Stabbing at the Urban Music Awards

The Urban Music Awards was dramatically abandoned last night after a triple stabbing occurred, leaving one 20-year-old man fighting for his life.

The awards ceremony, now in its 6th year, was held at the IndigO2 section of the O2 Arena in Greenwich, South East London, and was just over an hour into proceedings when guests were told to evacuate the premises.

The Press were not permitted into the main event hall and were disturbed around 10pm as a live audio feed being transmitted to the Press Room suddenly ceased. Police immediately quarantined the building and one man was arrested whilst nearly 300 guests were detained in the outside entrance enclosure until the early hours of Sunday morning.

The event had already been delayed for an hour and security was certainly questionable - what with the more publicised boxing bout in the main O2 Arena being the focus of most personnel’s attention.

Fans and general onlookers were mixing with photographers and TV crews in the allocated Press area even before the event had started to what was mainly a Z-List selection of celebrity guests, including four former Big Brother contestants.

The UMAs are of course no stranger to controversy: a woman was shot outside the 2004 awards in Barbican. This latest incident will do much to fuel the fires of those questioning not just the future of the awards, but also the state of youth culture in the UK.