Victim David Cauchi-Lechmere. Photo: online memorial page

A Tower Hamlets man was stabbed to death after being attacked by a gang of  youths outside a party, the Old Bailey heard this week.

David Cauchi-Lechmere, 20, from Bow, was attending a birthday party in Beckton, East London in July 2009 when he was attacked by the gang armed with knives, sticks, a bicycle frame and an axe.

Nine men are on trial for murder but it “is impossible with any degree of precision to identify in whose hand the knife was” according to Jonathan Laidlaw, for the prosecution.

Minicabs were called to pick up Mr. Cauchi-Lechmere and his Bow friends, but the “simmering tension” between the Beckton and Bow groups turned violent at this stage, the court heard.

Mr. Cauchi-Lechmere found himself outnumbered after members of the Bow group fled inside, and was stabbed four times in the chest. Paramedics carried out emergency surgery as he lay on the street, but he was later pronounced dead at the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.

All nine defendants deny murder. The trial continues.