More than 2,000 police officers were on duty across London today to monitor fan events ahead of the Champions League final at Wembley. They have also been at several protests.
Met Police officers were keeping an eye on Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid supporters ahead of the 8pm kick off.
Earlier, there was a demonstration led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson at Parliament Square - while Stand Up To Racism led a counter-protest on Whitehall.
Image:Scenes from Tommy Robinson's march on Saturday. Pic: PA
Image:Pic: PA
Robinson - real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon - said he was protesting against alleged "two-tier policing", while Stand Up To Racism said it was campaigning against what it deemed to be "racism and Islamophobia".
Scotland Yard said it had identified individuals in the crowd at Robinson's protest who "have a history of being involved in violent disorder".
In an update on X on Saturday afternoon, the force added: "A number have football banning orders and are associated with hooligan groups from London and across the UK.
"There is also an element of the crowd previously well known for involvement in anti-lockdown protests during the pandemic and associated disorder.
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"A number of people in the crowd are intoxicated."
In a later update, the Met said it had made two arrests "in the vicinity of Parliament Square".
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It added: "One arrest was for drunk and disorderly and assaulting an emergency worker.
"The other relates to an incident where a woman was subjected to racial abuse. We await confirmation of the exact offence."
Image:Tommy Robinson addresses the crowd at Parliament Square. Pic: PA
Image:Robinson among protesters. Pic: PA
Image:Pic: PA
The Met also said a number of people at a smaller protest in Waterloo had been arrested after attempting to block traffic. Youth Demand protesters were demonstrating against Israel's ongoing offensive in Gaza.
Scotland Yard said its officers' presence would continue into the evening, when Europe's biggest club competition reaches its conclusion.
Image:Fans on Olympic Way ahead of the Champions League final. Pic: Lucy North/PA
T/Commander Louise Puddefoot, who is leading this weekend's policing operation, said: "We want fans visiting London for this fantastic event to have a safe and enjoyable experience.
"There will be a visible police and stewarding presence not just around Wembley but at fan zones and other events.
"Anyone who sees anything suspicious or who has concerns about safety or security should speak to an officer or a member of the stewarding team."
Around 20 prisoners have reportedly been involved in a riot at a crisis-hit jail which has seen 10 sudden inmate deaths in three months. Three inmates of HMP Parc in Bridgend have been rushed to hospital following Friday's unrest.
An air ambulance attended the prison on Friday before being stood down. G4S, the firm that runs the prison, says the prisoners' injuries are not "life-threatening". A spokeswoman for the private security giant said: “Staff at HMP Parc swiftly resolved two short-lived incidents involving prisoners on Friday, with no officers injured. Those involved will receive the strongest possible punishments, including criminal prosecution.”
G4S says one of the incidents involved around 20 prisoners and was "safely resolved" after help from the Prison and Probation Service, which we understand sent a 'tornado team' — a prison riot squad — into the jail. According to G4S the second incident was unrelated and involved "an altercation between three prisoners who required hospital treatment". No staff were injured in either incident.
Prisoners' families and sources close to the jail have told WalesOnline that the unrest amounted to a riot. Vans and teams of security officers were seen going into the prison into the early hours of Saturday. The trigger for the disturbances is not clear. We have asked G4S and South Wales Police for more information including the severity of any injuries and whether there have been any arrests.
On Wednesday we revealed that Parc's death toll had reached 10 in just over three months. A 38-year-old prisoner, Warren Manners, died suddenly that day in circumstances that police do not believe to be suspicious. We previously revealed allegations from former staff members and prisoners of drug-dealing, violence, corruption, chronic understaffing and a lack of mental health support. Grieving families marched outside the prison on Monday in a demonstration calling for G4S to be stripped of its £400million contract. Protesters chanted "G4S out" and carried placards with messages such as "stop the drugs".
