Armed police were drafted into locations across South London last night to combat teenage gunmen after the death of Billy Cox, the latest in a spate of killings and extreme violence.

Police teams armed with Heckler and Koch carbines and automatic pistols will patrol areas of Southwark and Lam-beth including Peckham, operating road blocks and vehicle checks linked to intelligence.

Based on a strategy called Operation Neon, which has been used in various parts of London, the units will use automatic numberplate reading equipment to identify cars used by suspects.

Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and his commanders ruled out routine armed foot patrols “at the moment”, but Scot-land Yard is promising highly visible policing on the streets.

Commanders are also forming a task force of uniformed and detective officers who will provide back-up for investigations by Operation Trident, the black-on-black gun crime unit, into the killings.

Within hours of the latest shooting, Sir Ian made a personal plea to John Reid, the Home Secretary, to set a minimum sentence of five years in jail for teenagers found carrying guns. At present, anyone aged 16 or 17 convicted of carrying a gun illegally faces a minimum jail sentence of three years. Those aged between 17 and 21 may be jailed for a minimum of five years but a recent Court of Appeal judgment has raised doubt about this.

Mr Reid is sympathetic to police demands but does not know whether to bring in new legislation or challenge the appeal judges. Police now want the legal position clarified.

The Home Secretary will put the proposal today to an emergency conference of MPs from across South London called to discuss ways of combating gun and knife crime. At the same time Sir Ian will meet the leaders of the South London boroughs at the centre of the capital’s gun crime.

The Metropolitan Police plans to beef up its armed presence in South London were announced yesterday.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, who has overall charge of Trident, said: “We have had a series of dreadful incidents in a fairly small area of South London.” The three shootings of such young people were unprecedented, she said, and had “shocked and appalled my officers greatly”.

Sir Ian said that there was no evidence that all these crimes were linked, or that they were “tit-for-tat” murders, but he admitted that there were “evidential leads” linking some of them.

The two killings that have been linked are the murder of Michael Dosunmu, 15, who was shot dead in his bedroom in Peckham on February 6, and the stabbing of Javorie Cright-on, 21, close by a few days earlier. One man has been charged with the stabbing and last night a suspect was being questioned over the shooting.

In answer to reporters’ questions, Detective Chief Superintendent Helen Ball said it was too early in the inquiry to say whether Billy Cox had been involved in drugs. Although described as a “lively and likeable young man”, Billy left his school six weeks ago to attend a centre for “troubled and challenging” young people. He signed up for an under16s course at the Fairbridge centre in Kennington but attended only two of the eight days.

On the streets

“The youth today just want to have a gun because someone else has got a gun. Or because you’re seen as some sort of bad boy or big man" London

“You’ve got these youngsters who see older boys using them, so it’s a fashion thing with them" London

“They think they’re gangsters don’t they? They’ve been watching to much hip hop, watching like too much gangster films, s**t like that" West Midlands

“Especially the black kids growing up nowadays. As far as I’m concerned it’s mashing us up. We’re all running around with guns and we think it makes us hard" London

“The old school guns are for business, where for young lads the guns are fashion accessories" Greater Manchester

“It’s an evolution, from fists to knives, from knives to guns" London

“Power man, that’s addictive. It’s like, the control, the power you’ve got when you’ve got that [gun] in your hand. The way people react, that’s a buzz in itself" London

Source: Gun Crime: Home Office research paper

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