Friends of Ben Hitchcock, the 16-year-old stabbed to death during a gang fight, spoke yesterday of their fears that his murder would trigger further violence between feuding South London teenagers.

As bouquets were strewn along the roadside in Beckenham where Ben was killed, schoolfriends described a happy, easygoing boy who had fallen in with a crowd calling themselves the “Penge Block”.

It is believed that Ben was among a group of six who tried to gatecrash a party. After being barred, they were stopped from boarding a bus and walked along Southend Road, where it is understood that they clashed with about 40 youths wearing the colours of a rival group.

Thirteen boys and one girl, all in their mid-teens, who were arrested after the fatal incident on Saturday night, have been released on police bail. Police may introduce a 9pm curfew in the area for children aged 16 and under to prevent any revenge attacks. “There is a lot being done at the moment and this is an option being considered,” Detective Superintendent Simon Morgan, who is leading the murder investigation, said. One fellow Penge Block member, who refused to give his name as he laid out a baseball cap and T-Shirt with “RIP Swipe”, Ben’s nickname, on railings, said: “I think there’s going to be a retaliation, definitely. That’s how it goes, one side then the other. No one can even remember how it started now. It’s stupid.”

Another member, also dressed in a black baseball jacket and baseball cap, described the Penge Block as “our family tree”. He added that gang allegiance did not depend on colour but area. “It means you love each other like family,” he said.

Others, however, derided what they saw as a senseless feud between the Penge Block from Bromley and “the Blue Borough” from Lewisham. One friend, staring at the tributes for a boy he had known since childhood, said: “He was a happy-go-lucky guy, always up for a laugh. But in the past couple of years he got into the wrong crowd. He became a different person and once someone has got into that culture it is very difficult to get out. It won’t stop until they are all dead.”

Asked if he and his friends knew who was responsible, the teenager nodded, and cast his eyes back to the bouquets.

Ben had just finished his GCSEs at Kelsey Park Sports College, Bromley, and was expected to go on to further studies at the nearby Bromley College. He had two younger brothers, Louis and Jake.

Yesterday his mother, Lee Hitchcock, released a statement urging friends and rivals to speak up. “My son was loved very much by his family and many friends,” it said. “Ben was the kindest, happiest and most loving boy that ever walked this earth . . . I appeal to anyone who knows who killed my Ben to get in touch with the police.”

A virtual shrine has been created on the social networking website Bebo, which gives an insight into the teenage culture of the area. One girl,Laura, wrote: “Miss ya loads true penge block soldier.” Another visitor mourned Ben “our fallen soldier”. Simon Maluwe, 17, from Penge, wrote: “Our nigga, RIP Swipe.”

A six-minute clip on YouTube shows photographs of the dead teenager in gangsta rap poses with friends and features a song, Too Young to Die.

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