Arrest comes as local groups meet police to discuss spate of knife and gun crime in London

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A man has been arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with the killing of 17-year-old Tanesha Melbourne-Blake as Scotland Yard holds emergency talks over the recent spate of violent crime in London.

The Metropolitan police said a 30-year-old man was arrested in Hackney, east London on suspicion of murder. He was taken to a police station and held in custody.

The killing of Melbourne-Blake in the Tottenham area was one of a number of recent killings in London to prompt concerns that the capital’s police force has lost control of the streets.

The latest arrest follows a meeting at Scotland Yard on Friday with community groups and youth workers as violent crime in London threatened to become a political crisis.



Police chiefs want to develop a mobilisation plan to tackle knife and gun violence in the city.



The invitation to the meeting at the Metropolitan police headquarters on Friday morning said: “London is currently experiencing an exceptionally high level of gun and knife crime.

“It is important that our response is fully informed by community concerns and any community tensions are rapidly identified, heard and responded to.”



Among those attending the meeting were the Labour MP for Tottenham, David Lammy, and Nicola Calica-Myall, an activist against knife crime whose own son was stabbed 37 times when he was just 17 and survived.

Speaking outside New Scotland Yard, she said: “It’s important to know that our fears as a community are being recognised and things are in place. It’s everybody’s problem and more Londoners need to recognise this situation may not go away any time soon.”

There have been growing calls for politicians to set out substantial plans to address the crisis, and concerns that national and London leaders have fallen short.

The Met police commissioner, Cressida Dick, has been criticised for making no public statement on the subject until Thursday, while the Home Office, the Met and the mayor of London all declined interview requests from BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday morning.

Melbourne-Blake’s death was one of 55 to be investigated as murders by Scotland Yard so far this year. She was shot by a gunman in a moving car in Tottenham on Monday night. A friend said that she died in her mother’s arms.

In a separate incident on Monday night, 16-year-old Amaan Shakoor was shot and killed. The incidents drew widespread media attention amid concern that the homicide rate in London this year is on track to be the highest since 2005.

On Thursday, Dick announced a new 120-strong taskforce to tackle organised crime, apparently in addition to the 80-member Operation Sceptre anti-knife unit launched last May.



Ché Donald, the vice-chair of the Police Federation, told the BBC’s Today programme the current crisis was a direct result of cuts to officer numbers and funding, but also said the police alone could not solve it.

“We also have to think about reductions in funding to councils, and councils themselves were responsible for putting youth workers on the streets, making safe areas for young people to go to. Various charities were involved in engagement with young people and all of that’s gone,” he said.

“There is no outlet, there is no intervention, there is no interaction. What we do not want to turn it into is a police state, but unfortunately we are left with very, very little options and opportunities to address this growing crime.”

At a protest in Hackney, east London, on Thursday night, community activists and residents demanded to know why more was not being done. People gathered near Hackney Central station, close to where Israel Ogunsola, 18, was fatally stabbed on Wednesday, to call for an end to the violence.

The protest organisers, Guiding A New Generation, asked residents to share their stories and plead for an end to the killings over a communal megaphone.

Pauline Pearce, a community activist and Hackney mayoral candidate for the Liberal Democrats, told the rally that the recent string of stabbings and shootings were partly a result of young people feeling “disenfranchised” by their environments.

“A lot of the children feel disenfranchised; they don’t feel they belong, they haven’t really got a meaning,” she said. “They don’t feel that they have that connection to society, so a lot of things go wrong for them and sadly this is the sort of retaliation that comes.”

Six people, five of them teenagers, were admitted to hospital in five separate knife attacks in London on Thursday. The youngest, a 13-year-old boy, sustained serious wounds after being stabbed in east London.

Three youths had been arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm in connection with that attack, Newham police said.

