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School colours led to pupil's killing
Danny Brierley, Evening Standard08.07.08
A model pupil stabbed to death in a London park is believed to have been attacked because he was wearing the wrong school uniform.
David Idowu, 14, died yesterday, three weeks after being knifed in the chest and stomach when he was confronted by youths from another school. He is the 19th teenager to be killed in London this year. David was due to deliver a speech in the world's biggest speaking event for young people in which he was to implore teenagers to give up knives, the Standard has learned.
The key message of the speech was that young people are the solution and they need to face up to it. Friends today told how David was attacked at artificial football pitches near his home while he was wearing the royal blue and grey uniform of Walworth Academy in Southwark.
They said the uniform sparked the fatal row with another schoolboy from a different school.
The friends said there is a fierce rivalry and a simmering tension between the two schools which had spilled over into a violent argument on 17 June.
One friend, who did not want to be named, said: "A boy from another school spotted David wearing the uniform and it went from there. It got out of hand, it was something stupid and it cost David his life.
"What's going on is madness, you can get stabbed for anything now, it doesn't matter what you do." Relatives gathered at the family home in Southwark today as they struggled to come to terms with David's death. Flowers were left at the scene where David collapsed, including one bouquet which was fastened to a bollard with a Walworth Academy tie.
Another of his friends said: "Davey was a good boy, there is no reason why anyone should have wanted to attack him."
David's speech about knife crime formed part of a nationwide competition, which just a year earlier had featured fellow stab victim Ben Kinsella.
The two boys had also been taught by the same public speaking mentor who had trained them for the Jack Petchey Speak Out competition,
Like Ben, 16, who died after being stabbed in York Way, Islington, on 29 June, David starred in a school heat of the event and was set to speak again at a borough competition with pupils from other Southwark schools. The contest was to be held two days after he was found slumped and bleeding in Great Dover Street.
His best friend took to the podium and gave David's prizewinning speech in his place.
Jez Sweetland, 33, chief executive of the charity Speakers Bank, said the same trainer had coached both Ben and David. He told the Standard: "She, like all of us, cares passionately about young people. Seeing youngsters like David being courageous, engaging and performing and then hearing that they have been stabbed is very distressing."
The speech David delivered to his school was a plea to his contemporaries to stop using knives.
Mr Sweetland said: "His friend felt that the message David wanted to give was so important that he stepped into his place and delivered the speech."
Devon Hanson, headteacher at the school, said: "This is a terrible and unnecessary tragedy and the whole school is deeply saddened. Out thoughts and condolences go to David's family and friends."
Police will now decide if a 16-year-old arrested and charged with attempted murder soon after David was found will be charged with murder.
He has already appeared at a youth court where he was remanded into custody.
Deputy Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson yesterday revealed the creation of a special knifecrime unit to address the recent spate of stabbings.
It was an admission that several weeks of high-profile stop-and-search operations do not appear to have discouraged young people from carrying weapons.
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Reader views (2)
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Why does it have to be blacks. These knife carrying demons should be put behind bars period! If it was terrorists they would have passed a legislation ages ago but now it has nothing to do with America or oil, they are stopping and searching... Gosh!
- K.C, Guildford
Blacks, gangs and knife crime? Sounds like a film title.
- Frank, Home Counties, England
