A 20-YEAR-OLD man has been left with “potentially life-changing” injuries after a stabbing near Finsbury Park station.

Police tape was draped across a parade of shops in Clifton Terrace on Monday afternoon after a man was rushed to hospital. Two men in their 20s and a 16-year-old boy have been charged with violent disorder, possession of an offensive weapon and wounding with intent.

Jez Bond, creative director at the Park Theatre just up the road from the crime scene, told the Tribune it was “incredibly sad”, adding: “The irony is that I had just been saying to somebody that when we found the premises in 2010 the road was locally known as ‘stab alley’, and how that’s all changed now.”

He said: “It just shows how you can come and regenerate an area and put a Gail’s and an M&S there but if you’re not working at grassroots you’re not really going to change things like knife crime.

“It’s a problem for society. We need investment in community spaces, training programmes for young people, education.”

Mr Bond emphasised the importance of neighbourhood theatre like the Park Theatre, which runs programmes for young people in the community.

He said: “You could put two more M&S’s on this road and it’s not going to change that, is it? It can happen anywhere. These things just cover up the cracks but don’t deal with the underlying issues.”

This stabbing follows two unrelated murders in Islington over the past month, deaths which led youth worker Tyler Clancy to tell the Tribune: “Nothing has changed and nothing is going to change.”

In Clerkenwell, 20-year-old Abdul-Latif Pouget was attacked with a knife in Back Hill and died in hospital three days later, on October 21.

In Archway, 16-year-old Deonte Mowatt-Slater was found with fatal stab wounds near Elthorne Estate in the early hours of October 22.

Mr Clancy was a close friend of Romario Opia, 15, who was stabbed to death outside his school gates in Elthorne Estate in 2021.

The Tribune has recently reported on Finsbury Park residents’ concerns about anti-social behaviour, crime, visible drug dealing and drug use in their neighbourhood, and police and councillors’ plans to take on these problems.

But Mr Bond said he hoped Monday’s stabbing was an “outlier” rather than connected to wider anti-social behaviour issues. “I don’t feel scared walking down the street and I don’t think others should,” he added.

Anyone with any information about the incident has been asked to call police on 101.

Man faces murder charges

A MAN extradited from Kosovo has become the fifth person to be charged with a double murder.

Loriq Lupqi, 21, appeared at Willesden Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday accused of killing Leonardo Reid, 15, and Klevi Shekaj, 23, in June 2023.

Four other men have already been charged in the case and are in custody with a trial due to take place in March.

Leonardo and Mr Shekaj were killed in Archway, near Elthorne Road.