Earlier this month the prisons minister Edward Argar said four out of nine recent sudden deaths at Parc were believed to be drug-related, four were not, and one was "potentially so". Two of the deaths, he said, were thought to be from natural causes. On Monday we interviewed the heartbroken family of 19-year-old Michael Horton, who was allegedly threatened by drug-dealing inmates before his death at the prison on May 7.
A woman who recently worked at the prison told us: "The prison was ultimately run by the prisoners, with officers being paid to bring in contraband items. The enhanced red band prisoners, who were able to roam, would then ferry these items across the prison." Rampant drug use, she claims, would go "unnoticed or ignored".
Police recently arrested a Parc employee on suspicion of smuggling in contraband. The 36-year-old man is the fourth person within two months to have been arrested in connection with illicit items or drugs allegedly brought into Parc. The relationship between the prison and the first three people arrested is unknown.
Mr Argar told Parliament that the jail is "safe" and that the contract "continues to perform well" but he did say the UK Government has issued an improvement notice on G4S for urgent action on Parc's security. A G4S spokeswoman said: “We have a zero-tolerance policy towards drugs and use a range of tactics to tackle the ingress of drugs and reduce demand... The vast majority of our staff are hard-working and honest. As with every other prison in the country, we work closely with the police and the [prison service] counter-corruption team to crack down on the small number who may break the rules."
"Please check, please repeat." A frantic telephone call from a woman with a cut-glass English accent took Maureen Sweeney by surprise.
A short time earlier, the Irish postmistress had filed her hourly weather report: "Force six wind and a rapidly falling barometer."
It was her 21st birthday but she and her soon-to-be husband Ted, keepers of the Blacksod Lighthouse, had their job to do.
Their son Vincent recalls: "My mother said, 'oh my God, were my readings wrong?'" They were not wrong, but they had caused alarm for those planning the imminent D-Day landings.
Some 5,000 ships and 11,000 aircraft had transported 156,000 Allied troops in readiness for the beachfront offensive at Normandy.
Image:It was Maureen's 21st birthday when she sent the weather report on 3 June
Image:The scene at Omaha Beach in Normandy during the Allied invasion on D-Day. Pic: AP
But there was one thing UK, US and Canadian commanders had no control over - the weather on 5 June, the date they had earmarked for invasion.
It is small and unremarkable in appearance, but the lighthouse at Blacksod Point in County Mayo was about to claim its place in history.
Image:Ted and Maureen Sweeney played a critical role in the success of the D-Day landings
Situated on the western edge of Europe, flanked by a pretty fishing village, immaculate beaches and the neighbouring Achill Island, it surveys the vast Atlantic Ocean.
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Vincent, who is the current lighthouse attendant, explains: "We have the first gaze into the Atlantic.
Image:Maureen's report persuaded officials to postpone the landings by a day
"Any weather that is coming in will come in over us.
"But this depression, with northwest winds, was coming in directly over Blacksod, down through the UK and into the Channel.
"That would have hit Normandy in about five hours, so it was critical."
Despite Ireland's neutrality during the Second World War, it continued to supply weather forecasts to Britain under an agreement in place since independence.
Maureen never imagined for a moment that the fate of tens of thousands of Allied troops hung on her readings.
Image:Maureen and Ted's son, Vincent, is the lighthouse attendant today
Her report on 3 June indicated a cold front lying halfway across Ireland and moving rapidly south-eastwards, towards Normandy.
Had the plan gone ahead, Allied troops would have faced catastrophe, trying to steer boats through rough water and scramble on to the beach in driving rain.
Maureen's weather warning, checked and double-checked by Ted, persuaded those in charge to postpone by a day.
In the early hours of 5 June, at General Eisenhower's morning briefing, another report from Blacksod confirmed that the cold front had passed.
A loud cheer went up in the room, the long-awaited weather clearance had arrived and he gave the order for Operation Overlord to proceed.
Image:Maureen's efforts were recognised with a medal by the US House of Representatives
Shortly before her death last year aged 100, Maureen recalled those three days in June 1944.
"Eisenhower was making up his mind… but when he saw the report from Blacksod, it confirmed that he was right, and he went ahead then," she said.
