The mother of a Coombe Boys' student gunned down at a disco seven years ago has been nominated for a campaigner of the year award.

New Malden resident Tracey Ford, from the Croydon-based JAGS foundation, has spent the years since her son’s murder campaigning to raise awareness of youth-on-youth violence.

She has been nominated as campaigner of the year in the European Diversity Awards.

Ms Ford said: "I feel very honoured to be recognised for the work which I feel is so important if we are to save young people’s lives.

"We need society to take notice of the number of children dying senselessly, and the fact the young people are becoming desensitised to violent deaths and just accepting youth murder as ‘the norm’."

James Andre Smartt-Ford, 17, known to friends as Andre or Dre, was gunned down at Streatham ice rink just steps away from the ice which he managed to stumble on to on February 3, 2007.

His killers have never been brought to justice.

The awards ceremony will take place this Thursday, October 2, at the Natural History Museum.