Three more faces from growing toll of knife violence

Construction worker Adnan Patel, 20, and 42-year-old Latvian Genadijs Jaronis were stabbed to death just hours apart last Thursday. Two other stabbings took place that day, including the 20th teenager to be stabbed to death in London this year.

Tung Le, 17, was knifed in the heart after a row in February with another teenager after leaving a nightclub just yards from Trafalgar Square.

Mr Patel, from Leytonstone, died after being attacked by a group of men wielding a knife, hammers and crowbars. He lost control of his Ford Focus as he tried to escape but lost control and crashed a few streets away.

Residents tried to save his life as he lay whispering prayers.

About 13 hours earlier - at 4am - Mr Jaronis, 42, suffered head injuries and slash wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene of the attack by a squat in Tottenham High Road.

Mr Patel's family today begged for anyone with information about his murder to come forward.

The grieving relatives, who are being comforted by hundreds of friends and well wishers, said they were struggling to come to terms with his death and asked to be allowed to "grieve in peace at this time of sorrow and sadness".

In a statement they said: "We ask that you pray for him so that he may rest in peace and that the family are given courage and strength during this difficult period.

"We do not want anyone else having to experience the pain and sorrow that we are currently going through. We beg you that if you have any information about what happened to our beautiful Adnan, then please come forward."

His murder is thought to have followed a dispute with a number of men in a white van.

He was one of five brothers and lived at home with his mother after his father's death from cancer a few years ago.

Witnesses told how he stumbled from his crashed car, bleeding heavily, and collapsed in Downsell Road, Leyton, clutching his stomach.

Also killed that day were 20-year-old student Yusufu Miiro - murdered in Walthamstow - and Melvin Bryan, 18.

Mr Miiro, a criminology student at Middlesex University was repeatedly knifed in the head and chest and police are urging commuters who may have been at Wood Street railway station that evening to contact them.

He had come to Britain from Uganda in 2002 and was living in Leyton, with his stepfather and two stepbrothers and sisters. He was described by relatives as a "model student".

Police are looking for a slim black man running from the scene who was wearing a dark hoodie and possibly a full white face mask, aged in his late teens or early 20s and 6ft 2in tall.

Acting Detective Chief Inspector Bob Mahoney said: "He will have been heavily bloodstained and in an agitated state. We urge anyone with information to contact us."

Mr Bryan, from Peckham, received fatal wounds to his neck and chest during a confrontation at a bedsit in Gloucester Road, Edmonton and detectives were today questioning a 23-yearoldand a 28-year-old man over the killing.

On 23 February, Tung, of Deptford, collapsed in front of onlookers and died nearly a week later in hospital.

He had left school after his GCSEs to work at his father's electrical goods wholesale business. His Vietnamese father, Phung, today said via an interpreter: "Tung was my eldest son. The family is devastated by his death and we feel great anger towards his killer."

Tung was attacked after leaving the West End's Thai Square restaurant and club in Cockspur Street.

Tung, who had two brothers and two sisters, was born in Hong Kong in 1990 and was brought to the UK as a baby.

He was the sixth teenager to be killed violently in London this year.

His 40-year-old father called on the Government today to do more to tackle knife crime. He said: "We feel the government is not doing enough to tackle teenage knife crime." An 18-year-old man is charged with Tung's murder.