It was more than a decade after D-Day, when weather forecasting arrangements changed, before Maureen and Ted learned the critical role they had played.
Vincent explained: "They had a fair idea that there might be something up because the weather went in every hour on the hour and then came the call to please check, please repeat.
"But it was 1956, when the weather station moved from Blacksod, when an official came to assist with the relocation.
Image:Maureen discovered how key she had been to D-Day more than a decade later
"He said, 'by the way Ted and Maureen, do you realise the significance of the weather forecasts you sent on the 3, 4 and 5 June 1944?'
"'I can tell you now that those forecasts were the decisive factor before Operation Overlord could proceed'."
Observations were taken at various locations by Royal Air Force, Royal Navy and United States Army and Air Force meteorologists.
But the forecast from the Irish Meteorological Service, based on readings from Blacksod on Mayo's Mullet Peninsula, proved crucial.
Image:A certificate praising Maureen's efforts
Had Maureen not accurately read the signs, the D-Day campaign, the turning point of the Second World War, would almost certainly have ended in failure.
The US House of Representatives acknowledged her contribution with a medal and certificate recognising her "laudable actions" for perpetuity.
Her grandson Fergus Sweeney, a tour guide at the lighthouse, says his grandmother saved the most ambitious invasion in history from disaster.
"It would certainly be a different world today. You can imagine what would have happened to the allies had they gone during the bad weather.
Image:Fergus believes it 'would certainly be a different world today' without Blacksod
"The invasion would have been a disaster… but of course, that would have changed the world we live in.
"The world we live in today is dictated by what happened at the end of the Second World War and so everything that we know now would be vastly different," he said.
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Related: Keir Starmer denies Labour ‘left-wing cull’ after Abbott and Shaheen suspensions
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Sir Keir Starmer has said his top priority is “wealth creation” as he looks to capture the middle ground voters.
In an interview with The Times, the Labour leader issued a pitch to the middle class as he told the paper his “number one mission is wealth creation".
“I think you win from the centre ground, the centre ground is where most people are,” he said.
“As a nation, broadly speaking we’re a pretty reasonable, tolerant bunch but we are in the centre ground of politics. People don’t like the extremes of the right or the left.
“They are reasonably tolerant. They want themselves, their families and the country to improve and make progress."
Sir Keir is set to announce later today a number of proposed employment support and welfare benefits reforms aimed at increasing the employment rate from 75 per cent to 80 per cent.
This includes a new combined national jobs and careers service, local plans for work, health and skills support, and a guarantee of opportunities for young people.
Starmer says ‘wealth creation’ is top priority for Labour
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said "wealth creation" is his top priority as the General Election campaign enters its second weekend.
Speaking to The Times, Sir Keir said his “number one mission” was creating more wealth in a bid to appeal to the middle ground voters.
He suggested the majority of England were a “tolerant bunch” occupying the centre of political leaning.
Sir Keir will on Saturday announce a number of proposed employment support and welfare benefits reforms aimed at increasing the employment rate from 75 per cent to 80 per cent.
This includes a new combined national jobs and careers service, local plans for work, health and skills support, and a guarantee of opportunities for young people.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer says ‘wealth creation’ is his top priority (Getty Images)
Starmer and Rayner to appear together later this morning
Sir Keir Starmer and his deputy Angela Rayner are to appear together this morning for the first time since the party said Diane Abbott was free to stand as an MP.
The dramatic U-turn came after Ms Rayner said Ms Abbott should be allowed to stand – in a break with her party leader.
This morning they will launch Ms Rayner’s battle bus tour of the UK alongside a pledge to “power up” every corner of Britain.
Sir Keir, and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will join Ms Rayner as she sets off on a 5,000-mile journey to battleground seats across the country.
British opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer and Shadow Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner attend a Labour general election campaign event at Priestfield Stadium last week (REUTERS)
Is the Green Party a serious contender in the forthcoming election?
