The grandmother of a 17-year-old girl stabbed to death in an “unprovoked attack” in London has made an anguished plea for the city's street violence to end.

Jodie Chesney was said to have been sitting with friends near a children’s playground in a park in Harold Hill, Romford, on Friday when she was approached by two men.

It is understood one of the men was seen to stab her in the back before the pair fled.

The A-Level student’s apparently random murder is the latest grim chapter in the capital’s knife crime epidemic.

Debbie Chesney, her grandmother, spoke of her anger at the spate of senseless killings.

She wrote online: “This was our youngest granddaughter. How have we come to this point where kids can’t have a walk in a park without suffering an unprovoked attack?

“We don’t want anyone else to go through what our family is suffering right now.

“This has to stop, there are too many young people having their lives cut short by needless violence.”

Her granddaughter's final moments unfolded in the company of friends and nearby neighbours who had rushed to her aid.

Teresa Farenden, a 49-year-old mother of three whose home backs onto Harold Wood where the girl was attacked, went to help the teenager after hearing screaming coming from the park shortly after 9pm.