'I cradled my dying son as knife attackers fled', says mother of innocent Army cadet, 14, stabbed to death by BMX gang

A mother cradled her dying son in her arms after he was stabbed yards from his home. 

Army cadet Shaquille Maitland-Smith, 14, was walking a friend's dog with his older sister Titi when they were attacked by a gang of 15 youths riding BMX bikes.

Their mother Sandra Maitland, 43, heard shouting and rushed out to find her son lying in a pool of blood.

'Shaquille kept saying to stop everyone shouting,' Mrs Maitland said. 'I was pressing on his wound with a towel, trying to stop the bleeding.'

He was taken to hospital but died from a stab wound to the liver.

Titi, 16, was slashed across her face and neck.

Shaquille, said to have no gang links, was attacked shortly before midnight on Saturday.

He was the 20th, and youngest, teenager stabbed to death in London this year.

Police believe he was the innocent victim of a long-running 'postcode war' between gangs.

Members cross into enemy 'turf' looking for youths to attack.

Local people say a gang called the Fields Boys, after the local park, London Fields, was responsible.

Mrs Maitland, a social worker, told of her son's last moments before he went for emergency surgery.

She said: 'He said that when he woke up, he wanted two bottles of strawberry-flavoured water and to see his one-year-old baby sister.

'I went up to theatre with him at 2am and stayed the whole time but at 7am they said they couldn't stop the bleeding.' 

Police officers attend the scene in St Thomas's Place in Hackney, east London, where Shaquille was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack

His sister was recovering at the family home in Hackney, East London, yesterday after doctors stitched her wounds.

Mrs Maitland said: 'Our family is still in shock, it just hasn't sunk in yet. It's like he's still there in hospital and will come home soon. There was no confrontation, they just attacked.'

She said she had encouraged Shaquille, one of five children, to join the Army cadets in the hope that it would give him the self-discipline to back away from confrontations.

'He's not a fighter,' she said. ''He didn't think I gave him enough freedom but I told him there were lots of dangers out there.'

Shaquille, a keen Manchester United supporter, was preparing to go back to Sir John Cass Foundation School next week.

Police stand guard on St Thomas's Place, the scene of the murder

A friend called him 'one of the good guys' and said he had been caught up in a gang war.

He said members of the London Fields gang, who live in the E8 postcode area, would travel to nearby E9 in search of victims.

He warned that the murder of Shaquille was likely to provoke revenge attacks.

The 20-year-old, who asked not to be named, said: 'This all goes back to a fight at the (Notting Hill) Carnival in 2006. It's gone from fists to knives to guns and back to knives.'

Head teacher Haydn Evans said Shaquille was enthusiastic, lively and popular and a talented sportsman.

'The whole school community is devastated,' he said.

The attack happened close to where Ahmed Benyermak, 16, plunged to his death from a tower block while being chased by a gang last month but Scotland Yard said there was nothing to suggest a link.