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The family of Elianne Andam has said “our hearts are broken” after she was stabbed to death near a bus stop on her way to school.

The 15-year-old was stabbed in the neck with a foot-long knife near the Whitgift shopping centre in Croydon, south London, during the morning rush hour, a witness said.

A 17-year-old boy, who knew the victim, was arrested just over an hour after the attack which took place on busy Wellesley Road at around 8.30am on Wednesday.

Elianne’s family said in a statement: “Our hearts are broken by the senseless death of our daughter.

“Elianne was the light of our lives. She was bright and funny, with many friends who all adored her.

“She was only 15, and had her whole life ahead of her, with hopes and dreams for the future.

“All those dreams have now been shattered. Our lives have fallen apart, along with that of our wider family.

“We ask the media to please respect our privacy as we try to grieve the short life of our beautiful child.”

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Elianne Andam
Pic:Met Police
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Elianne Andam. Pic:Met Police

Elianne Andam 
Pic:Met Police
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Elianne Andam. Pic:Met Police

Detectives have recovered CCTV footage from the area and spoken to witnesses, while forensic scientists have examined the scene and a postmortem is taking place on Thursday afternoon.

Police said officers were confident Elianne, who attended the Old Palace of John Whitgift School, was attacked near the bus stop in Wellesley Road and are trying to establish her exact relationship with her alleged attacker.

Detective Chief Inspector Rebecca Woodsford, who is leading the investigation, said: “My thoughts and the thoughts of my team are with Elianne’s family. This is a deeply upsetting time for them and we will do everything we can to support them.”

Elianne was pronounced dead at the scene at around 9.20am, while the suspect, who was held in nearby New Addington, remains in custody. Police have been given an extra 12 hours to question him.

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‘Every parent’s worst nightmare’

DCI Woodsford said: “We know many people were in the area at the time and would have witnessed the attack. This would have been distressing and traumatic and I would encourage anyone who needs support to contact us and we will help to arrange this.

“I know that Elianne’s death has left many people feeling upset and I would like to thank the people of Croydon for the support they have shown us as we have carried out our inquiries in the town centre. I know this work has been disruptive, however it has been vital and your patience is appreciated.”

Police officers lay flowers at the scene in Croydon where 15-year-old Elianne Andam was stabbed to death
Police officers lay flowers at the scene in Croydon where 15-year-old Elianne Andam was stabbed to death

Tributes have poured in for Elianne, with dozens of bunches of flowers, cards and candles left at the scene, while a large police cordon remains in place.

Officers who were among the first at the scene and battled to try to save her appeared visibly moved as they laid flowers on Thursday.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “I have spent the morning in Croydon meeting local residents, youth workers, community leaders, police officers and others.

“That is a community shocked, traumatised and heartbroken. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say our thoughts are with her family and friends.”

Adama Dumbuya, 30, a family friend of the girl, said: “It’s just really sad. She was such a lovely little girl. I’m a parent myself.

“She was just really lovely the few times I’ve met her. She’s just a very nice girl and very polite.”

Flowers at the scene  as forensic investigators  work the scene in Croydon
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Flowers at the scene as forensic investigators work the scene in Croydon

Anthony King, chairman of My Ends – a project helping combat youth violence in Croydon – said the boy had been known to local community groups for the past couple of years.

Mr King was with the girl’s family after the incident and said they were “heartbroken”.

He added: “She had a bright future ahead of her. She was in her GCSE year.”

Mr King described the girl as an “absolutely incredible young lady” and told of how others said she was “jovial, very comedic”.

One of the cards, left near the site of the attack, read: “Sorry we live in this crazy world. This makes no sense.

“Fly high up there, my mummy will look after you. RIP beautiful, forever young, taken too soon.

“Thoughts and prayers are with your family and friends, God bless.”

A woman lays flowers near the scene in Croydon, south London, where a 15-year-old girl was stabbed to death on Wednesday morning. Picture date: Thursday September 28, 2023.
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A woman lays flowers near the scene in Croydon

‘The blood was coming like water’

A bus driver and a passer-by were seen desperately trying to save Elianne before emergency services arrived, with police at the scene within two minutes.

Victor Asare, 50, told how he saw a boy stab her in the neck with a knife which was “black, thin and about a foot long”.

“The boy wore a black blazer, the girl wore green. It looked like the girl didn’t want the boy to come closer,” said the security worker. “The blood was coming like water.”

He said the boy ran away and “everybody was crying and screaming”, adding: “The girl was on the floor.

“We tried to catch him and a lot of people tried to save the girl. I was so shocked, I was shaken. It’s somebody’s daughter.”

