A man of 20 is charged with wounding with intent after a boy of 13 was stabbed on Grand Parade. Four others are bailed and the victim is recovering at home.
Updated, 23 September 2026: Sussex Police said at midday on Tuesday that a man had been charged and four other people bailed. That statement is now the top of this page. Earlier updates, on the five arrests of 21 September and the original witness appeal of 20 September, follow below and are unchanged.
A 20-year-old man has been charged over the stabbing of a 13-year-old boy on Eastbourne seafront, and the four other people arrested have been released on bail. Sussex Police say the boy is recovering at home.
The charge
The force published the charging decision at noon on Tuesday 22 September. In its own words:
- Kyle Saupe, 20, of Cavendish Place, Eastbourne, has been charged with wounding with intent and possession of an offensive weapon, and remanded to court
- he was due before Brighton Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday 22 September
- four people, two boys aged 16, one aged 17 and a woman of 22, have been bailed with conditions while enquiries continue
- the victim is recovering at home
Detective Inspector Rob Tillyer repeated the appeal for footage from Grand Parade and its junctions with Elms Avenue and Cavendish Place between 4pm and 6pm on Sunday, on 101 quoting serial 1096 of 20/09. He said again: “We would ask people not to speculate about the circumstances while the investigation is ongoing.”
A charge is an allegation and not a finding of guilt. The case is now active in the criminal courts, so this page carries the force’s charging statement and nothing else: no account of the hearing, no reporting of what is said in court, and nothing from social media. We have named the charged man only because Sussex Police named him, which is the single circumstance in which we name anyone.
The arrests, 21 September
Five people were arrested after the stabbing. Sussex Police say the boy was discharged from hospital.
The force published its update at 1.51pm on Monday 21 September. It followed the witness appeal issued the previous evening, which said only that a boy had an injury consistent with a stabbing and had been airlifted to hospital.
An arrest on suspicion of an offence is not a finding of guilt, and we reported nothing beyond what the force itself published.
What the force said on Monday
The Monday update was, at the time, the force’s full account. It said:
- the boy, who is local, was stabbed in Grand Parade near the junctions with Elms Avenue and Cavendish Place at about 5.10pm on Sunday 20 September
- he “was airlifted to hospital to receive medical treatment and he is due to be discharged”
- “a group of young people were seen leaving the scene and police arrested five local people on Sunday evening”
- three boys, two aged 16 and one 17, a woman of 22 and a man of 20 were arrested on suspicion of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm
- all five were in custody when that statement was published on Monday afternoon
- “a search for a knife, which has not been recovered”, was taking place on Monday
Detective Inspector Rob Tillyer, the investigating officer, said: “This is a distressing incident and the young teenage victim is being supported by specialist officers. It has been a fast-moving investigation and we have a continued police presence in the area.”
He added: “We would ask people not to speculate about the circumstances while the investigation is ongoing.”
Chief Inspector Kara Tombling, the Eastbourne district commander, said: “The victim is being released from hospital after being stabbed. We understand the concern and distress that a serious incident such as this can cause within our community.”
She said officers would be more visible on the seafront “not only to support the investigation, but also to provide reassurance to residents, businesses and those visiting the area”.
What police are asking for
The appeal narrowed after Sunday and has not changed since. Officers want footage from a two-hour window, not just from the moment of the stabbing.
- Where: Grand Parade and its junctions with Elms Avenue and Cavendish Place
- When: between 4pm and 6pm on Sunday 20 September
- What: CCTV, mobile phone or dashcam footage, and anything witnesses saw
- How: report online through the Sussex Police website or phone 101
- Reference: serial 1096 of 20/09
Dashcam footage is worth checking even if you only drove past. Grand Parade carries through traffic along the front, and the force has asked for it by name.
