13-year-old girl arrested in Britain over stabbing incident

London, Oct 22: A 13-year-old girl has been arrested on suspicion of the murder of a man who was stabbed to death after a confrontation with a group of young people in Britain's Essex county, the media reported on Thursday.

Residents fought to save Darren Kelly, 42, from Basildon, after he staggered to a block of flats on Tuesday night to find help. It is thought that Kelly, a father-of-one, was stabbed in an alleyway that runs behind the street, The Guardian reported.

One resident reported that he rang on all of the flat buzzers before a woman answered and came to his aid.

Paramedics and an air ambulance arrived at the scene and Kelly was taken to hospital, where he later died. A postmortem examination revealed the provisional cause of death to be multiple stab wounds and blood loss.

Essex police said they believed Kelly had been involved in an altercation with about five youngsters.

The 13-year-old girl was taken into custody on Wednesday night. She joins a 16-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man, a 17-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl who were arrested on suspicion of the incident, police said.

Simon Werrett of the Kent and Essex serious crime directorate, who is leading the inquiry, said "I would appeal for anyone who saw the attack to contact my team. This happened in a residential area so people would have been about."

IANS