Four killed in London attacks as teenagers are ‘paid to stab’

FOUR people have been killed and five more taken to hospital during a string of gun and knife attacks across London.

During the latest wave of violence in the capital, police were pelted with missiles as they responded to a robbery and a female officer had her head smashed against a wall as she tried to arrest a 14-year-old boy.

The latest killings come amid claims teenagers are being paid by gang leaders to stab youths so they do not have to carry out the attacks themselves.

Police have now opened more than 60 murder investigations in London this year, with the latest coming in the

‘[Gangs are using] young and vulnerable people to sell ... drugs and even to use violence’

early hours of Monday morning when a man in his 40s was stabbed to death in Stratford, east London.

It followed three murders in less than 24 hours at the weekend, in which a teenager and a man in his 30s were stabbed in separate attacks and an 19-year-old was gunned down.

Cheyon Evans, 18, was found with knife wounds in a street in Wandsworth, south-west London, at 4.42pm on Friday. He died at the scene. Mohamed Nadir Dafallah, 18, of Wandsworth, south-west London, and a 17-year-old, who cannot be named, appeared at Wimbledon magistrates’ court yesterday accused of his murder.

Just minutes after the Wandsworth attack, Eniola Aluko, 19, from Thamesmead, south-east London, was shot dead in nearby Plumstead.

The death toll continued on Saturday afternoon when a man in his 30s was stabbed to death in a field next to a nursery and a mosque in Tower Hamlets, east London.

A short time later a man in his 30s was left in a critical condition after being stabbed in Enfield.

In addition two people were left with minor injuries after being slashed and stabbed during a fight in Clapham in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Yesterday, armed police were called to Leytonstone at 11.30am following reports of another shooting.

A 28-year-old, who was found with gunshot wounds, was taken to a London hospital with non-life threatening and non-life changing injuries.

In response to the increasing violence, police in east London put a Section 60 order in place, allowing officers to carry out stop and searches across the whole borough of Newham.

Newham was the scene of the latest killing as well as unrest as hostile crowds pelted police with bottles and missiles at Stratford bus station near Westfield shopping centre on Sunday.

A Met Police spokesman said about 100 people had turned on officers who were called to deal with a robbery.

The upsurge in violence is likely to lead to further criticism of Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, who was condemned by Donald Trump, the US president, for failing to get a grip on the violence.

Merseyside Police told the BBC it was aware organised crime groups used violence to settle disputes and said gangs were known to take advantage of what it described as “young and vulnerable people to sell ... drugs and even to use violence”.

One boy told the BBC Beyond Today podcast that his best friend had a £1,000 bounty placed on his head and that two children had stabbed him and split the reward.