A twenty-year-old man has been charged with the murder of sixteen-year-old schoolboy Mohamed Dura Ray.
Jordan Daley, of Peabody Hill, SE21 was charged yesterday and was due to appear in custody at Bromley Magistrate’s Court later the same day.
The news comes in the same week as it was confirmed Mo’s mother, Mariama, will get to appeal directly to the Government’s minister for policing to put more bobbies on the beat after the MP for Bermondsey made a speech about her son in Parliament.
Bermondsey MP Neil Coyle made an impassioned speech in the House of Commons last week about the effect of policing cuts in Southwark and mentioned how Mo was stabbed on the Newington Estate on September 14, around the corner from where Mr Coyle lives.
Earlier this month Mr Coyle requested that the Prime Minister hear Mariama’s concerns about local policing in person but was dismayed to receive a standard response saying he was too busy.
In his parliamentary speech on Wednesday last week Mr Coyle firmly objected to proposed further cuts to local policing which could see Southwark lose all of its PCSOs.
“It gives me no pride to say that Southwark has one of the highest murder rates in the capital,” said Mr Coyle, who followed this by attacking the Conservative MP for Gower, Byron Davies, for suggesting police forces need to make better use of their resources.
“I think that is offensive to my local police force. With the track record of sixteen percent of charges brought in cases of knife crime [in Southwark] the police clearly do not have the capacity to tackle that problem.
“Most recently, close to where I live in the constituency, sixteen-year-old Mohamed Dura Ray was murdered …. His mum is desperate for answers and desperate for that terrible track record of solving knife crimes to be confronted,” he said. “The honourable gentleman is suggesting that Southwark police are not using their resources properly. Brilliant! I thank him for that contribution.”
Mr Coyle listed concerns raised by Southwark residents about spikes in particular crimes such as a rise in the visible use and sale of class A drugs on Tissington court in Rotherhithe, a spate of squatting in commercial premises including the Albion and the Elephant & Castle pubs and an increase in commercial burglaries, particularly around Borough and Bermondsey, Long lane and Tower Bridge Road. He then invited for the Minister for Policing, Crime and Criminal Justice, Mike Penning, to meet her Mariama and hear her concerns in person – and Mr Penning accepted.
“Mariama wanted to meet the Prime Minister to discuss her son’s death and policing. Whilst Cameron may be too busy, I’m glad at least one Minister will see Mariama,” said Mr Coyle.
“Only one in seven knife crimes resulted in prosecutions in Southwark last year but the Government is poised to cut a further 25 to 40 percent from the policing budget, meaning more officers lost from the Met.
Hopefully Mariama will convey her concerns directly, but I think the Government is putting our community at greater risk,” he said.