The Green Party of England and Wales (the Scottish Greens are separate but linked) was unlucky with the timing of its election campaign launch. Though joint leaders Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay are hardly household names even in their own kitchens, and their plans for a more sustainable future were never going to hog the front page of the Daily Mail, the party does increasingly matter. Indeed, it seems set for a record share of the vote at this general election, polling at some 6 per cent, and may win at least one more parliamentary constituency. Its prospects are brighter than ever.
Vallance becomes latest public servant who worked with Tory government to back Labour
The former chief scientific officer’s backing was unveiled as Sir Keir Starmer revealed that the publicly owned company which he argues will bring down energy costs will be based in Scotland.
But Sir Patrick is just the latest former senior Whitehall mandarin to support Labour in a move which has already angered the Tories.
This came after much criticism from Muslim groups and the left of the party of Starmer’s position on Israel.
Adding further fuel to the fire, Sir Keir admitted he would work with convicted felon Donald Trump if he gets into the White House despite facing an “unprecedented” situation.
He added that he “respects the decision of the court” that found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records as part of a conspiracy to corrupt.
Breaking: Starmer says Diane Abbott is free to run for Labour
After days of intense speculation, Sir Keir Stamer has confirmed Diane Abbott is free to stand at the general election.
He said: “Diane was elected in 1987. The first black woman MP. She has been a trailblazer.
“She has carved a path for other people to come into politics and public life. The whip has obviously been restored to her now, and she is free to go forward as a Labour candidate.”
Asked about whether he understands Ms Abbott’s intention to stand, he replied: “She’s free to go forward as a Labour candidate. The whip is back with her. It’s been restored. And of course you know she was a trailblazer for many, many years and has been a path for others to come into politics.
“So, formally a matter for the NEC, I’ve not expressed a view up until now. She’s free to go forward as a Labour candidate.”
Exclusive Poll: Tories recover 2% from post-election shock
Labour is maintaining 45 per cent of voting intention, according to today’s polls from Techne UK, with a 24-point lead over the Conservatives.
The Tories have clawed back 2 per cent in the polls, after Rishi Sunak’s shock election announcement caused a dip in support last week, writes data correspondent Alicja Hagopian.
The Lib Dems and Reform UK have been neck-and-neck across the UK for the month of May, currently at 11 per cent and 12 per cent respectively.
For more polls, approval ratings and top issues on the ballot read here.
Seats visited by party leaders so far in the election campaign
All three of the main party leaders have been on the road every day since the General Election was called – but how many events have they held, and what kind of constituencies have they visited?
Labour’s NEC member accuses Starmer of ‘nasty bully boy tactics’
Another member of Labour’s National Executive Committee has attacked Sir Keir Starmer of carrying out “nasty bully boy tactics” over his treatment of Diane Abbott.
The party’s governing body, with 41 members, is expected to meet on Tuesday to officially list Abbott as a Labour candidate.
Committee member Jess Barnard said Sir Keir’s U-turn was “a huge victory for Diane Abbott” and showed that “the decision was in Starmers hands all along”.
Starmer says Diane Abbott is free to run for Labour
After days of intense speculation, Sir Keir Stamer has confirmed Diane Abbott is free to stand at the general election.
He said: “Diane was elected in 1987. The first black woman MP. She has been a trailblazer.
“She has carved a path for other people to come into politics and public life. The whip has obviously been restored to her now, and she is free to go forward as a Labour candidate.”
Asked about whether he understands Ms Abbott’s intention to stand, he replied: “She’s free to go forward as a Labour candidate. The whip is back with her. It’s been restored. And of course you know she was a trailblazer for many, many years and has been a path for others to come into politics.
“So, formally a matter for the NEC, I’ve not expressed a view up until now. She’s free to go forward as a Labour candidate.”
ITV has announced today that its General Election multi-party debate will take place on Thursday, June 13 at 8.30pm.
The ITV Election Debate 2024 will be broadcast on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player.
