Boris Johnson said ‘absolutely everything’ is being done to tackle violent crime, after a mother and former Conservative Party activist pleaded with him for help following her only son’s stabbing death.
Sven Badzak, a 22-year-old aspiring lawyer from Maida Hill, west London, was killed and his friend is fighting for his life after they were chased and attacked by a group in Kilburn, north-west London, at around 5.30pm on Saturday, Scotland Yard said.
His mother, Jasna Badzak, told of her devastation at the loss of her ‘beloved’ son in what she believes was a random attack.
She said: ‘I can’t believe it’s happening to me, that it happened to my child who was so, so far away from any of those kind of things (violence).
‘I just can’t believe this is actually happening.’
Ms Badzak said her son had gone to a shop to get orange juice and then to a bagel shop when he was attacked.
‘He was waiting for the bagel to be done,’ she said. ‘He was just attacked for no reason.’
She added: ‘He was beloved by everyone.’
An ex-private schoolboy who met Prime Minister Boris Johnson (pictured), George Osborne and David Cameron as a child was stabbed to death on his way to pick up some orange juice
Ms Badzak said her son, who had a degree in sociology but wanted to become a lawyer, had met the Prime Minister and other well-known Conservative politicians when he was younger, through her campaigning work with the party.
Asked what she would say to Mr Johnson, she said: ‘This is a child and his mother who helped you get elected. You knew Sven. You were high-fiving him as your mate.
‘I want to hear from him (Boris Johnson), from (David) Cameron, from (George) Osborne.’
She added: ‘I just want the Prime Minister to tell the police to do their job, catch the perpetrators, get the evidence beyond any doubt and convict them.’
Mr Johnson said his thoughts are with Ms Badzak and her family ‘in mourning the loss of her son’.
He told reporters: ‘I think that what’s happening on the streets of too many of our cities is very, very sad and I want to see kids protected from some of the gang crime, the knife crime, the culture of violence that they’re all too often sucked up in.’
He said he is concerned there could be a ‘rebounding’ in crime figures as the country emerges from lockdown, and said efforts are being made to ensure a ‘tough policing policy response’ and also to ‘make sure that kids, young people, have other things to do, they don’t get sucked into the nihilistic culture of these gangs’.
He said there has been ‘some success’ on that front, but added: ‘That’s no consolation, I know, to a grieving mother, but we are doing absolutely everything we can to fight those gangs.’
Police have described the attack as ‘barbaric’ and said they believe ‘Sven and his friend became involved in an altercation with a group of males’.
Mr Badzak, who was privately educated at Wetherby and Portland Place schools before attending Roehampton University, would not have become involved in an ‘altercation’, his mother said.
Sven Badzak, 22, was attacked on Willesden Lane in Kilburn just after 5.30pm yesterday and died on the street with his bag of shopping next to him
Ms Badzak, a consultant and financial analyst, said: ‘There was no altercation, they were attacked for no reason whatsoever.’
She urged anyone with information about what happened to come forward. She added that she has not yet seen her son’s body and wants to be able to do so soon.
Lead detective Chief Inspector Darren Jones, of the Metropolitan Police, said: ‘As this group chased the pair, Sven and his friend became separated.
‘Sven fell to the ground and was attacked by a number of the group. ‘His friend was also attacked but managed to seek sanctuary in a shop; however, he remains critically ill in hospital.’
Mr Jones said police will support the families through their investigation and that a ‘team of highly experienced officers will be working tirelessly to locate and apprehend those responsible for this horrific attack’.
Today his heartbroken mother Jasna, 49, said her son ‘deplored violence and had nothing to do with gangs’.
She added: ‘He was afraid of the territories where they operated and hated violence and violent people – he called them ”crazies”,’ she said, adding: ‘I could never ever ever imagine something like this would happen to me, to him, to our family’.
He was one of two people knifed to death on an appalling weekend of violence in London where at least 14 others were wounded in an ‘abhorrent’ spate of seven separate stabbings in 48 hours.
The Met Police insist the stabbings were not linked. MailOnline has also asked how many were linked to gangs.
Sven – whose father, Dragomir Mikulic, owns a building firm – was murdered in a ‘barbaric’ attack after an altercation with a group while walking down the street with a friend.
He fell over while being chased and was fatally stabbed after getting separated from his friend, who was also badly injured but managed to ‘seek sanctuary’ in a shop, Scotland Yard said.
