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00:00Fazz, what's happening? My G, how are you?
00:08Yeah, who's that?
00:10Oh, it's Idris.
00:12How's it going, Idris? How are you?
00:14I'm good, man, I'm good. How are you?
00:19What's happening?
00:20Are you good?
00:21How you doing?
00:22Been busy?
00:23Yeah.
00:24Hey, look, last seven weeks, boy, this is what we're messing with, yeah?
00:27All these cases.
00:28All these cases?
00:29Yeah.
00:30I'm about to go to the station to hand these in.
00:33Oh, my days.
00:35So, like, these are the typical Rambos that a lot of the people use.
00:38Yeah.
00:39Like, these cost, like, ten is it just...
00:41Ten pounds?
00:42But we've got weapons that the tubes just can't facilitate.
00:45Yeah.
00:46But look, you know what I mean?
00:49Oh, my God.
00:50These are the kind of weapons that we're trying to get banned.
00:53Knife crime is a heartbreaking problem, and in the past ten years has almost doubled.
01:10I'm Idris Elba, and a few years ago I became involved in the fight against knife crime.
01:19In 2024, I invited a film crew to join me as I try to get to the root of the problem.
01:27I want to meet people who have carried a knife.
01:33Now I realise I was carrying a deadly weapon.
01:36Back in the day, carrying was pretty normal.
01:39Wear your keys, wear your phone, wear your knife.
01:42And get everyone talking about the challenges ahead.
01:48So we can all push those in power to take action.
01:51It's a lot of money. How are we going to pay for it?
01:54Are you just following me?
01:55And find real solutions.
01:59It is the most rewarding job I've done since I've been in the police in 19 years.
02:04It definitely works.
02:07There is hope. There's got to be ways that this can be done.
02:10No issue is permanent. There's got to be a way out of it.
02:15Because this is a problem that can affect anyone.
02:19You don't have to be a bad child. You don't have to be in a gang.
02:22You don't have to carry the knife to be the victim of knife crime.
02:28If you've got a knife, or you know someone that's got a knife, tell them to stab themselves.
02:42Right now. Trust me. Because you're just going to stab your future if you go and stab someone else.
02:46You become a murderer, you go to prison, you ain't got shit. For what? For some beef that lives within your community.
02:52You need to see past that. We have to say something about it.
02:57Five years ago, I had this rant. I just felt quite overwhelmed and angry.
03:02There's just a constant flux of young people murdering each other.
03:07Knife crime happens every day, but that particular day was just very...
03:11It was really painful for me. I felt the need and the urge to speak up.
03:15So the last five years, my focus has been on campaigning to raise awareness and push for solutions.
03:31But to be effective, we need to understand why some people were choosing to carry a knife in the first place.
03:38How old were you when you started carrying a knife?
03:49I think I was 12.
03:52In a park in Coventry, I got 20 people running off on me, carrying all sorts of things.
04:00And one of them swung an axe.
04:06And then ever since then, I didn't step outside without a knife.
04:13Well, you're scared after that, ain't you?
04:16You're going to be. You got jumped.
04:19So...
04:21You're going to want to protect yourself somewhere, innit?
04:25And that was the only way I could think of.
04:27But I don't do that no more.
04:33That's old me.
04:39It still is quite normal for where I'm from to see someone carrying a blade on them.
04:44I nearly got two pulled out on me this week.
04:48So...
04:49Police are appealing for information after the fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Harry Pittman, who'd gone with a group of friends to see the New Year's Eve fireworks from Primrose Hill.
05:08He was killed as hundreds of people gathered at the popular spot.
05:09We often assume all sorts of things about those who get involved in knife crime.
05:10But is there a type?
05:11But is there a type?
05:42Lovely to meet you. Nice to meet you, Taylor. How are you?
05:45How's your family? We're getting there.
05:49This is his memorial.
05:52It's really nice to come and sit here and just, like, be with him.
05:56Yeah. It feels like he's here.
05:59You could spot Harry a mile off. He had bright orange hair.
06:02He was a younger brother, right? Yeah. Was Harry at school?
