Stabbed to death while having a pint in a pub: First pictures of Britain's latest knife crime victim

Paul Gilligan, 31, died after an attacker plunged a knife into his body twice at the Pepper Alley pub in Bolton, Greater Manchester.

A 19-year-old man from Bolton was arrested shortly after the assault yesterday and is being questioned by police.

Paul Gilligan died from a knife attack at a pub in Bolton. The area has been blighted with knife crime

Mr Gilligan was the fifth person to be stabbed in the town in the space of 48 hours. The other victims required hospital treatment.

Mr Gilligan was knifed in the chest and shoulder. He was rushed to the Royal Bolton Hospital but doctors could not save his life.

Two hours after he was stabbed a 19-year-old man was knifed in the chest on Daisy Street, Bolton in an apparent domestic incident. He is currently in a stable condition.

A 21-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of wounding and remains in police custody for questioning.

And another man was stabbed in the shoulder in Bolton town centre on Saturday, but refused treatment from paramedics and went back into the pub he was drinking in, according to paramedics.

On Friday evening a 19-year-old was stabbed in the neck as he sat in his car in Chorley Old Road in Bolton. He is now in a stable condition.

And in the early hours of Friday morning a 24-year-old was stabbed in the side of his body on the same stretch of road.

A woman passing the scene where Mr Gilligan was murdered said she worked at a local Tesco. She said there was a constant problem with youngsters unsheathing knives, which have security tags, then taking them from the store undetected.

She said staff regularly found empty knife sheaths taken by youngsters from the shelves as under 18s are not allowed to purchase them from shops.

Locals said the pub employed bouncers on the doors but had gained a reputation recently for attracting troublemakers. It is in the centre of the town surrounded by other bars, in an area extensively covered by CCTV cameras.

Superintendent Dave Flitcroft, from Bolton Division of Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said: 'Over the past three days we have seen three isolated incidents where a knife has been used, and we have seen the devastating affect knives can have with the death of a man.

'I would like to reassure our local communities that knife crime in Bolton remains a rare event, while it always has the potential for tragic consequences such as we have seen earlier.'

He said GMP figures showed in the last 12 months there had been 114 instances where a knife had been used or someone threatened with a knife in the Bolton Division. This represents 0.3 per cent of overall crime in the area.

Mr Gilligan's family are expected to release a tribute to him Monday.

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