Leaders or senior representatives from the following parties will participate; Conservative Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, SNP, Reform UK, Green Party and Plaid Cymru.
The debate will be moderated by Julie Etchingham, who moderated ITV election debates in 2015, 2017 and 2019.
The programme will run for 90 minutes. It will be followed by ITV News at Ten.
Brexit rethink should be ‘front and centre’ of election campaign - poll
Voters back Lord Heseltine’s claim that the current general election risks being “one of the most dishonest” in history because the main parties will not discuss Britain’s relationship with the European Union, David Maddox reports.
The We Think voter intention poll has revealed that almost six in 10 voters (58 percent) think that Brexit and Britain’s relationship with the EU should be one of the main issues in the election.
The survey of 1,242 voters commissioned by the pro-EU European Movement followed an intervention by the former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine in The Independent this week where he warned no issue can be discussed without referring it to Brexit.
The former Conservative MP previously faced allegations of serious sexual assault himself which were investigated then dropped by Essex Police earlier this year.
He has now confirmed he will stand as an independent candidate at the general election.
He said: “Solihull deserves more than a whips appointed candidate who doesn’t get the issues.”
Ian Dale drops out of Tunbridge Wells election race after 48h
The wannabe Tory MP has dropped out of the race to represent Tunbridge Wells after two days after a clip emerged of him saying he never liked the area.
LBC presenter Iain Dale, who quit on Tuesday night to run for the Conservatives in the general election, has announced he was throwing in the towel.
It came after a clip from his For the Many podcast from 2022 where he told his co-host, former Labour home secretary Jacqui Smith: “I have lived in Tunbridge Wells since 1997, slightly against my will.
“I’ve never liked the place. Still don’t, and would happily live somewhere else.”
Lamara Bell and her partner John Yuill were found inside their car after it crashed down an embankment off the M9
Police Scotland's failings led to "almost incomprehensible" suffering for a young woman who was trapped in a car with her dead partner for three days, a fatal accident inquiry has said.
Lamara Bell lay terribly injured but conscious at the bottom of an embankment off the M9 motorway near Stirling for days despite a call being made to police hours after the crash.
Ms Bell's partner John Yuill, who was driving the car, died soon after the crash in July 2015.
But the inquiry found Ms Bell would probably have survived if an "organisational failure" in Police Scotland's call-handling system had not allowed a human error to go undetected.
Sheriff James Williamson, who led the inquiry, said Ms Bell's injuries, together with the delay in rescuing and treating her, led to her death four days after she was finally found.
Heartfelt apology
The sheriff's FAI report said Police Scotland failed to properly risk assess the call-handling procedures and did not have a system that checked calls were acted on.
It said that an organisational failure led to the safety of the public being compromised and had "fatal consequences" for 25-year-old Ms Bell.
Sheriff Williamson was damning in his criticism of Police Scotland and said the man who failed to log the call was inadequately trained and left largely unsupervised to operate a system that allowed for human error to go undetected.
He said that the circumstances of the deaths had a corrosive effect on the public’s confidence in Police Scotland.
However, his report made no recommendations for future actions, saying Police Scotland had learned the lessons of the tragedy and changed its procedures over the past nine years.
A police car on the side of the M9 close to where the car was finally discovered
The sheriff's report said the couple, who were both from Falkirk, had been on a camping trip at Loch Earn and left in the early hours of Sunday 5 July.
Mr Yuill – who only had a provisional licence – was driving and had taken cannabis and had drunk alcohol in the hours before he left.
The car plunged down the embankment some time between 06:00 and 06:15, having crossed the hard shoulder and hit a kerb.
Mr Yuill, 28, died as a result of his injuries but Ms Bell was still alive.
Later that morning – about 11:30 – farmer John Wilson saw the crashed car at the bottom of the embankment and called the police on the non-emergency 101 number.
He assumed the police would take action but the call was never logged on its system.
Over the coming days Mr Wilson saw the car was still there.
On the morning of Wednesday 8 July another farmer saw the car and went down the embankment to investigate.