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Croydon stabbing: ‘Girl’s friends were screaming’

A mother of two, who wanted to be named only as Bridget, said: “I was on the bus before and came off and walked back down, I saw them resuscitating her.

“The driver was holding her, and a lady. The emergency services were already here when I walked back.”

She said two other schoolgirls, believed to be the victim’s friends, were trying to get through the police cordon but were held back.

The Old Palace of John Whitgift School has said in a statement: “We are deeply shocked by the senseless and tragic death of our much-loved and valued friend and pupil.

“It will take some time for the Old Palace community to come to terms with this terrible news, and we will offer support to our pupils as we try to do so.

“Above all, we send our love and deepest sympathies to the girl’s family at this unimaginably distressing time.”

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‘Crushing blow’ for care homes as they face ban on overseas recruitment

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'Crushing blow' for care homes as they face ban on overseas recruitment

Care workers will no longer be recruited from abroad under plans to “significantly” bring down net migration, the home secretary has said.

Yvette Cooper told Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme the government will close the care worker visa route as part of new restrictions which aim to cut the number of low-skilled foreign workers by about 50,000 this year.

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She said: “We’re going to introduce new restrictions on lower-skilled workers, so new visa controls, because we think actually what we should be doing is concentrating on the higher-skilled migration and we should be concentrating on training in the UK.

“Also, we will be closing the care worker visa for overseas recruitment”.

The move comes ahead of the Immigration White Paper to be laid out this week, which will give more details on the government’s reforms.

Care England, a charity which represents independent care services, described Ms Cooper’s comments as a “crushing blow to an already fragile sector” and said the government “is kicking us while we’re already down”.

Its chief executive Martin Green said international recruitment is a “lifeline” and there are “mounting vacancies” in the sector.

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Reform: Immigration ‘should be frozen’

Cooper refuses to give immigration target

Ministers have already announced changes to the skilled visa threshold to require a graduate qualification and higher salary.

Ms Cooper told Trevor Phillips that this – along with the care worker restrictions – will result in a reduction “probably in the region of up to 50,000 low-skilled worker visas in the course of this year alone”.

However, she refused to give a wider target on the amount the government wants to see net migration come down by overall, only saying that it needs to come down “substantially”.

Ms Cooper said the Conservatives repeatedly set targets they couldn’t meet and her plan was about “restoring credibility and trust”.

She said: “It’s about preventing this chaotic system where we had overseas recruitment soar while training in the UK was cut and we saw low-skilled migration in particular, hugely go up at the same time as UK residents in work or in training fell. That is a broken system. So that is what we need to change.”

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Care companies say they can’t carry on after NI hike

The government is under pressure after it’s drubbing at the local elections, when Reform UK took control of 10 councils in England.

Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said the party’s strong performance was because people are angry about both legal and illegal immigration and called for immigration to be “frozen”.

He told Trevor Phillips: “The reality is that we’ve just won by an absolute landslide – the elections Thursday last week – because people are raging, furious, about the levels of both illegal and legal immigration in this country.

“We need to freeze immigration because the way to get our economy going is to freeze immigration, get wages up for British workers, train our own people, get our own people who are economically inactive back into work.”

Net migration – the difference between the number of people immigrating and emigrating to a country – soared when the UK left the EU in January 2020.

It reached 903,000 in the year to June 2023 before falling to 728,000 in mid-2024.

According to the Home Office, the number of ‘Health and Care Worker’ visas increased from 31,800 in 2021 to 145,823 in 2023, with the rise primarily due to an increase in South Asian and Sub-Saharan African nationals coming to work as care workers.

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Sky News investigates UK care homes

The number decreased significantly in 2024 to 27,174 – due to measures introduced by the Tories and greater compliance activity, the government said.

The crackdown is likely to cause concern in the care sector, which has long warned that low wages are driving a recruitment crisis and is now also being hit by the rise in employer National Insurance.

Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Ms Cooper said there are around 10,000 people in the UK who came on care worker visas for jobs that didn’t exist and “care companies should recruit from that pool”.

“They came in good faith but there were no proper checks, they were badly exploited,” she said.

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Nadra Ahmed, of the National Care Association, told Sky News this was a “scandal of the Home Office’s own making”, with care workers allowed to come to the UK “legitimately but with spurious contracts from profiteers preying on an already fragile sector”.

She added: “Understandably, many of those who are displaced have a preference of which part of the sector they work in or are qualified to do so, based on the promises made to them.

“Our preference would always be to recruit from within our domestic options but sadly we are not able to generate enough interest in social care when the funding remains a barrier to ensure that pay adequately rewards the skills and expertise of our workforce.”

