He was caught and stabbed in a doorway.The following day, on Monday evening, a 16-year-old youth and two men, aged 21 and 28, were playing football on a basketball court in Peckham when a car pulled up. At about 9pm the 29-year-old was sitting with his brother and another friend on a wall in the New Cross area.
A gang of about 30 young men on mountain bikes appeared, one of whom pulled out a gun and started firing. A fight followed in which Mr Gale-Bent was stabbed in the heart. He managed to stagger about 30 metres to his home where he collapsed and died.Detectives investigating the murder believe he was probably mistaken for a member of one of the local gangs – the Ghetto Boys – by a rival outfit, the Peckham Boys. The killing is seen by many as the latest incident in an outbreak of gang warfare, in an area made notorious by the fatal stabbing of 10-year-old Damilola Taylor on a Peckham estate in 2000.

Its report concluded that extra resources could have prevented the bombings and that there were a number of “lessons to be learnt”.In June, a damning report by the London Assembly, based on interviews with friends and families, exposed a catalogue of failings in the chaotic aftermath of the attacks. Massive communication problems, a lack of basic medical supplies and a “completely unacceptable” failure to care properly for thousands of survivors were just some of the serious deficiencies it identified.Survivors from outside London felt excluded, the report added, and it was difficult to access specialist psychological help.. An official report into the July 7 London bombings published yesterday has criticised the emergency response to the attacks. The report, entitled Lessons Learned, was produced by the Home Office and highlighted flaws in information-sharing, communications, the compensation process and the systems for caring for survivors of the blast. Not enough was done to support the people caught in the aftermath of the explosions on London’s Underground the report said.
“This report concludes that the response to the bombings was fast, professional and effective,” the Home Secretary, John Reid, said.

Ten years ago Jason Gale-Bent had a life-altering experience – he was stabbed and had to be airlifted to hospital for emergency treatment. According to his family, this brush with death made him turn his back on the culture of gang violence that many of his young south London neighbours had been sucked into But last Sunday his past appeared to catch up with him. “However, where shortcomings have been identified, we have set out the work in hand to address them. In times of crisis, information and support must be readily available and easy to access for those who need it. It has launched a campaign to persuade Mr Blair’s successor to adopt a more balanced policy.. Tony Blair’s “shoulder-to-shoulder” support for the Bush administration has been attacked by a Labour-affiliated body on the eve of the party’s annual conference in Manchester. We don’t want his replacement to go along with playing second fiddle to the US administration.”.