How can vicious cycle of knife crime be ended?

In a small school room a trained mentor called Chantele Barker creates space for big feelings. Her warmth signals safety to the teenagers who have left their usual lessons – surrounded by walls plastered with Hamlet quotes and maps of the world – to confront a question inked onto a crisp, white flipchart: why do children carry knives?

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

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

None of the teenagers we meet think that a zombie knife ban will prevent young people dying on our 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 twang she says: “These are the things people use on the daily.” The St Giles Trust SOS+ service has, in the simplest terms, taught Melissa to think before she acts. It’s early intervention in action. The programme uses adults with ‘lived experience’ of the criminal justice system to support children to make better life choices and recognise the risks of being exploited and becoming involved in gangs and violence.

This week the government banned zombie-style knives and machetes, closing a loophole from a previous ban in 2016. Zombie-style knives are defined as weapons over 20 centimetres in length and with a serrated edge. The number of recorded crimes that mentions machetes or zombie knives has almost doubled in five years, according to police records across the country. Tuesday’s law change was preceded by a month-long knife amnesty in which people were enticed to hand in knives for a compensatory fee of £10 per knife. One business is reported to have handed in 35,000 – you do the math.

Whilst this week’s ban makes it illegal to own, make, transport or sell zombie knives or machetes, many bereaved parents and youth workers point to a failing 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 to his mother that’s beside the point.

“Knife crime is huge. There’s a lot more work that needs to be done. We need to look at how we are educating our young people on the dangers of knife crime. What is happening to the people who are being caught with knives? Are they getting any intervention?”

A senior police source told us that plenty of knife carriers, particularly under-17s, quickly end up back in the community because of delays in assessing their needs as children. Add to that, he said, a lack of secure detention places, and suddenly sending offenders to court isn’t a great option either. The system is broken, he told us. So a zombie knife ban? Sticking plaster at best.

The 2016 ban could not save the lives of ten teenagers, all killed by zombie knives in the last five years. On Sunday the 22nd of September, 2024 – before the sun had even set – Daejaun Campbell lay on the concrete, reportedly pleading with a neighbour who’d rushed out of her house to help: “I’m 15. Please don’t let me die.” An 18-year-old has been charged with his murder and police say the weapon used was a zombie-style knife. But, the type of weapon does not answer the hows, whys and what fors. In Daejaun Campbell’s case those answers will emerge over time; but there have been other Daejaun’s and those cases have offered up clues time and again.

From an overflow court, yesterday, I watched closely as two 13-year-old boys walked past the dock over to a row of seats just in front. Intermediaries sat next to them whispering explanations of the dense legal language, and the barristers wore plain suits rather than wigs and gowns. The normal procedures didn’t apply during this trial because of the ages of the boys. The courtroom needed to feel less intimidating. One of the boys sat with his elbows resting on the table and his hands cupping his face, fingers spread out over his cheeks, as a lawyer read out 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 – totally heartbroken and confused.” Their son, Shawn, was murdered in a park on the 17th of November, 2023, when he was in the country for medical treatment. He and his friend had encountered the two 12-year-old boys sat on a bench and asked them to move. The two boys reacted with aggression and it ended with Shawn on the floor and stabbed in the heart with a 42.5cm long machete. Today the judge revealed that the knife had nearly 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 grandma who, along with other key adults, were trying their utmost to keep him out of the care system. The other boy is said to have had a difficult upbringing, moving from home to home and at one point living in a refuge.

Today, the boys were both sentenced to detention in a young offenders’ 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 starting out 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 don’t understand the effect those experiences have had on you. You’re now settled where you’re living and doing well.” Stability and routine, she said, are now mainstays in the boy’s life. He has developed trusting relationships with the staff at his secure unit. Unlike the teenagers I met at school engaged in early prevention work, the boy was not able to connect with adult role models in the outside world – he had to find it in custody.

The social ills that underpin knife crime whirl and tumble within a vicious cycle that has consumed mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and an endless stream of loved ones. Shawn Seesahai’s parents have been financially destroyed by the murder of their son. They used all of 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 up from bed and cried all day for Shawn. Mr and Mrs Seesahai say that every time they shut their eyes they think of Shawn’s last moments – was he frightened? Far from the people he loved, in an unfamiliar country, Shawn spent the last moments of his life on a cold, concrete pavement.