06:05He was at college. He was studying law.
06:07He wanted to do something in that sort of field.
06:10Yeah. He was very clever, very clever boy.
06:12He was a smart boy. Yeah.
06:14That's heartbreaking.
06:16You know, I would be in bits all the time.
06:18I have my days. I do have my days.
06:20Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure, man.
06:22But was it just a beef? Was it a fight?
06:24All we know is there was some sort of altercation,
06:26and within that altercation, Harry was stabbed and killed.
06:28Yeah.
06:30The boy's the same age as my brother. Really?
06:3216-year-old.
06:34I hate to say it, but people think it's a race thing.
06:37Exactly.
06:38That was the first thing that came out when Harry was killed was,
06:41I bet it was a black person.
06:42I bet it was a black person.
06:44And it wasn't.
06:45It was another white boy.
06:46So it can literally be anyone and happen to anyone.
06:50There is such a general perception about this whole thing.
06:56That knife crime just affects black and brown communities.
07:01And it's just so disheartening because it's like,
07:05no one really cares to really understand it.
07:08And the truth is that the majority of people that are involved in knife crime are white.
07:25There's also a perception that knife crime just happens in big cities.
07:29Knife crime impacts lives across the UK.
07:34The areas with the highest rate of increase are Avon and Somerset, Bedfordshire and Sussex.
07:41But the worst affected area over the past two years is the West Midlands.
07:56Two 12-year-old boys have been found guilty of murdering a man with a machete in a park in Wolverhampton.
08:02The pair, who can't be named because of their age, are thought to be the youngest boys to have committed a knife-related murder in the UK.
08:09It's in suburban neighbourhoods that some of the most horrific attacks have taken place.
08:20Nice to meet you. I'm Damien.
08:22Idris, thanks for meeting me.
08:24Yeah, no problem.
08:25I've been sort of campaigning against knife crime for about five years.
08:29What's been happening is I've just been learning that I don't know enough.
08:32Yeah.
08:33And in this area, it was quite significant. Something happened here, right?
08:37Yeah, we had a 19-year-old lad, Sean Cesar High, sitting over on that bench over there.
08:42And then two other lads, 12 years old, approached him and they were carrying a machete.
08:4812-year-old?
08:49Yeah.
08:51I mean...
08:52They've had a row.
08:53Next thing you know, Sean's lying, you know, not 15 metres from where we are now.
08:59Massive stab wounds to the back of his skull, a burr in his skull, stab wounds all down his back, and he's dead.
09:06What was the nature of the fight?
09:09We don't know.
09:10We've never found anything or there's nothing been said to suggest that there, you know, in any way this is like postcode or gang related.
09:17But, you know, the reality is the two defendants have gone out with a knife.
09:22You carry that knife and it's in play.
09:26There's the knife after we'd recovered it.
09:28Wow.
09:29That's the machete?
09:30That's the machete.
09:31I mean, look at that thing.
09:33Yep.
09:35My son's 10.
09:36Yeah.
09:37You know, so this is like right under my nose, you know what I'm saying?
09:41Yeah, yeah.
09:42When you see, you know, 12-year-olds, that must be unusual.
09:48When we learnt the identity of the two lads involved, there was a bit of a collective pause where everyone was like,
09:55it feels like something's different here.
09:58You know, you're crossing the Rubicon a bit.
10:01But at the same time, it was more the grim reality of where we were at rather than complete surprise.
10:07How does this community sort of get past that?
10:10How do we not see it happen again?
10:13Knife crime will not be stopped by police officers alone.
10:16Yeah.
10:17That will never happen.
10:31I started the year thinking about how easy it is for people to buy knives and how accessible they are.
10:48Morning.
10:49We're on something Idris Elbert is talking about today.
10:52The actors starting a campaign to speed up changes to law.
10:55We'll join victims' families outside parliament later to launch a new campaign,
10:59calling for an immediate ban on zombie-style knives and machetes.
11:05At the top of this year, usually everyone's got a New Year's resolution, got some new vigour.
11:10Let's take that new vigour and let's apply it to eradicating knife crime.