Describing the attack, Ms Badzak said: ‘He went to get a Jewish bagel, with salmon and soft cream cheese, which he always liked. He said he would also get me some orange juice.
‘A witness said they saw eight people who looked dodgy walking down the road. Sven was standing by the bagel shop with his friend Bobby, who he met at football.
‘He had a Waitrose bag with juice next to him. But I still don’t know which way he was stabbed, from the front or the back’.
Mr Badzak was pronounced dead at the scene and his companion – named locally as ‘Bobby’ and believed to still be a teenager – was taken to hospital where he is in critical condition.
Sven, who was an aspiring actor and model, had been privately educated at Wetherby and Portland Place schools before attending Roehampton University and had been seeking advice on becoming a lawyer before he was killed.
Jasna Badzak appealed on Twitter with pictures of her only son as a child with former prime minister David Cameron along with pleas for help
Ms Badzak had earlier told My London: ‘He was the most polite boy you could possibly imagine. The perfect manners, he spoke the perfect Queen’s English.
‘He always asked people how their day was, how their family is, if he could do something for them. If we passed ambulances in the car he’d make us stop and ask if I could help as I was a doctor.’
She added: ‘I can’t believe it’s happening to me, that it happened to my child who was so, so far away from any of those kind of things (violence). I just can’t believe this is actually happening.
‘He was waiting for the bagel to be done,’ she said. ‘He was just attacked for no reason.’
Police have revealed that the stabbing happened after he was chased by a gang.
Lead detective Chief Inspector Darren Jones, of Scotland Yard, said: ‘At this early stage we believe Sven and his friend became involved in an altercation with a group of males.
The victim, who was an aspiring actor and model, had been privately educated at Wetherby and Portland Place schools before attending Roehampton University and had been seeking advice on becoming a lawyer before he was killed
‘As this group chased the pair, Sven and his friend became separated.
‘Sven fell to the ground and was attacked by a number of the group.
‘His friend was also attacked but managed to seek sanctuary in a shop – however, he remains critically ill in hospital.
‘Our thoughts are with both families of these victims who must be enduring unimaginable pain at this time.
‘I want to assure them that we will support them throughout this investigation and that my team of highly experienced officers will be working tirelessly to locate and apprehend those responsible for this horrific attack.’
It comes after a spate of stabbings in the capital over the weekend left two dead and at least 14 injured in seven separate attacks.
Officers were called to Willesden Lane with London Ambulance Service and found two males suffering stab injuries.
Mr Badzak, from Maida Vale, was pronounced dead at the scene and a second male – believed to be aged in his teens – was taken to hospital. His condition has been assessed as critical.
Michael Barnes, 19, a friend of the victim, said: ‘Sven and Bobby were my friends. We just came to drop off some flowers.
‘I don’t know what happened. I was out and saw on my phone that my friend was stabbed.
‘We’ve obviously tried to find some answers, but none of us know anything so far, just that Sven and Bobby have been stabbed.
‘Sven was 22 and Bobby was 17, I think. We were all really shocked when we saw it on the news.
‘They really stuck to their own and did their own thing. It wasn’t gang-related or anything like that.
‘Bobby worked in construction and Sven was a train driver for TfL. Sven even had a degree in sociology, we were all really shocked, they were really great people.’
Police sealed off the area after Sven was stabbed on Saturday evening where he died in the street
An order granting police additional ‘stop and search’ powers in the Kilburn area was issued in the wake of the double stabbing.
Police say there have been no arrests, and inquiries are continuing.
Chief Inspector Guy Ellwood said more officers would be patrolling the area in the coming days, adding: ‘This was a barbaric attack in a public place and the community will be rightly shocked.’
Police continue to investigate a flurry of knife attacks in the capital since Friday evening, with five incidents reported in south London between 6.56pm and 9.12pm alone.
One man, 22, was found with multiple stab wounds inside a property near Crystal Palace Football Club’s Selhurst Park stadium at just after 8pm on Friday.
The victim, named locally as named locally as Larvaun Witter, 22, or ‘Lavz’, was pronounced dead at the scene an hour later, with horrified onlookers describing how they desperately battled to keep him alive before emergency services arrived.
The Metropolitan Police said a group of men attended an address in Wisbeach Road and the victim was allegedly stabbed in an altercation.
They confirmed today that the stabbings are being treated as ‘isolated incidents.’
Larvaun Witter, 22, was found with multiple stab wounds inside a property near Crystal Palace Football Club’s Selhurst Park stadium at just after 8pm on Friday