Tooting stabbing: Trainee electrician, 20, stabbed to death on road busy with parents on school run

Police officers at the scene where the man was stabbed in Tooting
Nigel Howard
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The mother of a student stabbed to death yards from the home of London mayoral candidate Sadiq Khan spoke of her devastation today, saying that she was told of his death just an hour after dropping him off in the street.

Lewis Elwin, 20, who was training at Merton College to become an electrician, was knifed in the back by a gang who ambushed him as he walked alone in Tooting at 3.30pm yesterday as parents were collecting children from a nearby primary school.

He staggered a short distance before collapsing in the street. Members of the public tried to save his life before paramedics arrived, but he was pronounced dead at the scene.

A friend of Mr Elwin said: “It was an ambush. These guys pulled up in a car and stabbed him. He tried to run away and he collapsed in the street.”

Victim: Lewis Elwin was stabbed in the back on a street in broad daylight
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London Ambulance Service said paramedics arrived within six minutes.

Mechanic Hugh Roy, 46, said he tried to help Mr Elwin. He said: “He was lying on the ground, I took off his jacket and saw he had been stabbed in the back.

“There was blood everywhere. He was already unconscious.”

Today, Mr Elwin’s mother Sandra Elwin, 52, a receptionist at Wandsworth council, said: “I dropped him off and as he was walking away I beeped him to pull up his trousers and he laughed and did it. I went to a doctor’s appointment and he must have gone to hang out with friends. Then about an hour later, I got a call from a friend of his, saying he was in the road dead. I was not allowed to see him because it was a crime scene.

“We are devastated. He was trying to turn his life around, he was training, he was trying so hard. He was a quiet, lovely, polite boy.”

She said Lewis was “no angel”, but a good person. He had been stabbed four years ago just after his father died.

Scene: A police cordon at Thrale Road, Tooting, on Monday afternoon
Candida Jones

Today, Mr Khan called for tougher action to tackle people carrying knives in London. He said: “The stabbing happened a stone’s throw from my home. Obviously, as a dad that’s very worrying, but my thoughts are with the mum and the family of the victim.”

Relatives today paid tribute to “a gentle, kind soul” who had turned his life around after falling in with the wrong crowd after the sudden death of his father.

Simon Elwin, his half-brother, said: “He was a good person. He was gentle, quiet, polite. He had been in some trouble in the past and was turning his life around. He didn’t deserve this.”

Anyone with information should call Crimestoppers on 0800 55 111.

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