A mother who shared a moving film captured as she sang to her murdered son on his deathbed has helped shape Labour’s ambitious plans to tackle knife crime.

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the meeting with Zoey McGill had been the hardest day she had faced in her job as she unveiled her strategy to address youth violence.

In her speech at the party conference in Liverpool on Tuesday she announced plans to set up a £100m “tough love” youth programme if a Labour Government is elected.

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The “young futures” programme will create hubs in 92 communities across the country bringing together mental health specialists, youth workers and neighbourhood police officers “to prevent young people from being drawn into violence”.

Ms Cooper said the meeting, which was set up as part of the Northern Echo’s knife crime campaign, was a core factor in determining policy to prevent more lives being lost.

The Northern Echo: Yvette Cooper speaking at the Labour Party conference on Tuesday Yvette Cooper speaking at the Labour Party conference on Tuesday (Image: PA)Read next: How the tragic deaths of North East stabbing victims could shape knife crime policy

She said: “Keir and I met with a grieving mother in Hartlepool who showed me the video she keeps on her phone of her cradling her teenage son in his hospital bed singing to him as he lay dying from a knife wound.

“It is the hardest thing I have done in this job.

“It is families who feel like they have lost their future but are calling for us to help them save other children’s lives.

“Knife crime has gone up by 70 per cent in eight years with some of the steepest increases in towns and suburban areas yet too little is being done and a generation is being failed.

“We must not fail them anymore.”

Jack Woodley died after he was beaten, kicked and stabbed by a gang of youths aged 14 to 17 at the Houghton Feast two years ago.

The Northern Echo: Jack Woodley died after he was attacked while leaving a fun fair Jack Woodley died after he was attacked while leaving a fun fair (Image: Contributor)

The Northern Echo: The haunting image of Jack on a life support machine in hospital The haunting image of Jack on a life support machine in hospital (Image: Contributor)Zoey, from Newton Aycliffe, shared the picture of Jack as he lay at the RVI in Newcastle, as a stark warning to others about the dangers of carrying knives.

The Northern Echo launched a campaign to address the root causes of knife crime in the wake of Jack’s death, but several more teenagers – two boys aged 14 and a girl of 15 - died from stabbings in the months that followed.

Zoey, together with Tanya Brown, from Sunderland, who lost her son, Connor, also 18, to knife crime in 2019, wrote an open letter to the Prime Minister on the front page of the Northern Echo calling for action.

Neither Rishi Sunak nor his predecessor Liz Truss replied or acknowledged the campaign.

Zoey, who has two other sons, said she was fully supportive of the measures announced by Ms Cooper at the conference.

The Northern Echo: Zoey McGill Zoey McGill (Image: Sarah Caldecott)She said: “It's amazing. It gives me strength to know something is being done and Jack didn't die for nothing.

“The campaign has been worth it and at the meeting I could tell by the way they looked into my eyes that they were going to do something about it.

“It has been a success and one that has been much needed and probably was long before Jack was taken. I can’t stress enough how important it is."

The Northern Echo: Zoey McGill and Tanya Brown with Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer in Hartlepool Zoey McGill and Tanya Brown with Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer in Hartlepool (Image: Sarah Caldecott)

The Northern Echo: Zoey was filmed singing to her son as he lay in hospital Zoey was filmed singing to her son as he lay in hospital (Image: Contributor)Zoey said: “I knew it would go places because she and Keir Starmer looked at me and she was streaming as she watched me singing Jack to sleep.

“It has obviously stuck with them and that video has stuck in their head, as traumatic as it is to watch.

“I am relieved that something is being done and hopefully it will bring about change.”

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In May the Northern Echo stepped up the campaign with the launch of the North East Knife Crime Taskforce to bring together organisations across the region to create a multi-agency approach to tackle the problem.

Powerful anti-knife crime campaigns have now been launched in the Northumbria and Cleveland police force areas and the newspaper is calling on the Government to have the issue taught in schools as part of the National Curriculum.  

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The Northern Echo: Northern Echo editor Gavin Foster Northern Echo editor Gavin Foster (Image: Northern Echo)

Northern Echo editor Gavin Foster said: “Our knife crime campaign and task force was launched because we too were moved by the heartbreaking accounts from families of victims.

“We called upon political leaders to meet these families first hand to hear the impact knife crime has and Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper did meet with two mums who had both lost sons to senseless acts of knife violence.

“It has clearly left a lasting impact and hopefully this will lead to the change needed to prevent these tragedies from continuing to happen.”