11:18The campaign really landed and made as much noise as possible
11:23to the point where, you know, the government at the time pledged to change a loophole in the law about zombie knives.
11:33It's the first step with a ban on zombie-style knives and machetes.
11:37But it doesn't fix the problem because there are so many knives and swords that are still legal to own and sell.
11:50It's complicated because we all have knives in the kitchen.
11:54But maybe the answer is simple.
11:59Introduce ironclad restrictions on the sale of all dangerous knives that aren't used for cooking.
12:06Six men have been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a teenager in south-east London.
12:28Just 17 years old when he was stabbed to death in Betts Park in Bromley in 2017.
12:37When I was with my brother, I was 15 at the time when that happened.
12:41You'd never been faced with that situation before, you don't actually know what to say.
12:47To put it quite simply, I had many different offers involving retaliation around what happened with my brother.
12:55You've got to remember, you're looking at it from the outside and you live in a completely different world to the world that these young people are living in.
13:05Even with me and my situation, I could have became a habitual knife carrier.
13:12A lot of young people, if they come from certain areas within the UK, before they reach the age of 14, witness some form of stabbing.
13:23That's how a lot of young people grew up seeing it happen.
13:30That's how I grew up seeing it happen.
13:35We have to take knives off the streets, but we have to also go further on that.
13:41This problem of knife crime.
13:44It's a real indication of how much we have failed young people.
13:49How much the society that that kid is brought up into has allowed this to happen.
13:57And it hasn't safeguarded them enough.
13:59Mate, what are you doing? Get back.
14:14Get back.
14:19All right.
14:21Shall we?
14:23Oh, shit. Oh, shit.
14:26Oh, shit.
14:27Like, these images are being fed to, like, young people.
14:34It's going, you know, in their social media.
14:37And it's being fed through their algorithms.
14:41And, I mean, you watch this stuff, it is crazy what you're seeing.
14:45And, for me, all this does is just really perpetuate more fear.
14:50You see that, you go, well, I haven't got a shank.
14:52I haven't got a knife.
14:53I might need one.
14:54And it glorifies it.
14:57It might even be pushing kids towards, you know, some sort of, like, arms race
15:01where they want to get bigger and more scary at knives.
15:16For young people's minds that are developing, acting out of fear and high anxiety,
15:22they result to knife-carrying that's almost glamorised in certain spaces.
15:26I'm Samir. I work with 11 to 25-year-olds who have been stabbed.
15:35So, my background, growing up in a loving family, but I would say slightly dysfunctional.
15:43No father was involved, so, you know, mum was mum and dad.
15:47Mum was incarcerated at a period of time. Mum experienced domestic violence.
15:50We went into foster care.
15:52Did you ever carry a knife?
15:53That was just standard.
15:56Carrying was pretty normal.
15:58Pretty normal.
15:59Wear your keys, wear your phone, wear your knife.
16:01And you look at the timeline of all these contributing factors, to me,
16:06in the end, got involved in a gang-related murder,
16:09where I stabbed someone who subsequently died.
16:13I was incarcerated aged 18 and spent 16 years in custody.
16:17I've been to Feltham Young Offenders Institute a number of times.
16:35I've been there as a resident, as an inmate.
16:38But I've also been there to deliver workshops as well.
16:43So, yeah, Feltham, I know really well.
16:48The mission statement on prison walls talks about, in capital letters, rehabilitation.
16:56But, you know, a victim's family would want to see you sometimes die,
17:01you know, capital punishment, or see you rot in prison.
17:04There's definitely, like, a whole sector of people that just believe that people should just be sent to jail.
17:14That's it.
17:16You know, that's the only deterrent.
17:18And if there are tougher sentencing, there'll be less knife crime.
17:23For sure.
17:24I can understand where people are just like, that's what we've got jails for, send them to jail.
17:35I've been given access to Feltham, the most violent prison in the UK.
17:40If there was no law, we'd be at each other's folks.
17:44It's just human nature.
17:45So, it is important to have deterrents.
