Ben Lines: Tributes to ‘boy with heart of gold’ stabbed after car crash in Bexley

The grieving family of London’s latest knife crime victim are demanding answers over why the “quiet boy with a heart of gold” was stabbed to death.

Ben Lines, 20, was knifed in the chest after a car crash in a quiet residential street in Bexley, south-east London, on Sunday afternoon.

He was taken to hospital where he died three hours later.

Today, friends paid tribute to the former Welling School student who lived with his parents in Belvedere, less than three miles from where he was killed.

Daisy Day, 19, from Belvedere, said: “He was a lovely kid, there was nothing bad about him. He was quiet, but he was never that kind of boy, that’s why it’s so shocking. You hear it happens all the time but you never think it’s going to be anybody you know. It’s horrible.”

Sarah Golding, 19, a mother of one, who went to school with Ben, said: “He was a genuinely lovely boy. He had a big heart he cared about other people more than he cared about himself.”

A witness to the smash at 2.48pm in Barnehurst Avenue said: “There was a massive screech and bang. I looked out and one lad seemed to punch another. I didn’t see a knife but he must have been stabbed. He went straight down. Two lads ran away and my friend tried to stop them, we didn’t realise they had a knife. They punched him to the ground but he realises now he could have been killed.”

A school friend of the victim posted on social media: “A boy with a heart of gold that never deserved this, this isn’t fair, when will something change?”

The latest death took the number of violent killings in the capital this year to 115. It marked the third knife killing in London in the space of just four days.

Detectives from the Met’s specialist crime team were today appealing for anyone with dashcam footage.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Cranwell said: “A young man has been stabbed to death on a Sunday afternoon in the street, and now his family are left mourning and looking for answers. You can answer the questions that are being asked by a grieving family by calling police and telling us what you know.”

Two 16-year-old boys have both been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and remain in police custody.

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