'Idris Elba's knife crime campaign is welcome, it remains on us to protect kids'
We’ve seen them all. Panels, working groups, coalitions, task forces, summit meetings, the works. And still the UK’s kids continue to be victims of knife crime.
While politicians parrot prepared scripts, loopholes in legislation allow children to die in an ongoing cycle of blood. Adults too. My childhood neighbour, who was 41 when he was stabbed on a West London street by a teenager five years ago, is among the dead. Eventually, someone you know could be too.
The superstar power of Idris Elba is a welcome addition to the conversation. His fresh call for a ban on the sale of so-called “zombie” knives and machetes has sparked the ripple effect of media coverage that this issue cries out for.
It remains, however, on us as parents to protect our kids. We’ve forever been asking for money that will not come from the Government. Our schools are too under-resourced to add counselling to the long list of duties on teachers’ plates.
Elba with Yemi Hughes, whose son Andre Aderemi was killed (Ian Vogler / Daily Mirror)Police (the real police) numbers are dwindling and it will take more young lives to be snuffed out to know whether we might get the tougher sentences some people call for.
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We need to have the talks, take the safety precautions, reinforce the messages not to carry blades that will save our children’s lives. Otherwise fear remains that our society has become so desensitised that the names of the dead all meld into one.
How many of the 247 people to have heartbreakingly lost their lives due to knife crime between July 2022 and June 2023, according to the latest police figures for England and Wales, could the average person name? Beyond Elianne Andam whose murder last September, quite rightly, sparked calls for change, how many have seen MPs demanding action in Westminster?
Elianne Andam (PA)
Harry Pitman (PA)This scourge responsible for the deaths of 17-year-olds Tyler McDermott and Chima Osuji – both stabbed in London last April – or 16-year-old Renell Charles, killed last May, just does not get the action it cries out for. Fifteen-year-old Alfie Lewis was fatally stabbed in Leeds in November 2023. Harry Pitman, 16, was killed on New Year’s Eve.
Knife crime cuts across class, creed and colour. Recent Ministry of Justice figures show only 30% of the 19,086 offences relating to knives over a year led to the offender being locked up. And yet the headline-grabbing soundbite of tougher sentences doesn’t work. Some 75% of the UK’s ex-inmates reoffend within nine years of getting out, 39% of them within the first 12 months.
The old “youth clubs” debate suggests we are back in the 80s, when teenagers actually went to them. With the lack of school support from an early age, kids are more likely to be in pupil referral units than playing pool after school.
Elba on the BBC (PA)Elba’s Don’t Stop Your Future campaign saw 247 piles of neatly folded clothes, to represent the victims of knife crime, displayed in London’s Parliament Square. Organisers hope the visual demonstration of the huge human cost of knife crime will make an impact on the MPs returning from the Christmas recess.
I pray it works. As part of a series for the Daily Mirror, I spoke to knife crime campaigner Lucy Martindale, who covered herself in fake blood outside the offices of a social media company to highlight its lack of action at the time dealing with material contributing to knife crime. That led to action. But MPs are all talk. Same as it ever was.
I remember the haunting Grenfell street party that nobody attended, by design. Held on Jubilee Weekend in 2022, there was green bunting and a table laid out with 72 empty seats, one for each of the 72 people killed in the fire. Still there is no justice for them. Nor is there any justice for the children we have lost to a knife crime epidemic. There must be.
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