17:58What I want to try and understand, direct from the young people that are in prison for knife-related crime,
18:05is where it all went well.
18:08Trying to really understand what that fork in the road was.
18:12Because, obviously, the threat of prison hasn't deterred them.
18:19Come on in.
18:20Nice to meet you, man.
18:21Nice to meet you, man.
18:22Nice to meet you, man.
18:23Nice to meet you, man.
18:24Nice to meet you, man.
18:25Do you mind me asking you how long you've been in?
18:27Oh, two and a bit months.
18:28Who are you in?
18:29For stabbing.
18:30Stabbing?
18:31Yeah, GBH.
18:32How old are you?
18:33I'm 17.
18:3417.
18:35Yeah.
18:37When was the first time you held a knife?
18:40Way, like, 13.
18:42So, what I'm trying to understand here is, like, 10 years ago you were 7.
18:47What was life like for you then?
18:49Family life, pretty...
18:50No, family life is messy, to be honest with you.
18:54Oh, man.
18:55I don't know.
18:57What I'm trying to understand here is, like, 10 years ago you were 7.
19:00What was life like for you then?
19:01Family life, pretty...
19:02No, family life is messy, to be honest with you.
19:04Oh, man.
19:05Oh, OK. And my dad used to have mad anger issues.
19:07He was making no money coming home, taking it home, whatever.
19:11Right. How was school life for you?
19:13No, school life was shit.
19:15I'll be so real.
19:17I'll be so real, like, I started getting mega-bullied.
19:19I used to get really bad dandruff and people used to, like...
19:22OK. ..take the piss, say, like, has it been snowing and that,
19:24cos obviously I had it on the back of my blazer. Yeah.
19:27And then I used to just look around and I used to think, like,
19:29the only people that ain't getting bullied
19:31is the people that are this certain way.
19:33So I sort of felt the need to become that person.
19:35Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:37But then, obviously, I stopped going to school quite a lot.
19:40Did you get excluded from school? Yeah, like, four or five times.
19:43Really? Yeah.
19:45And then when you picked up a knife... Yeah.
19:48..was you thinking around the time...
19:49When I had a knife, I felt like I could do anything,
19:51and I felt like I was... I was a god, do you know what I mean?
19:54Nobody can touch me.
19:56It makes you the bad man in the situation, do you get it, like...
20:00But then push comes to shove and you end up using it.
20:03All of a sudden, do you know what I mean?
20:05Yeah.
20:06The stuff becomes real.
20:07I have a really good relationship with a lot of boys,
20:12but I think they can genuinely see... Yeah.
20:14..that I want to help them to change.
20:16But you need to get it when they're young now.
20:18Get to them young, what does that actually look like?
20:21Because that's one of the things I'm trying to understand.
20:24So, speaking to the boys...
20:26..it's as soon as they're disengaged with any school...
20:29..the boys are telling us that's where you start losing them.
20:33If he's out of Kenya.
20:35Who's there, who's there, who's there?
20:38Who's there?
20:39Who's there?
20:40Who's there?
20:41Who's there?
20:42You're right.
20:43How are you?
20:44Doing good.
20:45How are you?
20:48Doing good.
20:48Idris. Nice to meet you.
20:51How old are you?
20:52I'm 18.
20:5318?
20:54Yeah.
20:54How long have you been inside?
20:56Three months this time.
20:57But unfortunately, I've been in five different prisons before my 18th birthday.
21:01Wow.
21:02Yeah.
21:03For anyone that has an experience with knife crime, the end goal is to not have to be in
21:09other situations anymore.
21:11Unfortunately, life's not that easy for many people.
21:14Yeah.
21:14What was your school life like?
21:17I got kicked out when I was 15.
21:19And you got kicked out excluded, yeah?
21:21Yeah.
21:22Was that the time when you got your own knife at that juncture?
21:24Yeah, literally.
21:25Very, very soon after.
21:27Do you feel like if people were caught with knives and they get a mandatory three, four
21:31years of that, do you think that would deter them?
21:34It would deter some people, but there's a lot of people that they don't get tired of prison.
