Boy, 15, charged after death of Baptista Adjei, 15, in Stratford on Thursday

This article is more than 11 months old

This article is more than 11 months old

A 15-year-old boy has been charged with murder after allegedly stabbing a schoolboy to death outside a busy shopping centre in broad daylight, Scotland Yard said.

Officers were called to Broadway in Stratford, east London, shortly after 3pm on Thursday following reports of a stabbing.

The schoolboy, who police named on Friday as 15-year-old Baptista Adjei from North Woolwich, was attacked on or after getting off a bus which had stopped close to the Stratford Shopping Centre.

Police said a 15-year-old boy who handed himself in to an east London police station on Friday was charged with murder the following day.

He will appear in Stratford youth court on Monday.

Police and witnesses said the teenager’s friends and passersby rushed to help after he was knifed outside a McDonald’s at the shopping centre.

But police and paramedics found him with “critical injuries” and, despite their battling to save his life, he was pronounced dead at the scene at 3.49pm.

Baptista’s aunt, Aretha Adjei, said her nephew was a “fun-loving boy”, who would “always make you laugh”.

She added: “He had just finished school. He spoke to his mum on the phone about coming home after popping in to McDonald’s with a friend. Twenty minutes later he was stabbed to death.

“He was a fun-loving boy, very popular with everyone in church, everyone in the street knew him. He would come and put his arms around you. He would always make you laugh.

“No one could say a bad word about him, he would never join a gang or a group. That’s not him.”