Charges were laid against a 17-year-old teenager for the murder of a 15-year-old girl with a knife on Wednesday in south London, as the police of the British capital announced today.

The man accused of murdering Elian Adams, a crime that has caused a stir in the country, is also being charged with possession of a knife and is due to appear in the juvenile division of Croydon Magistrates’ Court later in the day.

Police were alerted on Wednesday morning at the time of the incident, but despite the rapid arrival of rescue crews and first aid, the teenager was pronounced dead at the scene.

The suspect was arrested within about an hour of the incident. As part of their investigations, the police found a knife yesterday.

“Elian was only 15 years old and had her life ahead of her, with hopes and dreams. All those dreams were destroyed,” her family said in a statement.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan vowed on Wednesday to “continue to work around the clock to end the scourge of knife crime in our city”.

Between March 2022 and March 2023, 50,000 knife attacks have been recorded in England and Wales. These have increased by 5% on the previous year and by 75% in ten years, according to the UK’s ONS.