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Labour’s shift on migration may assuage voters’ concerns – but risks harming struggling care sector

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Labour's shift on migration may assuage voters' concerns - but risks harming struggling care sector

Labour and the Conservatives have been left reeling from Reform UK’s rampant success at the local elections.

And it seems both have taken a clear message from the insurgent party’s signature attitude towards migration.

Politics live: Care homes face ban on overseas recruitment

Polls regularly show the issue is a top concern for voters. While stopping the boats driving illegal migration is proving as difficult for Labour as it was for the Tories – the government has the levers to control legal migration much more directly.

This week, Sir Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper have decided it’s time to pull them, with their long-awaited white paper due to be published on Monday. But the trade offs involved in reforming the system certainly aren’t without controversy.

Speaking to Sky’s Sir Trevor Phillips to sell her plans to reduce visa numbers, the home secretary repeatedly talked about “restoring control”.

It’s no coincidence to hear her invoking the language of Brexit – highlighting the fact it was Boris Johnson who presided over the spiralling increase in migration after the vote to leave the European Union – and attempting to court the voters who believed doing so would close the borders to the influx of overseas workers.

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“It’s about restoring control and order,” she said. “It’s about preventing this chaotic system where we had overseas recruitment soar while training in the UK was cut…

“That is a broken system. So that is what we need to change.”

The home office plan is to link the reduction in overseas workers with government efforts to get the economically inactive back into work. In future, only those with degree-level qualifications will be eligible for skilled worker visas.

Employers who want to employ lower-skilled workers, on a temporary basis, will have to demonstrate they are training and recruiting UK workers as well.

The home secretary says 180 occupations will be removed from the shortage list, with the shortfall filled by training schemes to fill the gaps with home-grown workers. Questions abound about how training schemes will marry up with immediate business needs now.

But it’s the closure of the specific care worker visa which is leading to the loudest alarm bells thus far.

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Reform: Immigration ‘should be frozen’

Many in the sector are desperately worried about pre-existing staffing shortfalls, unconvinced by government advice to recruit from a pool of 10,000 workers already in the UK on care visas.

Professor Martin Green, of Care England, said: “This is a crushing blow to an already fragile sector. The government is kicking us while we’re already down.”

But the government is determined to try and wean the economy off its dependence on overseas labour.

The increase in net migration is staggering. Before Brexit, the highest figure was 329,000, in the year up to June 2015.

But by June 2023, the annual number had soared to 906,000. While last year that figure fell to 728,000, following restrictions on dependents on care and student visas – the number is still strikingly high.

Kemi Badenoch’s Tories have decided there’s no room for evasion and have regularly issued dramatic apologies for the decisions of the past.

“The last government,” said Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp on Sunday, as if he had no part of it, “made some very serious mistakes with immigration. They allowed it to be far, far too high…that was a huge mistake.”

But Mr Philp is characteristically full of criticism of Labour’s “failure” on the “radical reforms” needed.

He wants to see parliament voting for an annual cap on numbers, although hasn’t specified what that would be.

👉 Click here to listen to Electoral Dysfunction on your podcast app 👈

Ms Cooper says migration targets have no credibility after years of Tory failures – but also acknowledged that she wants the numbers to fall “substantially” and “significantly” below 500,000.

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She claims the skilled worker visa changes will lead to 50,000 fewer visas being issued this year alone – a small proportion of that overall too, but a quick result all the same.

Will it be enough?

Reform UK are clearly delighted to be directing the government’s policy agenda.

Deputy leader Richard Tice told Sir Trevor “the Labour Party is talking the talk. Will they actually walk the walk? I actually think the people are voting for us because they know that we mean it.”

But the policy is a risk.

Assuaging voters’ concerns on migration could mean taking a serious hit to an already anaemic economy and struggling care sector. Not to mention the longer-term political decision to move the party firmly to the right.

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Woman arrested after allegedly trying to abduct baby in Blackpool

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Woman arrested after allegedly trying to abduct baby in Blackpool

A woman has been arrested after allegedly trying to abduct a baby in Blackpool.

Police said it was reported that a woman had approached a baby in a pram on Central Drive, near to the Coral Island amusement arcade in the Lancashire seaside town, at around 11.55am on Saturday.

Members of the public and the baby’s parent intervened, Blackpool Police said, adding the baby was unharmed.

A 51-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of child abduction and police assault.

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Enquiries are ongoing and the force has advised people to avoid speculating about the incident online.

Chief Inspector John Jennings-Wharton said: “We know that something like this can be very concerning for the community to hear about.

“We are in the early stages of our investigation and are working to establish the full circumstances.”

He added: “If you do have information or footage that could assist those enquiries, we ask you report them to us through the appropriate channels.”

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