Mr Yuill was dead but he could hear Ms Bell calling for help.
She was taken to hospital but died four days later.
The FAI report said that if Ms Bell had been admitted to hospital on the day of the accident her head injury could have been managed and the complications such as brain swelling, hypothermia and systemic infection could have been substantially avoided.
It said she would probably have survived but would have suffered a long-term neurological deficit.
Lamara Bell would probably have survived if she had been discovered when the initial call was made
In the initial call to report the car down the embankment, Mr Wilson spoke to Brian Henry, a police sergeant who had volunteered to do overtime to help out at the Bilston Glen contact centre, which the sheriff described as a "confused, fractious working environment".
The report said Mr Henry gave evidence to the inquiry and "did not shrink from the fact that he took the call and failed to action it".
It said Mr Henry gave a "genuine and heartfelt apology" to the families and had been tortured over the years since the accident trying to work out what happened and to provide an explanation for them.
"Ultimately he is unable to do that, beyond simple human error," the report said.
Human error
Sheriff Williamson's FAI determination said Mr Henry did not deliberately ignore the call and appreciated that it should be acted on.
He made hand-written notes in his "Pot Book" but it is thought that while checking to see if the incident had already been logged he was interrupted.
Mr Henry became involved in other phone calls for the remainder of his shift and never went back to check the entries in his notebook.
The report said the system, which did not check incoming calls against outgoing actions, meant that there was a risk of human error going undetected.
It said Police Scotland could have ensured all call handlers - even non-core staff like Mr Henry - were trained to use the Aspire system at all times.
Police Scotland accepted it failed to train Brian Henry and other non-core call handlers.
The report said the force's failings gave rise to circumstances in which such an error such as the one made by Mr Henry could occur.
The sheriff said Police Scotland was an entirely different organisation now than it was in 2015.
He said the force and other experts were confident that the type of error that led to the deaths of Mr Yuill and Ms Bell being repeated were remote.
"So remote that only wilfully ignoring a call would give rise to a call going unactioned," it said.
Police Scotland has previously admitted criminal liability and pleaded guilty to a contravention of the Health and Safety at Work Act that their failure to record and action a a call materially contributed to the death of Ms Bell and was fined £100,000.
Deputy Chief Constable Alan Speirs repeated his apology to the families and said the police had done everything they could to stop a terrible incident such as this being repeated.
"Sheriff Williamson's findings highlight the significant improvements which have been made to our call handling systems," he said.
"How we respond to 999 and 101 calls now is incomparable to how we dealt with them in 2015."
He added: "We are studying the determination in detail for any learning which will form part of this continuous improvement."
John Yuill's father Gordon said he accepted that the crash was his son's fault but he would hate to see anyone go through the ordeal suffered by his and Ms Bell's families over the past nine years.
"We tried to grieve for my son and we weren't allowed to," he said.
"That was taken away from us."
Mr Yuill said the problems with sickness levels and shortages of staff at Police Scotland's Bilston Glen call centre were well known before the incident.
"I don't blame the officer. I don't believe he was given the right training to work the system," he said.
"Without the training, an accident was always going to happen. It should have been built into the system that human error could not happen."
Mr Yuill said he was disappointed that the report did not make any recommendations to ensure the same mistakes could not happen again.
Andy Shanks, who leads on death investigations for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS), said: “We recognise that the time taken for our investigation and criminal proceedings to conclude and to initiate the inquiry must have been enormously difficult for the families of Lamara Bell and John Yuill."
He noted that it was a complex case and said the way deaths were investigated had changed in recent years to reduce delays.
Mr Shanks added: “The procurator fiscal service will continue to keep in contact with the families following the conclusion of this complex and lengthy FAI and answer any questions they may have about the determination.”
Shocking video footage has shown the moments after a horror shooting in Hackney, London this week which left a nine-year-old girl fighting for her life and three men injured.