21:40To them, it's just two sides of the same coin.
21:42You're on the road and you're doing cramp, but you're in prison and waiting to do more
21:46cramp.
21:47Wow.
21:47It's more about protecting the public than about rehabilitating these people.
21:51But on the other hand, you're not protecting the public because these people will come
21:54out on you.
21:55Yeah, almost worse sometimes because of what the energy like is here, you're breeding it.
22:00Yeah, violence, spirit of violence.
22:06For people coming into prison, this is the last part of the journey.
22:09Yeah.
22:10There's lots and lots of systems and processes that have failed them in society.
22:13And by the time they get here, it's very costly for the public.
22:16It's costly in terms of victims.
22:18Yeah.
22:19And it's costly in terms of how we rehabilitate from this point onwards, because it costs so
22:23much per prison place for each individual.
22:26That was very hard to swallow.
22:43Like, you know, finding hope in a place like that is hard.
22:47It's difficult because, you know, by the time they're here, they've been cast away from
22:54society.
22:56Just had this overwhelming feeling that somewhere along the line, if someone had intervened
23:04earlier, these prisons would be emptier.
23:09We have this sort of like, you know, take my belt off and beat them.
23:13They won't do it again.
23:14That's not the way it works.
23:17That was definitely interesting.
23:24Two teenagers convicted of murdering a 16-year-old boy in a case of mistaken identity have been
23:31sentenced to more than 16 years in prison.
23:37Ronan Kander, who had just finished his GCSEs, was walking to a friend's house in Wolverhampton
23:43when he was attacked from behind by the two teenagers wielding a sword and a large machete.
23:48Ronan Kander, who was a mistaken identity, the intended target, lives bottom of our street.
23:58Ronan wasn't doing anything to anyone.
24:00He was just walking home.
24:02This perpetrator, he took my child's life thinking it's his intended target.
24:09When we were shown the ninja sword that went through my child's heart, I fainted on the
24:33day when I saw it.
24:34Because I'm looking at him.
24:43There's nice pictures of him.
24:48Yeah.
24:50And that's my last Mother's Day with my son.
24:58That is, it's your typical Ronan, that is.
25:01He was a joker.
25:04I was a mum.
25:18Like, I'd get up in the morning.
25:20The first thing I used to do is dive into Ronan's room, hug him, kiss him.
25:25Ronan was, like, still my younger baby, my baby he was.
25:31And, um, I would lie here, I'd say, push, go and move up.
25:36And he would, like, mum.
25:40And I'd say, no, no, let me just have a quick cuddle.
25:43And then I'll just have a quick cuddle with him and go after that, doing what I needed to do.
25:50And this side is empty now.
25:53I could, I get in this bed.
25:57But this side is empty.
25:59Do you not making sense of that to me?
26:01It's just, the perpetrators, what they did was they could have been stopped many times.
26:16Everyone failed, including police, education system, there are the perpetrators, families, parents.
26:25So all these failures are the reason my son is not on this side of the bed today.
26:35I'm not able to hug him.
26:40And these failures will continue if they are not highlighted,
26:47if they're not being told that you messed up big time.
26:52You failed in your duties.
27:03The perpetrator, an intended target, started their fight in the school.
27:12It all starts at school, for that age group.
27:17It was an angry young mom.
27:21The school was quite aware of it.
27:23I was like, he's an angry man.
27:41You hold on to him, he needed help.
27:44If somebody's troubled, you don't leave them out on the road to go and do whatever you want,
27:49because you don't want that problem on you.
27:52I'm not saying that we should ban exclusions,
28:09but is that an opportunity for it, rather than excluding them,
28:12I'm saying, actually, this is a moment where we could sort of red flag and say,
28:17here's an opportunity to course correct.
28:23This moment of exclusion is not a moment for us to say,
28:27let's just forget this kid,
28:28but it's actually a moment where we can say, let's help this child out.
28:32This is the time to help that child.
28:34Look, school exclusions sometimes means keeping pupils safe.
28:44I get it.
28:46But we're not understanding young people in a school place.
28:50We're not approaching it from a trauma-informed lens.
