Police have confirmed they are treating a death in a town centre as murder.

A man in his 20s was found stabbed in the stomach in Temple Hill Square, Dartford, on Saturday. He died at the scene a short time later.

Police searching land near where man was stabbed in Temple Hill

The victim is understood to have been assaulted in a nearby communal parking area, in Mallard Close, shortly before he was found injured.

A police spokesman said on Sunday that officers were still working to establish the full circumstances of the incident and it was being treated as a suspicious death.

The force has now comfirmed the death is being treated as murder.

Police say they received a report at 7.13pm that a man had been found in the square with a serious stomach injury cause by a stab wound.

Officers were joined by South East Coast Ambulance Service, and Kent Surrey Sussex Air Ambulance, however the victim died at the scene.

A tent was put up in the street as police carried out forensic investigations yesterday and officers remain at the scene.

On Sunday the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate appealed for information and called for any witnesses who had not already spoken to officers to come forward.

Police say no arrests have been made in connection with the incident.

There was still a large police presence in the town on Monday afternoon with seven vans and three police cars stationed near Temple Hill Square, which remains blocked off.

Forensics and sniffer dogs are also at the scene.

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: "We don't know what happened just that it happened there in the car park.

"The police asked me to move my car so they could search the bushes behind it."

She said there was loud music coming from the Square that night but was unaware that a man had been injured metres from her door.

An off licence worker, who also did not wish to be named, said he heard the air ambulance circling above the shop at around 6pm on Saturday evening.

"The air ambulance was flying, it circulated the area before landing in the fields nearby," he said.

Shortly after he says a man came in the shop who had witnessed a man in his 20's bleeding heavily from a serious wound outside the community centre.

"One of the guys came in the shop saying he didn't see the incident but he saw the guy was bleeding," he said. "He was saying he was going to die."

Elsewhere residents living near Temple Hill Square reacted with similar shock.

Tamas Benke, 52, said: "At around 8 or 9pm a police officer knocked and asked about what happened but I told him I didn't know, just a man was attacked."

Mum Naciye Tasci said she was scared by what had happened and worries about sending her children to school in the area.

She said: "I have a 13-year-old son, sometimes I say don't go through there. It is too dangerous around here."

Anyone with information which can assist, including eye witnesses and anyone with privately held CCTV or dashcam footage recorded in the area, are urged to contact Kent Police on 01474 366149 quoting 02-1033 or call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or by using the online form on its website.