The footage reveals the chaos at Evin restaurant after a shooter pulled up on a motorbike and let off a round of bullets as families ate dinner at the popular Turkish restaurant.
Members of the public can be seen tending to one of the victims on the ground, while others speak on the phone or ask where the emergency services are.
Emotional cries can be heard in the background as one victim is seen lying on the floor.
The five-second rampage left the girl fighting for her life while three men, aged 26, 37, and 42, sitting at the table in front of her were also hit in the incident, which unfolded at around 9.20pm.
Police said the girl suffered a gunshot wound and remains in hospital in a critical condition. The three men, who are not believed to have known the child, are in stable condition, but one potentially faces life changing injuries.
In a heart-wrenching account of the brutal shooting the owner of the Evin bistro revealed how the girl's mother crumpled in shock when she saw her daughter shot.
Gazi Degirmenci told MailOnline: 'The girl was not with the three men outside, she was sitting at a table behind them.
'The girl was with her family, her mum and dad and two other children. She was part of a five or six person group.
'The mother was in a really bad way, as you can imagine, really bad, really bad.
'We tried to help as much as we could, we tried to stop the bleeding. We gave her water, and we called the ambulance and police.
'I'm not sure that if our efforts helped. But we helped as much as we could.
'The mum was in a really bad state. I don't want to try to remember how she was, it's too upsetting. Can you imagine being in her shoes? It's an unimaginable horror.
'It's so painful, we are so upset about what happened to that child.
'I'm not sure about who the three men sitting in the front are, and if it's some sort of gang war. But the biggest tragedy is clearly the child.'
The crime bears the hallmarks of a shooting in 2003 which tragically killed two innocent young women in Birmingham.
The mother of 17-year-old Letisha Shakespeare, Dr Marcia Shakespeare, who campaigns on gun violence, told the Today programme: 'As soon as I heard the news I was very saddened to hear that there was a shooting in Hackney and that there were three males involved as well as a nine-year-old girl who was also shot.
'It just brought back the memories of when Letisha was shot.
'It's very important because a lot of crime, particularly firearms, are fuelled by serious violence, drug debts and feuds, but what's going on around us in the underworld many innocent people are getting caught up.
'It's very disturbing that 21 years later we are still battling drive-by shootings.'
She added: 'Do not take violent crime off the agenda because it's too often that charities who try to obtain funding to try and tackle and diffuse violent crime, they are stopped because something else comes in.
'It's put on the back burner... but it hasn't gone away.'
At a press conference yesterday, Detective Chief Superintendent James Conway pleaded for people to come forward with information. He began his statement by saying 'it saddens me deeply' to say that 'three men and a nine-year-old girl were shot when a firearm was discharged from a motorbike'.
He added: 'I know that local people will be extremely concerned by this incident. We share that concern and an urgent investigation has been launched to identify and apprehend those responsible.'
Detective Conway said: 'As with any child, she was an innocent victim of the indiscriminate nature of gun crime.
'Our thoughts are with her and her family and they are being supported by specialist officers.'
Previously, horrifying footage had shown the moment the shooter pulled up outside the restaurant on a motorbike before letting off five or six shots.
Eyewitnesses told how diners dived under tables in a bid to escape the bullets, but said the little girl who was hit had been playing on chairs behind the intended targets at the time.
Detective Conway said: 'The investigation is at an early stage and we are keeping an open mind as to the motive. We are keen to identify other witnesses who were in the area around the scene at the time of the shooting.
'Similarly, if you were in the Kingsland High Street area at the time of the shooting and have information or footage from a phone or other device, please share that with us.
'This is a fast-moving, complex investigation, and we will be working closely with our Specialist Crime colleagues to establish the full facts in the coming days.
'Locally, people can expect to see a significant police presence in this area, including armed officers, to provide reassurance and support. We will also continue our unrelenting focus on suppressing violence, gun crime, and the offenders who endanger our communities.
'Events such as these are rarely spontaneous. Someone knows who is responsible for this shooting that has left a little girl fighting for her life.'
