SEVEN MORE STAB DEATHS IN A DAY

“On Monday the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will announce further measures to tackle knife crime, taking forward the approach we set out last month. Later in the week we will publish the first cross-government youth crime plan which we have been working on over recent months.

“It will contain new enforcement measures, improvements to sentencing, and a new approach to youth crime prevention – including tough parenting programmes targeted on areas with the most problems.

“We will continue to make absolutely clear that carrying a knife is unacceptable in our society. 

“People prosecuted for carrying a knife are now almost three times as likely to go to prison as in 1997. Those prosecuted for carrying or using knives get far tougher sentences. I thank the police for their efforts, and urge people to give them any help they can.”

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: “There should not just be a presumption to prosecute for carrying a knife, but also a presumption that offenders will receive a jail sentence.” 

London Mayor Boris Johnson said: “We need to do all we can to address the long-term, complex root causes of violence as well as ensuring the police are providing an effective deterrent to those who carry knives and guns. We are in this together and we all need to take responsibility.”

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said: “There has been a tragic death toll from knife crime in London over a 24-hour period. 

“I want to reassure the public that the Metropolitan Police Service is doing everything possible both in terms of thoroughly investigating each case and in continuing to carry out pro-active operations to get knives off the streets. The dreadful loss of life in just 24 hours illustrates the need for everyone to pull together to put an end to this.”

The mayhem in London began around 4am on Thursday when Latvian Gennar Jaronis, 41, was knifed to death outside a disused pub in Tottenham, north London.

Two men and a woman were being questioned over what was described as a “squatters’ dispute”. 

At around 2.30pm a 19-year-old youth was fatally stabbed after a fight in a bedsit in Edmonton, north London. He became the 20th teenage murder victim this year in the capital.

Murder squad detectives were questioning a 34-year-old man and a woman aged 26.

Three hours later Adnan Patel, 20, suffered fatal stab wounds after two groups of men attacked each other in the street in Leyton, east London. He drove off in his black Ford Focus but crashed a short distance away. Passers-by, including a nurse, struggled to save him.

Eyewitness Amos Mak, 36, said: “I heard loud aggressive noises. They flew at each other – just full steam and everything happened so quickly. I looked out of my bedroom window and saw six Indian adult men fighting in the street.

“They were armed with a golf club, an aluminium baseball bat, a wooden club and, I found out eventually, a kitchen knife.”

Some reports said Mr Patel died as a result of a “road rage” attack. But police sources dismissed the suggestion. Four men, aged between 22 and 37, were being questioned last night.

At 8.30pm on Thursday a man in his 20s was stabbed to death in Walthamstow, east London. Detectives are still searching for his killer.

He is aged in his late teens or early 20s, was slim and wore a hooded top.

Detectives are also investigating a knife attack on a man in his 20s in Willesden, north London, in the early hours of yesterday. The victim was found with stab wounds to his back and abdomen and was fighting for his life in hospital last night.

In a separate attack, a 15-year-old schoolboy suffered severe head injuries when he was attacked in Homerton, east London, around 8.30pm on Thursday. Police believe his wounds were possibly caused by a machete. Doctors initially put him on the danger list but his condition improved later.

Elsewhere in the country, police were questioning a man and a woman, both 21, over the knife murder of a man, 20, in West Bromwich.

The victim died after he was stabbed in the street around 11pm on Thursday. 

In Liverpool, a 49-year-old man was being questioned about the fatal stabbing of a woman in her mid-40s around 9pm on Thursday. Police described the killing as “domestic”.

In Nottingham, a 25-year-old man yesterday gave himself up to police investigating the knife murder of Mark Beard, 25. He was attacked on Wednesday at 3pm.

Meanwhile, a murder inquiry was launched after a young man was shot dead in the Spital Hill area of Sheffield around 1.45am yesterday.

Despite the horror of the past few days, police say London is a relatively safe city for its size. In the 12 months ending in May this year there were 162 murders. There were 155 the previous year, and 210 five years ago.

But with 20 teenagers stabbed, shot and battered to death already this year, the murder toll for 2008 could easily outstrip the 27 of last year. Murder rates are even worse elsewhere. 

New York, a city of similar size and wealth, had 496 murders in 2007, and there were 2,262 during the crack cocaine epidemic in 1990.