Saturday 6 August 2022 05:19 PM Teenager stabbed to death in Leytonstone as London is hit by five serious knife ... trends now

A teenager has died outside a pizzeria after being the fifth to be stabbed in London in a four day flurry of knife crime. 

Police were called to High Road in Leytonstone this afternoon after reports of a violent attack in a busy high street. 

Officers and the London Ambulance attended, and found a man – believed to be in his late teens – suffering from stab injuries.

Despite their efforts, he was pronounced dead at the scene. His family have been informed.

At this early stage, there have been no arrests and police are asking anyone with information is asked to call police via 101 quoting reference CAD 3896/06Aug.

The tragic death comes just two days after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death in a knife attack at Highbury Fields, north London, at around 9pm on Thursday night.

He reportedly told police 'I'm dying' as he lay bleeding beside a playground.

Heartbreakingly, officers told him he was 'going to be OK' as they waited for an ambulance to arrive.

He was treated at the scene by paramedics and rushed to hospital, but died not long later.

The BBC said he is the youngest teenager to be stabbed to death in the capital so far this year and Scotland Yard officers have now launched a murder probe.

Witnesses reported a gang of 50 to 70 people at the scene before the attack took place.

Chloe Hadjimatheou, 47, was in the playground with her five-year-old son, she said: 'I didn't see the stabbing itself, I saw the young people running away and the guy on the ground. I didn't realise what was going on I didn't connect them at first, I thought he was drunk.

'Within five minutes a big police van came down and then another two unmarked cars, they cordoned off the whole thing and still there was no ambulance.

'It took a while to get there and the kid was in a lot of pain and at one point he was shouting 'I'm dying' and the police officer was saying 'you are going to be OK'.

'So I thought he would be OK. I was shocked to find out what happened this morning.'

London remains gripped by a summer crime wave across the capital in the wake of 14 fatalities since the start of July. 

It follows three other stabbings in the capital on Wednesday night.

In Ilford, east London, a 15-year-old boy was stabbed on Chadwick Road outside a Royal Mail sorting office at 4.20pm on Wednesday, August 3.

Another teenager was stabbed three hours later on Eltham High street, in Eltham, south-east London, at 6.30pm.

At around 10.38pm, a third stabbing happened in south London, at Lewisham station.

Last month it emerged police forces in England and Wales had recorded the highest number of offences in 20 years, driven by a sharp rise in fraud, rape and violent attacks. 

A total of 6.3million crimes were recorded in the year to March 2022 ⁠— four per cent higher than the previous all-time high of 6.1million in 2019/20. 

It was also up 16 per cent on 2020/21, when crime levels were affected by Covid-19 lockdown restrictions.

Knife crime rose by 10 per cent to 49,027 offences in the year to March, compared to 44,642 in the previous 12 months ⁠— though this is below the pre-pandemic year of 2019/20, which saw 55,078 offences. 

It comes after Lilia Valutyte was brutally killed outside her mother's embroidery shop in the town centre of Boston, Lincolnshire at around 6.20pm on Thursday, July 28.

Footage has shown the moment the youngster

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