Where it happened
Grand Parade is the seafront road running north-east from the bandstand towards the pier. The two junctions the force names, Elms Avenue and Cavendish Place, meet it within about 60 metres of each other. That point is roughly 40 metres short of the shore entrance to Eastbourne Pier and about 390 metres along the front from the bandstand.
It is the pier approach, where the seafront hotels face the pier entrance across the road. The stabbing happened at teatime on a Sunday in September.
What the record shows about this stretch
Recorded crime on Grand Parade itself is rare. Home Office street-level data published at police.uk logs 14 crimes on or near Grand Parade in the 12 months to July 2026, the latest month available. Five were violence and sexual offences and one was possession of weapons. The 12 months before that produced the same total, 14, with two violent offences and no weapons offence.
Across the wider central Eastbourne area, meaning everything within about a mile of the scene, the picture is busier and slightly worse than a year earlier:
| 12 months to July | 2026 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| All recorded crime | 6,778 | 6,399 |
| Violence and sexual offences | 2,214 | 2,163 |
| Possession of weapons | 91 | 83 |
| Robbery | 96 | 94 |
Ninety-one weapons offences is between seven and eight a month. July 2026 was also the heaviest single month for violence and sexual offences in the two years of data, with 234 recorded, ahead of June 2025 on 227.
Three caveats matter. Street-level data is mapped to anonymised points near an incident rather than to an exact address, so a figure for a named road is indicative rather than precise. The Home Office revises the published files, so totals can move slightly between one compilation and the next. And the data runs only to July, so it does not include Sunday’s stabbing, which will appear later in the autumn.
Eastbourne is already in line for knife crime money
Chief Inspector Tombling’s statement ended with a funding announcement, and it is worth separating from the incident. She said: “Nearly £600,000 is to be spent on making knife crime hotspots in Eastbourne, Crawley and Brighton safer, through the Home Office’s Knife Crime Concentration Fund.”
That fund was announced four days before the stabbing. The Home Office published it on 18 September. Its national shape:
- £26.25m across 27 police forces in England and Wales
- more than 230 areas identified as the most affected by knife crime
- money for enhanced patrols, CCTV, and work with young people judged most at risk
- changes to public spaces, including better lighting and redesign to stop weapons being hidden
Neither the Home Office announcement nor the force’s statement says which part of Eastbourne the money is aimed at, or when the work starts. We will add that here if Sussex Police or the police and crime commissioner publish it.
What it means for you
If you were on the seafront between the bandstand and the pier between 4pm and 6pm on Sunday, the force wants to hear from you, whether or not you think you saw anything useful. Quote serial 1096 of 20/09.
Expect more officers than usual around Grand Parade and the pier approach this week. Sussex Police say that presence is there while enquiries continue and to reassure people, not because of a fresh incident. No road closure has been announced on the seafront. Any that is put in place would show on our Eastbourne roadworks and travel page.
If you are worried about someone carrying a knife, the force asks you to report it online or on 101, or anonymously through Crimestoppers Fearless. Sussex Police also keep knife amnesty bins in police stations across the county all year round, and say blades handed in carry no consequence for having possessed them. The same page sets out the law: carrying a knife in public without good reason carries a maximum of four years in prison and an unlimited fine, and a second conviction for carrying one brings an automatic prison sentence.
We will keep this page as the record of the investigation. Further charges, releases and appeals will be added here rather than published as separate stories. We do not name anyone the force has not named as charged, we do not report what happens in court, and we do not use material circulating on social media.
Sources: Sussex Police, “Man due in court after teenager stabbed in Eastbourne”, 22 September 2026; Sussex Police, “Eastbourne stabbing: Police make five arrests”, 21 September 2026; Sussex Police witness appeal, 20 September 2026; Sussex Police, “Our response to violence and knife crime in Sussex”; Home Office, “Government expands crackdown on knife crime”, 18 September 2026; police.uk street-level crime data for the 24 months to July 2026, compiled 22 September 2026, Open Government Licence; street and coastline geometry from OpenStreetMap contributors.
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