Boy dies in fall the day before collecting grades

A 16-year-old boy fell to his death from a block of flats in east London the day before he was due to collect his GCSE results. Police are investigating reports that Ahmed Benyermak was being chased by a gang of masked youths when he fell from the seventh floor of the 13-storey building in Hackney.

A post-mortem examination revealed that the boy had died from a ruptured aorta. He was found by passers-by at 4pm on Wednesday afternoon. Paramedics and police were at the scene within minutes, but Ahmed died at the scene.

Scotland Yard said yesterday that Ahmed climbed down six floors on the outside of the tower block in Paragon Road, possibly while being chased, but on reaching the seventh floor his path was blocked by a metal grille. It is thought he then lost his footing and fell to the ground.

Police have found a number of abandoned bicycles near the scene. Detective Chief Inspector Ian Stevenson said: "This is a tragic and unnecessary death. The victim was with a group of friends on the 13th floor of a tower block when they became concerned about another group of youths cycling towards the tower block. This caused the victim and his friends to leave the area."

The mother of one of Ahmed's friends said: "My son was with Ahmed 20 minutes before it happened. He left him with about three other friends. There was a gang of five youths who have been terrorising the estate. They went over there and chased him. They had knives."

Ahmed's headteacher, Richard Brown, from Hackney Free and Parochial Secondary School, said Ahmed, whose family are of Moroccan origin, obtained C-grades in four exams.

Ahmed's uncle, Mustapha, said: "He was a nice kid, a friendly guy. He didn't get into trouble."

*A teenage girl was killed by a refuse lorry in south Wales as she went to collect her GCSE results yesterday. Esther Bush, 16, from Cwmparc, was run over at about 9am near her school, Ysgol Gyfun Treorci, in the Rhondda.

Father picks up murdered son's results

The father of a teenager knifed to death just days before he sat his exams collected his son's GCSE results yesterday, writes Richard Garner.

Jimmy Mizen, 16, who was attacked in Lee, south London, received passes in eight subjects on the basis of work he had done before his death on 10 May.

Barry Mizen collected the results from St Thomas More Catholic comprehensive school in Eltham, south London. He said: "We're very proud of the amount of work he put into this... He should have been here himself with his friends."