Murdered for a cigarette
A SHOPPER stabbed to death after being pestered for a cigarette was last night described by his distraught friends as a much-loved family man.
They said 39-year-old Dennis Anderson was a law-abiding citizen who “did not have a bad bone in his body”.
Witnesses said painter and decorator Mr Anderson died after being attacked in a corner shop by a man who had asked him for a cigarette.
The killing is the latest in a catalogue of knife crime which has brought terror to the streets of Britain.
Yesterday, as police investigated the murder in East Dulwich, south London, one of Mr Anderson’s best friends paid tribute to him.
Luke Roche, 29, said Mr Anderson was making his way home from a friend’s party when the tragedy unfolded in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Mr Roche said: “He loved his daughter. He was a family man and very popular. No one had a bad word to say about him. I honestly can’t think of anyone he’d had a fight with. He just wasn’t part of that life.”
Muhammad Khan, assistant manager of the convenience store, said Mr Anderson was fatally stabbed just 20 seconds after a fight broke out between him and the man who had pestered him for the cigarette.
He said: “My cousin was here, he was the manager. They had an argument about cigarettes. The guy who had the knife came in about five or six minutes after the man who got stabbed.
“The guy with the knife asked the other for free cigarettes, like as a favour or something.
“They had an argument and he took out a knife. Everyone was trying to
Police at the scene of the corner shop stabbing yesterday. Inset, ‘family man’ Dennis Anderson, 39, was pestered for a cigarette
stop him. A member of staff behind the counter and other customers tried to stop him, too.”
Mr Khan added: “We have had no trouble around here before – it’s very nice, all educated and wealthy people live around here.”
The Labour MP for East Dulwich, Helen Hayes, tweeted that she was “appalled to learn of a fatal stabbing on Lordship Lane during the night”.
She added: “Another family now devastated due to knife crime. This has to stop.” And Florence Eshalomi, Labour’s London Assembly Member for Lambeth and Southwark, said: “Sad to wake up to yet another stabbing in Southwark. This has to end.”
Attack
Mr Anderson’s stabbing came on a night of violence which also saw a 23-year-old man critically injured in a stabbing in Neasden, north-west London. Meanwhile, a 16-year-old boy received knife wounds
Hayes, west London.
In a separate attack, a 17-year-old boy was fighting for his life in hospital yesterday, after being shot in nearby Isleworth.
Eleven people have been murdered in London so far this year. At least seven of those were stabbed.
Last week, the Office for National Statistics revealed that the number of fatal stabbings was now at the highest level since records began in 1946. in
afight in