London is ‘too dangerous’: Mum of boy, 16, stabbed to death in Hillingdon has vowed to return to Romania

The devastated mother of a 16-year-old boy stabbed to death in a Hillingdon park has vowed to return to her native Romania because London is “too dangerous”.

She said: “I brought him here to give him a better future; now he will go back to Romania in a coffin.”

The teen, Ionut Elvis Tacu, known as Elvis, was killed on the evening of December 30 in a park in Yiewsley near Uxbridge, north west London.

He was the 30th teenager to be murdered in the capital in 2021, the highest figure since the Second World War.

A 16-year-old boy, who can’t be named for legal reasons, has appeared at Ealing Youth Court charged with the murder.

Elvis’s devastated mum Mihaela, who did not want to give her surname, said: “He was a lovely boy. He was not aggressive at all.

“He had never come home beaten up and nothing like this had ever happened to him, then suddenly he got killed.

“I brought him here when he was seven years old to give him a better future, now he will go back to Romania in a coffin.

“He loved music, watching movies and played with his younger brother a lot.

“If he had been an aggressive child, or in a gang or something, maybe we would not be so devastated.

“I feel like I want to run away from this country and go back to Romania with my child I still have left.”

And Mihaela said she thought the capital “is not safe”.

“We wanted to move out of London before he died because it is not safe,” she explained.

“It is not a place to bring up children.

“I will not come back here and will encourage people with children to have second thoughts about moving here.

“He was diagnosed with ADHD in Romania when he was young, but it took until a year ago to get him diagnosed with the condition in this country.

“He lived here in West Drayton with me, my husband, and his brother who is three and a half years old.

“Of course his brother doesn’t understand why he is not with us, which is heartbreaking. He has kept on asking us when Elvis is going to be back home.

“I never thought anything like this would ever happen to us. We have jobs and our own house. We are not from a rough family at all. It is very hard to understand why this happened.

“He struggled to make friends at school and has struggled to make friends since he was a baby. He needed help and no one helped him.”

A GoFundMe page set up by a family friend to raise funds to take his body back to Romania has raised more nearly £10,000.

Claudia Martonfi, who set up the page, wrote: “The family are devastated and no words are enough to comfort them, when most of us were getting ready to celebrate a New Year their world came apart with the death of their son.

“The family wishes for Elvis’ body to be repatriated and buried in his home country of Romania.

“The little one is missing Elvis a lot and always asking about him. How on Earth can you explain to a toddler that his big brother was killed and that he will never see him again?”