A “model” student killed in a knife attack in London dreamt of becoming a police detective, his grieving family said yesterday.

Yusufu Miiro, a criminology student at Middlesex University, was one of six people murdered in knife attacks on Thursday.

It was the bloodiest day so far in the spate of knife crimes that has swept across Britain and is causing deep unease in Downing Street. Senior Scotland Yard detectives are baffled by the number of attacks.

Miiro, 20, was stabbed in the head and chest in the stairwell of a block of flats in Walthamstow, northeast London. He had left his girlfriend’s flat to collect takeaway food when he was attacked by a man wearing a white “Scream” mask.

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He staggered back to the flat and collapsed inside. Miiro had come to Britain from Uganda in 2002. He had been living in Leyton, east London, with his stepfather and two stepbrothers and sisters.

Yesterday, he was described by relatives as a “model student” who had always done his best to stay out of trouble. Yusef Nsubuga, his stepfather, paid an emotional tribute.

“My son was a good person. He was always a polite and obedient person. He never caused trouble with anyone . . . I have not seen his body yet. I want to know what really happened,” he said.

Fatima Kabasinguzi, a relative, said: “He was always a very good person. He never got into a fight. He was never involved in any gangs. If he ever saw trouble he would just run away from it. He was also a very good student. He studied very hard. He had an interest in crime. He wanted to be a detective, a policeman. We want to know who murdered this innocent boy, and we want the killer brought to justice.”

Miiro was one of four people murdered in knife attacks in London on Thursday. There were also knife murders in West Bromwich and Merseyside the same day. Adnan Patel, a construction worker, died from a single stab wound to the chest in Leyton, east London.

Witnesses said he was fatally wounded during a fight between a group of men involving golf clubs, baseball bats and knives. Patel’s family said he was “a good man who did nothing wrong”. Scotland Yard is investigating whether the incident was drugs related.

Genadijs Jaronis, a 42-year-old Latvian, was found with head injuries and stab wounds outside a disused pub in north London where he was squatting.

The fourth victim was Melvin Bryan, 18, who died from stab wounds to the neck and chest after a fight in Edmonton, north London. Yesterday would have been his 19th birthday. He became the 20th teenager to be murdered by a knife in London this year.

Outside the capital, Thomas Coombes Duffield, 20, a father-to-be, was repeatedly stabbed in the stomach after an argument in a street in West Bromwich, West Midlands. Anthony de Asha, a fireman, was arrested on suspicion of murdering his wife Joanne after she was found stabbed in their Crosby home.

Thursday’s death toll follows a spate of high-profile knife murders. They include Shakilus Townsend, 16, who was set upon by a gang in a suspected “honeytrap” killing; Ben Kinsella, 16, who died as he tried to break up a fight outside a bar; Rob Knox, an 18-year-old Harry Potter film actor; and Jimmy Mizen, 16, a former altar boy.

Last night police charged a second man, Daniel Sonnex, with the murders of French students Laurent Bonomo, and Gabriel Ferez in south London.

An insight into the way young men use knives has emerged from a study of offenders in Parc youth offenders’ institution in Wales. Luke, 20, from Bristol, told The Guardian newspaper how he was carrying a small blade in his pocket when he became involved in a drunken confrontation with a group of youths in a kebab shop.

One of them hit him. “I just whacked straight back at him and the blade went straight in his eyeball and blinded him. And that’s the biggest mistake of my life,” he said.

Martin, 19, described how he challenged a man outside a house party over a missing mobile phone. There was a brief fight and Martin ran back into the house and grabbed a knife.

“As I went outside I pulled the knife out and he just come running towards me. As I swung for him I stabbed him in his shoulder. I was so off it I went back into the house to the party. I was arrested about 10 minutes later,” he recalled.

Scotland Yard has set up a 75-strong taskforce to fight knife crime, although senior officers say they cannot explain the sudden surge in incidents. “It just seems that this has escalated uncontrollably. It seems to be particularly concentrated in London. But we can find absolutely no reason for it,” said one.

Ministers have announced a rash of new policies and a £3m advertising campaign. The maximum sentence for carrying a knife will be doubled from two to four years.

Last month Gordon Brown announced that anyone over 16 caught with a knife would be automatically prosecuted.

Police have been given extra cash to buy mobile metal-detecting knife arches to be placed outside pubs, clubs and schools to deter knife-carrying. The measures have had little impact.

Figures out this week are expected to show an overall fall in violent crime in the past year, but that will do little to allay the growing sense of public anxiety about “broken Britain”.

This weekend the Tories produced figures showing that there has been a 21% increase in homicides since Labour came to power.

David Ruffley, the shadow minister for police reform, said there was also a 29% rise in those killed by sharp instruments, such as knives, from 200 in 1997 to 258 in 2006-07. In a sign of growing government alarm, Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, will announce a fresh range of measures during a television interview today.

One of her suggestions will be that those convicted of carrying knives should be forced to visit hospital accident and emergency units to be confronted with knife victims.

Her proposal is likely to be condemned as insensitive by doctors and patients’ groups. Fatima Kabasinguzi, Miiro’s relative, said it was misguided.

“I don’t think this will work, because it’s the way kids are brought up,” Kabasinguzi said. “With these kids, even if they see people dying, they won’t stop carrying knives.”

Nsubuga said: “Just taking people to hospital isn’t going to stop them from carrying knives. What you need is proper jail sentences and prisons where they experience hardship.

“At the moment they go into prison and get free TVs, free food. Prison should be really tough. The government needs to be far tougher. If I see the man who did this then all I would want him to be is dead.”

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