Promising footballer, 18, knifed three times in fight

The scene on Brecknock Road shortly after the stabbing on Tuesday

A COMMUNITY is in shock following the murder of 18-year-old Tommy Winston in Kentish Town on Tuesday night.
Tommy – a well-known former pupil of Acland Burghley School and a popular figure on the Peckwater estate in Islip Street, Kentish Town – was stabbed to death during a fight in Brecknock Road shortly after 9pm.
It is the second fatal stabbing in as many weeks. Amanda Cummings, 27, died just three days before Christmas after being stabbed on the College Place Estate, in Royal College Street, less than a mile away
Detectives believe Tommy knew his killer, who smashed the window of his Ford Fiesta before stabbing him and leaving him for dead on the pavement near the Unicorn pub. An air ambulance was unable to save him and he was pronounced dead at the scene.
Officers say they are keeping an open mind about the motive but are understood to be investigating the possibility that the stabbing related to a dispute over cash between friends that escalated into tit-for-tat acts of petty criminal damage until it ended in tragedy. They have urged the killer, who has gone into hiding, to give himself up.
They originally received a 999 call to seven youths fighting and it is believed that friends attempted to break up the fight before the killer stabbed Tommy three times in the back.
Tommy was known as a keen moped rider on both the Peckwater estate, where his family live, and surrounding Camden estates.
Yesterday distraught relatives left flowers at the end of a police cordon in Brecknock Road, but were too upset to speak to reporters.
A group of 15 hooded youths close to Tommy huddled in stunned silence on the Peckwater estate as news of the death spread.
And dozens of youths who continued walking in the streets around the police cordon late on Tuesday night all said they knew Tommy and were in shock.
A promising footballer, he had starred for the Acland Burghley school team and had trials with professional sides.
One pal said: “Tommy was so full of life – he was not the type to start trouble; the opposite, in fact.”
And neighbour Alan Walter, who lives on the Peckwater Estate, and knew Tommy, has campaigned for extra cash for youth clubs there. Mr Walter said he was “a typical 18-year-old starting out and planning his life ahead”, adding that the death was “a warning to the community” that it could not allow “another generation to grow up hanging out in the streets”.
He said that the few existing youth projects risked losing their funding in April, and added:
“We can’t do anything for Tommy but we must do something to fill the void. We’ve fought for years for more youth facilities to give kids an alternative and get them off the streets.
“Younger kids growing up around here deserve a promise of something better.
“We owe it to all the kids around here to provide proper facilities to help make sure they have a better future than Tommy.”
Acland Burgley headteacher Michael Shew added: “Everybody here is desperately sorry for this tragic loss of Tommy’s life and for his family.
“We will do whatever we can to help.”
A post mortem yesterday was expected to confirm stab wounds as the cause of death.
DCI Alastair Tully said: “At this moment in time we believe that the two men involved in the fight are known to each other and that this fight has resolved in the tragic death of one young man. We would appeal for the man responsible for this crime to come forward.”