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'ELLIOT HAD NEVER BEEN HAPPIER'
Man stabbed to death weeks after becoming a father
THE fatal stabbing of the father of a newborn child on Saturday has brought a close-knit community in Tufnell Park out in mourning – and in anger against the randomness of knife crime.
Newly qualified furniture-maker Elliot Guy, 27, was stabbed at a party in a flat on Junction Road in the early hours.
Staff at the nearby Boston pub and Dome venue found him staggering in the street but were unable to save him.
His death came only 24 hours after the attempted murder of a Camden Town youth at gunpoint (see page 7).
Mr Guy’s best friend Patrick Koupland said that the bank of floral tributes in Burghley Road, and a vigil attended by friends on Monday night, reflected the victim’s deep popularity in the area where he was raised.
“He was the type of person who everybody wants to be around,” Mr Koupland said.
“He was one of those guys, lots of people would want to be his friend. Elliot was without doubt my best friend – but I know a lot of other people felt that too. That was the sort of person he was.”
Police are interviewing guests at the party at 247a Junction Road where Mr Guy received the fatal wound to the throat shortly before 3am.
Two men and a woman were arrested, and later released on bail.
But whoever wielded the knife tore through family, friends, and a promising career as a master craftsman, according to Mr Koupland, 28 and now a merchant banker, who first met Elliot Guy when he was 12 and the pair grew up as friends in Tufnell Park.
“He didn’t come from a particularly privileged background, but he always had big dreams of where he wanted to go in life,” he said.
Friends agree that Mr Guy was killed at the happiest time of his life. He and his partner of six years, Amy Smith, had a daughter in April, and moved to Ealing.
“He moved out of the area because he wanted to bring his daughter up somewhere safe, leafy. His brother being 16 in Tufnell Park- he worried about him getting mixed up with knife crime,” Mr Koupland said.
Mr Guy did an apprenticeship as a carpenter and, after a year-long cabinet-making course that ended only weeks ago, had become a master craftsman.
Another close friend, recruitment consultant Alex Burton, 27, was a fellow pupil at Hargrave Park junior school and Holloway Boys School, now Holloway school in Hilldrop Road.
At Monday’s vigil outside Acland Burghley school, close to the crime scene, Mr Burton said, dozens of people who he had not spoken to since primary school sent word that they remembered “El” with fondness.
“El was the kind of guy that made you want to be a better person,” Mr Burton said yesterday. “He was one of the most generous people I know.”
Mr Guy’s Jamaican father died when he was 14, and his mother later moved away from Tufnell Park to Kentish Town, but he was a regular visitor both to her, his brothers, and to his old friends around Kentish Town and Archway.
His family released a statement after the murder: “No words can express how our family is feeling. This terrible act of violence has led to the loss of a much-loved partner, father, brother and son. Elliot was a gentle man who was delighted at having become a father and looking forward to raising his daughter. We are grateful for all the support we have had from family and friends and would ask that we be left alone to come to terms with what has happened.”
A staff member at The Boston pub described the scene on the night he died. “There was nothing anyone could have done- it was a sad situation and he was just too far gone. He had the look of someone who’d wandered off on his own after a drink until you got closer. Everyone did what they could.”
Detective Inspector Simon Moring is in charge of the Murder Squad investigation. He said:
“We are keen to hear from anyone who was at a house party at 247a Junction Road, late on Friday night into the early hours of Saturday morning. Elliot was at the party where we believe he was stabbed shortly before 3am.”
Anyone with information is asked to call police on 020 8345 4142 or crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111. |
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