New measures to tackle youth and knife crime will be announced next week after five people were stabbed to death within a day.

Four men were killed in London within 16 hours of each other and another died in West Bromwich. A sixth man is fighting for his life.

Downing Street suddenly released a statement from the Prime Minister promising action after he had spoken to Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, about yet another bloody day in the capital.

Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, is expected to confirm plans for new parenting programmes in areas with the most problems, fresh powers for the police to control gangs and shock warnings to youngsters about the dangers of knives.

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• Victims of the London stabbings

A senior officer is likely to be put in charge of fighting knife crime. There will also be measures to take children home if they are on the streets at night and early intervention where they are at risk of drifting into crime. Ministers will not match Conservative proposals for all youngsters caught carrying knives to face imprisonment, which they say are impractical and would swiftly fill prisons.

One of those killed in London was aged 19, the 20th teenager to die violently in the capital this year. Another was attacked in front of his girlfriend by a hooded man in a Scream-style mask.

Elsewhere, a 20-year-old man was stabbed to death on Thursday night in West Bromwich. Last night in Bolton, Greater Manchester, a 19-year-old man was in a serious condition after being stabbed outside a video store. In Sheffield a young man was shot dead in a suspected gang-related attack.

The Metropolitan Police said last week that combating the growing number of stabbings was now their number one priority. Sir Ian said that his force was doing everything to solve the latest cases. Nine people, including three women, have been arrested over the five attacks in London.

The first victim, Gennar Jaronis, 41, from Latvia, was found dead early on Thursday morning at the rear of a disused pub in Tottenham, North London, that has been used as a squat.

The second man was killed at about 2.30pm after a fight in Edmonton, North London. Witnesses said that police tried to revive the 19-year-old found with stab wounds to his neck and head outside a suspected drug den. Three hours later Adnan Patel, 20, was stabbed to death in Leyton, East London, during a fight with a group of men. A witness said: “I looked out of my window and saw six Indian adult men fighting. They were armed with a golf club, an aluminium baseball bat, a wooden club and eventually I found out a kitchen knife.”

Yosufu Morrow, 20, was stabbed to death at 8.30pm in Walthamstow by a masked knifeman. He was visiting his girlfriend in a block of flats and was attacked in the stairwell. It is believed that the murderer was waiting for him. Detectives want to speak to a man in his late teens or early twenties seen running from the scene. He was wearing a hooded top and a white full-face mask from the movie Scream.

A fifth Londoner was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries after being found early yesterday in Willesden.

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