A 20-year-old man has died after he was stabbed in Liverpool city centre in the early hours of Sunday.

Police found the man on Hanover Street at about 4am after reports that a person with injuries “consistent with a knife wound”. Paramedics took him to hospital where he later died.

Police put up a wide cordon around the scene of the incident while forensics officers collected evidence. Road closures forced buses to divert from their usual routes. Police said officers were also carrying out witness and CCTV enquiries.

Hanover Street is one of Liverpool’s busiest nightlife and shopping areas, with many bars, pubs and restaurants.

DS Lee Turner, of Merseyside police, said: “Knife crime will not be tolerated in Merseyside and those caught carrying a weapon will be brought to justice. Carrying or using any dangerous weapon does not offer protection and, in fact, often puts you and those around you at more risk. These weapons can have severe consequences and we will not stand for this criminal behaviour.”

In a separate incident in Liverpool, a gunman on a bicycle fatally shot a 53-year-old man at St Helens Linkway, Rainhill Stoops, early on Saturday.

Merseyside police believe the cyclist was wearing a hi-vis jacket. The victim, John Kinsella, 53, a former mob fixer who stopped a gangster terrorising the footballer Steven Gerrard, died at the scene.

Kinsella had served time in jail for his part in a £41,000 robbery in Grantham, Lincolnshire in 2006. He went on the run shortly before a jury found him guilty of stealing thousands of pounds worth of detergents, crisps and Easter eggs.

He was captured in Amsterdam in 2009 and began a 10-year jail term in Lincoln prison. Merseyside police have appealed for information about Saturday’s shooting.