Crossfire victim 'loved London'

Magda Pniewska, 26, was speaking to her sister on the phone and telling her how happy she was when she was gunned down near the nursing home where she worked.

She told her sister, Elzbirta Pniewska, who was in Poland, that she planned to come home for Christmas.

Elzbirta told the Evening Standard: "She was saying how happy she was to be able to come back, having made a good life for herself in London. I heard what sounded like bangs and the phone seemed to go dead."

Despite hearing the shots over the phone, Elzbirta did not know what had happened until hours later.

Speaking from the family home town of Brzeg in south-west Poland, she added: "It is tragic. Everyone here in my house is crying out and missing their lovely aunt. It would have been the first time she had come home in three years because things were going so well for her in London."

Ms Pniewska's father also said he had been planning to visit her in Britain.

He said: "I can't stop crying. I was supposed to fly over and see her this week. We always thought London was wonderful, it was her dream. We were so glad she was there. I had no idea it was not safe."

Magda was hit by a stray bullet as she took a short-cut through a car park close to New Cross Gate railway station, south-east London on Tuesday night, where gunshots were heard at around 6.20pm.

Police found Ms Pniewska bleeding from her head outside the Stunell House block of flats. She was taken by ambulance to King's College Hospital, but died just over an hour later. Witnesses saw one man standing next to the Volkswagen Polo and the other gunman standing at the top of steps leading to a field known as Bridge House Meadows.