A mother has spoken about the killing of her son, 19-year-old Archie Beston, who was fatally stabbed outside a nightclub in Kingston-upon-Thames in the early hours of 29 February 2020. Archie, a former youth footballer for Brentford and Millwall who worked at Marks & Spencer, had no connection to his killer, Tyrone Bryan, a persistent knife carrier known as "Red Alert" for his violent record and repeated evasion of justice. Becky Beston tracked her son's phone via Snapchat when he failed to return home, only to find he had been attacked after leaving The Viper Rooms nightclub, where a van had also driven at him and another teenager outside a nearby John Lewis.

Archie was one of 69 homicide victims aged 13 to 19 recorded in England and Wales in the year to March 2020, of whom 45 were killed with blades, according to the Office for National Statistics. Although the national murder rate fell by 7% last year, London still accounts for nearly a third of all knife offences, with around 13,806 recorded, equivalent to one roughly every 40 minutes. Mrs Beston, who visits her son's grave daily, now tours primary schools to warn children about the dangers of carrying weapons, determined that Archie will not simply become a statistic.