.
Lejean Richards, 19, bled to death a short distance from the home he shared with mother Lavern Joseph and sister Tiara, 14, in Battersea, south London.
The incident happened just a five-minute walk from Prince George’s £18,000-ayear school Thomas’s.
Pizza delivery driver Lejean was ambushed by a group of men at 8pm on Tuesday.
Witnesses described how Ms Joseph ran screaming from her flat as her son lay mortally wounded near the block where he grew up.
Friends tried to save him before paramedics arrived.
Air ambulance medics performed open-heart surgery in the rain-lashed street.
One witness said: “I saw them pumping on his chest and doing open-heart surgery on him on the ground. I’m shaken, it’s my friend’s son. People said he was stabbed in the chest. It’s horrible. He grew up on this estate. It doesn’t make sense.”
Three men aged 19, 20 and 27 were arrested on suspicion of murder after they walked into a hospital with minor stab wounds. They were being questioned at separate police stations last night.
Lejean is the third teenager to be stabbed to death in London this year. In a moving tribute, his mother said yesterday: “Lejean was a loving son and brother, a young man determined to turn his life around. He will be sorely grieved by his family, friends and all that knew him.”
A friend of the family added: “He had a criminal past and was turning things around.
“It’s a tragedy that he couldn’t see that through.”
He said Lejean had turned away from a life of crime after a stint in prison and wanted to go back to college.
The man added: “He just wanted to support his family and look after his little sister.
“I’m grieving. It always happens to people in the part of their lives when they are just on the right track.”
One distraught neighbour said: “His mum is lovely. I think his heart was in the right place but he had had problems before.” Wendy Sgamma, 40, who moved to Battersea from South Africa four years ago, said: “The Royal Family chose this area because it was safe. It is unbelievable something like this would happen here. I chose this area because it was safe.
“If there’s a problem on the estates it would have been on the other side of the road.”
Scotland Yard said in a statement: “Police were called to Wolsey Court, off Westbridge Road, Battersea, at 7.52pm on Tuesday, February 5, to reports of a stabbing.
“Officers attended along with the London Ambulance Service. A man, aged 19, was found with stab injuries.
“Despite the efforts of paramedics he died at the scene at 8.36pm. Any witnesses and anyone with information concerning this stabbing is urged to call police on 101.”