The Northern Echo is today calling on the Prime Minister to tackle the scourge of knife crime as the mothers of murdered teenagers and senior youth leaders warn: ‘We are failing our children.’
On behalf of the mothers, The Great Daily of the North is asking Liz Truss to address the root causes and cultural factors behind kids carrying knives to stop more families being torn apart by fatal stabbings on the streets of the region.
It is a social ill that makes parents afraid to allow their children to play outside their homes, and people reluctant to confront gangs of teenagers causing chaos in their communities.
Grieving families and senior youth workers have warned knife crime is directly related to anti-social behaviour, now worryingly endemic across the North East.
They say there is a direct correlation between the rise in trouble caused by teenagers and the reduction in youth service budgets following swingeing cuts in local authority funding from central Government.
There are also calls for strict preventative measures that could stop knife attacks and more severe punishments for those that go out armed with a blade.
Today, on the first anniversary of the death of 18-year-old Jack Woodley, who was violently attacked by a gang of ten youths before he was stabbed with a ‘Rambo-style’ knife by a 15-year-old boy, the Northern Echo is calling for action.
Jack’s mother Zoey McGill, from Newton Aycliffe, said: “A minimum term of five years in jail should be given for anyone found carrying a knife.
“There needs to be more powers for the police to do stop and searches and there should be metal detectors in all schools and at public events.”
Ten young people, who were aged 14 to 17, and are now all convicted of murder, attacked Jack as he left the fun fair at the Houghton Feast on October 16 last year.
His tragic death, as shocking as it was senseless, has left his parents and brothers heartbroken, and ruined the lives of his killers and their families.
Zoey, who plans to talk to children in schools as part her own anti-knife crime campaign, said: “There is no dressing it up. The fact is young people are carrying and using knives.
“There needs to be harsher sentencing to deter youths from becoming involved in such horrific crimes involving knives and violence.”
Just two weeks ago 14-year-old Tomasz Oleszak, died after a suspected stabbing in Gateshead with another 14-year-old now facing a murder charge.
Tanya Brown, whose beloved son Connor was stabbed to death during a night out in 2019, launched The Connor Brown Trust in his name to educate young people and raise awareness about the dangers of carrying a knife.
Tanya, 42, from Thorney Close, said: “It is a problem that needs to be acknowledged by Liz Truss, and the courts. They need to take it seriously.
“We families can raise awareness, but something needs to be done higher up.
“Young people carry knives as a trophy and they are not, they are weapons that kill. We to change to stop other families going through what we go through everyday.”
Tanya, who works as a nursery school manager, said the one of the causal factors lies in the reduction of funding for youth intervention services.
She said: “The Government has taken everything away so they need to do something drastic. People do not just decide to start carrying a knife. Anti-social behaviour is the start of it.
“If you do not reach them at the start with early intervention the damage is already done and it is harder to bring them back.
“We have got to look after our young people. Our youth today is our future tomorrow.”
Figures released by Durham County Council show the authority’s budget for youth services in 2016-17 was £1,011,562.
Two years later it was £44,853 and in the last financial year it was 42,356.
Five years ago, when Consett YMCA closed due to a lack of funding after providing a youth club in the former steel town for decades, bosses warned there would be a rise in anti-social behaviour.
Previously, youth workers would engage with teenagers and steer them from low level criminality and substance abuse towards outward bound pursuits and activities to focus their energy in a positive way.
Earlier this year Consett bus station was partially closed and security guards were employed after a rise in unruly behaviour and the mugging of a pensioner as she returned from bingo.
“Money has got to be thrown at it and it is going to take years now because the water is over the dam.
“We did have our fingers in the dam to stop this but they Government has chopped our hands off.
“It is horrendous and I feel so sorry for these young people. They are getting failed.”
Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show, up to the year ending March 2022, Durham Constabulary, recorded 300 serious incidents of knife crime.
There was a murder, four attempted murders, 42 threats to kill involving a knife and 187 stabbings.
In the Cleveland force area over the same period, out of 794 incidents, there were two murders, two attempted murders, 47 threats to kill involving a knife and 490 stabbings.
Northumbria Police recorded 918 incidents over the same period with six murders, seven attempted murders, 101 threats to kill involving a knife and 490 stabbings.
Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Kim McGuinness, said: “Every time a young life gets taken too soon I hope it will be the last time, that the message of not carrying a knife will break through.
“But here we are hearing the desperate campaigning of parents who have had their children violently taken away.
“Nothing will bring their loved ones back but we can’t give up on trying to stop this devastation from happening again.
“Cuts to youth services, benefits and police numbers combined with a cost-of-living crisis will only make matters worse in the fight against crime.
“We can’t afford to fail our kids, we can’t leave a generation exposed to crime and we can’t accept there will be more victims.”
Local authorities, which control youth service budgets, have been forced make tough choices and cut spending after austerity measues were introduced by the Cameron-Clegg coalition in 2010.
Figures from the Institute for Local Government show central government grants, including retained business rates, were cut by 37 per cent in real-terms in the decade between 2009/10 and 2019/20, from £41bn to £26bn.
North Durham MP Kevan Jones said County Durham has had a disproportionate level of Government cuts to local authority and policing budgets over the last 12 years compared to more affluent areas in the south.
He said: “Crime cannot be fought without the funding.
"The responsibility of which lies with decisions taken by Government.”
The Northern Echo has asked the Liz Truss, who was Justice Secretary from 2016 to 2017, to meet with the mothers of Jack Woodley and Connor Brown to hear first hand the impact knife crime has had on them and their families.
Downing Street has been asked for a comment from her in response to the Northern Echo calls for action, but the Prime Minister has not responded.
A spokeswoman at Number Ten has suggested the editor should write to her 'via the correspondance unit'.
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The Government has said £170 million of funding is being provided for into Violence Reduction Units and Knife Crime Prevention Orders, which aim to steer at-risk young people away from violent crime or carrying a knife, are being trialled by the Metropolitan Police, which could be rolled out nationally.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We would like to express our deepest sympathies to these families.
“We will continue to do everything to give the police the necessary powers to prevent these senseless killings, but we recognise there is always more we can do.”
Read next:
- Powerful video shows County Durham mum singing to her murdered son on death bed
- Mum of murdered Aycliffe teen shares her feelings as Houghton Feast returns
- Aycliffe mum of Jack Woodley is 'heartbroken' after Tomasz Oleszak stabbing
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