How can the vicious circle of knife crime be broken? – Channel 4 News

In a small schoolroom, a trained mentor named Chantele Barker creates space for big feelings. Her warmth signals safety for the teens who have left their usual classes—surrounded by walls plastered with quotes from Hamlet and maps of the worlds—to answer a question written on a crisp, white flipchart: why wear children knives?

If the young people find this confrontational, they do not show it. Without a hint of rote learning, they articulate their thoughts astutely – because they are afraid. Because they think it’s cool. Because they want to protect themselves – and with the contemplative wisdom of 90-year-old sages instead of 14-year-olds revealing some of the most difficult parts of their lives on camera.

One of the girls, who we’ll call Melissa, tells us that the St Giles Trust’s one-to-one mentoring sessions have helped her with anger issues. Now she has tips and tricks to ensure her feelings don’t lead to violence. Sophie, again not her real name, says she has a mentor and a therapist to help her deal with issues with family and friends. Therapy, she says, is exactly the kind of support young people need.

None of the teenagers we meet think a ban on zombie knives will stop young people dying on the streets. Melissa points out that a shard of glass from a mirror or a knife from the kitchen drawer can be used as a weapon. With a London touch. she says, “These are the things people use every day.” In the simplest terms, the St Giles Trust SOS+ service has taught Melissa to think before she acts. It’s early intervention in action. The program uses adults with ‘lived experience’ of the criminal justice system to support children to make better life choices and recognize the risks of exploitation and involvement in gangs and violence.

This week, the government banned zombie-style knives and machetes, closing a loophole from an earlier ban from 2016. Zombie-style knives are defined as weapons that are longer than 8 inches and have a serrated edge. The number of recorded crimes involving machetes or zombie knives has almost doubled across the country in five years, according to police data. Tuesday’s change in the law was preceded by a month-long knife amnesty, with people enticed to hand in knives for a compensatory fee of £10 per knife. One company is reported to have handed in 35,000 – do the math.

While this week’s ban makes it illegal to own, make, transport or sell zombie knives or machetes, many survivors and youth workers point to a broken system. We spoke to Tanya Brown whose son Connor was fatally stabbed in 2019. He was trying to defuse an argument. It wasn’t a zombie knife, but that doesn’t matter to his mother.

“Knife crime is enormous. Much more work needs to be done. We need to look at how we educate our young people about the dangers of knife crime. What happens to the people caught with knives? Will they get any intervention?”

A key police source told us that many knife carriers, especially under-17s, quickly end up back in the community due to delays in assessing their needs as children. Add to that, he said, a lack of safe detention places, and suddenly sending offenders to court is also not a good option. The system is broken, he told us. So a ban on zombie knives? Plaster sticking at its best.

The 2016 ban failed to save the lives of ten teenagers, all of whom had been killed by zombie knives in the past five years. On Sunday, September 22, 2024 – before the sun had even set – Daejaun Campbell lay on the concrete and reportedly begged a neighbor who had run out of her house to help: “I’m 15. Please don’t let me die.” An 18-year-old has been charged with murder and police say the weapon used was a zombie-style knife. But the type of weapon does not answer the how, why and for what purpose. In Daejaun Campbell’s case, those answers will emerge over time; but there have been other Daejauns and those cases have provided clues time and time again.

Yesterday I watched closely from an overflow field as two 13-year-old boys walked along the dock to a row of seats just in front of it. Next to them sat middlemen whispering explanations of the dense legal language, and the lawyers wore simple suits instead of wigs and jackets. During this process, normal procedures did not apply due to the boys’ ages. The courtroom had to feel less intimidating. One of the boys sat with his elbows on the table and his hands cupping his face, fingers spread across his cheeks, as an attorney read the family impact statement.

Mr and Mrs Seesahai’s words rang through the courtroom. “Losing a child is a parent’s worst nightmare,” they said. “We are devastated as a family – heartbroken and confused.” Their son, Shawn, was killed in a park on November 17, 2023, while in the country for medical treatment. He and his friend had come across the two 12-year-old boys sitting on a bench and asked them to move. The two boys reacted aggressively and it ended with Shawn on the ground stabbing him in the heart with an 18-inch machete. Today the judge announced that the knife had almost gone through his body.

During the trial it emerged that one of the boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was a habitual knife carrier. The court heard how he was trafficked, groomed and exploited by older men within the community. Men who actively encouraged him to carry knives. He lived with his grandmother, who, along with other significant adults, did their utmost to keep him out of the care system. The other boy is said to have had a difficult upbringing: he moved from home to home and at one point lived in a shelter.

Today the boys were both sentenced to detention in a youth institution for a minimum of eight years and six months. In her sentencing remarks, the judge described Shawn Seesahai as a humble person who cared about others, adding that the sentencing would not comfort the family.

She addressed both boys, “When you killed Shawn, he was just getting started in his life.” Turning directly to the first defendant who had been exploited and trafficked, she said: “You have been used by other people… and you do not understand the effect those experiences have had on you. You are now settled where you live and are doing well.” Stability and routine, she said, are now the pillars of the boy’s life. He has built a relationship of trust with the staff of his secure unit. Unlike the teenagers I met at school who were engaged in early prevention, the boy could not connect with adult role models in the outside world – he had to find him in custody.

The social ills underlying knife crime swirl and tumble within a vicious cycle that has swallowed mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and an endless stream of loved ones. Shawn Seesahai’s parents have been financially devastated by their son’s murder. They used all their savings to repatriate Shawn’s body and then took out a loan to pay for flights and accommodation to attend the murder trial in Nottingham.

Shawn’s sister, they say, will never be the same. In the days and weeks after her brother’s death, she refused to eat, couldn’t get out of bed, and cried all day for Shawn. Mr. and Mrs. Seesahai say every time they close their eyes, they think of Shawn’s last moments. Was he afraid? Far from the people he loved, in an unknown land, Shawn spent the last moments of his life on a cold, concrete sidewalk. His life was taken by two kids who thought it was ‘cool’ to carry knives.