All week, Britain’s newspapers have been publishing spreads of photographs of the many people murdered in London so far this year. Each time they do so, Abdullah Özcan breaks down and weeps.
“Yesterday I saw the Sun newspaper and they had 49 pictures in there, including a picture of my son. All day I cried. I didn’t cry just for my son, but for all those other people as well. Life is just starting for these people, they are 19 years old, 17 years old, and they are dying for nothing.”
Abdullah’s son Hasan was trapped by a gang of youths on bicycles in the corner of a rubbish-strewn car park behind flats in Barking, east London. He was stabbed repeatedly. Local people ran outside in their pyjamas. “He was screaming ‘help me’ as loud as he could,” said one woman. “The police were here very quickly and were pressing on his chest for a long time.”
Hasan was pronounced dead at the scene. He was 19.
That was back in February. A few hours earlier, nine miles away in Tottenham, north London, Kwabena Nelson, 22, was stabbed to death. The following day Juan Olmos Saca, 39, died after being stabbed in Peckham, south London.
They were victims number 12, 13 and 14 in London’s 2018 murder litany. By the end of that week they had been joined by Hannah Leonard, a 55-year-old Irishwoman. On Wednesday, there were a further 34 victims in the picture spread that so distressed Abdullah. The following day, six people, five of them teenagers, were admitted to hospital in five separate knife attacks in the capital. The youngest, a 13-year-old boy, was seriously injured. On Friday morning, Scotland Yard said there had been 55 suspected murders in the capital so far this year.
Seven young men and boys have been arrested and questioned about the murder of Hasan Özcan. The youngest was just 15. Although all have been released without charge, police seem confident that they are familiar with Hasan’s network of associates and understand the motive; it appears that it is only a matter of time before charges are brought.
Hasan’s family deny his murder was in any way gang-related, although his Facebook profile includes a picture of him with three friends and that word, “gang”, superimposed. The detectives investigating the murder do not have time to discuss the case, however. They are just so very busy.
Abdullah, 44, is originally from the city of Gaziantep in southern Turkey. As a young man he moved to northern Cyprus, where he met Emine. The couple married and moved to London, where Hasan was born. Two other sons followed, now aged 15 and seven. Abdullah has had a number of successful businesses. He now runs a fish restaurant in Gidea Park, a pleasant suburb on the eastern outskirts of London.
Hasan had a wide circle of friends. He liked to work out at the gym and trained as a kickboxer. Sometimes he would help out at the restaurant. “He was such a friendly boy, and so helpful,” Abdullah says. Last year, however, after allegedly being assaulted in Barking, Hasan moved to Kent, where he began studying at a further education college, returning to his parents’ flat in Barking only at weekends.
On 3 February, while has was back for the weekend, Hasan went to a friend’s sister’s birthday party in Barking. On leaving the party, he was attacked. He ran but was caught and killed. Abdullah was informed as he was closing his restaurant for the night.
“It is so difficult when you lose a child,” he says. “It is not like losing your mum or your dad or your brother. It hurts so much.
“I cry every day. I think about him every day. His room looks so empty. My wife has completely changed, my kids’ lives have changed. My wife: she’s finished. The doctor comes to see her a lot. I don’t know what to do.”
The family feel far from alone though. The police keep in touch, Abdullah says, and countless people have contacted him on Facebook, offering support. “Some of my customers come in and cry with me.” When he took his son back to Gaziantep to be buried, huge numbers of people turned out for the funeral.
Abdullah has difficulty sleeping. He looks exhausted and grey. And the trauma has seeped deep within him: he is hypervigilant, looking all around as he walks down the street, watching out for another catastrophe. “A lot of people are dying and I am worried,” he says. “I have to worry, because I have another two children.”
He is particularly anxious that his son’s killers are still at large. “None of us want killers walking around. We want them in prison,” he says repeatedly.
“I don’t want this happening to anyone else. I don’t want anyone else hurting like I hurt. But people are scared to talk to the police. They think: ‘Today it happened to him, maybe tomorrow it could be me.’”
In the car park where Hasan bled to death, a small shrine sprang up: half a dozen glossy pictures of the boy were attached to a shrub. Flowers were laid and a few candles lit. On Thursday evening a local man clambered out of his car and stared for a moment at the dead flowers. “The council will be clearing all that away before too long,” he said.