28:55Maybe they experienced a bit of domestic violence in the household.
28:58Maybe they were troubled at the bus stop today,
29:01and it's acting out in the class.
29:02So it sounds really cliche,
29:11but I wanted to join the police to help people
29:15and catch burglars and robbers.
29:18When I was younger, my dad was in the police.
29:20I've been in the police 19 years.
29:23A majority of that has been frontline policing.
29:25When you're frontline policing, on response,
29:33you turn up with your lights on to the incident that you're dealing with,
29:37and you do stick a plaster on it.
29:40You don't get to find out why these problems are happening.
29:45A lot of the young people we work with have had a rough time.
29:51There's been something in their lives that has been a trigger or a trauma
29:54that has led them to the path that they're on.
29:58When they're excluded, there is no reason to get up in the mornings.
30:02There is no diversion out of life for them.
30:09You know, it's what are they going to do with their time?
30:12They'll go and hang around with older people
30:16or people in the same position as them,
30:21and they're going to fill their time, probably not positively.
30:26I run an organisation taking weapons from people in the community
30:47and then disposing of them.
30:51I want you for four years, I do it.
30:53My brother's mum said,
30:55Dad, can I go to my cousins' party?
30:57My brother was telling me, he said,
30:58that a few guys are outside living in conflict.
31:02Sixteen years of the party.
31:04Yeah?
31:06That's what I accomplished in it.
31:08And if you think that's shocking,
31:11just when he's come to the party with me.
31:14What's this?
31:17There are two times in my life
31:19where I was personally affected by knife crime.
31:21I was 19 years old when I got stabbed the first time.
31:23And the second time I got stabbed three years after.
31:26And I stabbed nine times on both occasions.
31:29First it was like disbelief.
31:33Then it went from disbelief to almost why.
31:37And then stuck in that process there, the anger came up.
31:42But I never ever was tempted to carry a knife.
31:45I just didn't see longevity in revenge.
31:49You know, how is that going to affect other people around me?
31:52My mother, my children, you know?
31:54That's what I've kind of used as a driving force to build my organisation.
31:59And that's why I can almost call it like a relentless fight against knife crime.
32:03Because every time I do something for knife crime,
32:05I feel like I'm kind of getting back at my personal situation.
32:08If I can find a way for these young people to look at me as a person,
32:13to get rid of weapons, then that would be amazing.
32:15Do you know what I mean?
32:17OK, so what we're going to do is we'll examine them.
32:24We just want to make sure that there's none of the other things we have interest in.
32:27Copy that.
32:29A young person finds it hard to walk into a police station and drop a knife off, you know?
32:35Managed to pick up five Fazz of weapons over thousands of people.
32:42No one's ever been arrested.
32:44No one's ever got into trouble.
32:45No one's ever been hurt in a collection.
32:47What Fazz is doing is important.
32:57But I'd like the government to make it harder for young people to buy knives in the first place.
33:03MPs are debating justice, extending a ban on zombie knives and machetes to include a ban on ninja swords.
33:12Many will be quite frankly shocked that such weapons are not banned already.
33:18This is the issue of ninja swords.
33:20And the reason why straight swords are more difficult to ban is because, of course,
33:23some of them are held by military historians and for commemorative purposes.
33:28It felt like there was an attachment to swords, which may have some sort of traditional heritage thing.
33:40I just couldn't understand it, quite frankly.
33:43We are live in Downing Street as Rishi Sunak calls a general election.
34:00Now is the moment for Britain to choose its future.
34:07At a point where the country will vote a new leader, you've got to be intentional in what you do.
34:28If I can influence a government or any leader to kind of,
34:33yo, can you please pay attention, then I'm going to do that.
34:44Hello. Hi. Good morning.
34:46Hi. Nice to see you. Good to see you. I'm very well.
34:49Thanks so much. Hi, everyone. How you doing? Thank you.
34:51How you been? You been all right? Yeah.
34:53Do you know the families we've got around the table? Yeah, I've met most of them, yeah.
35:07All of them have got, you know, experiences that they need to share and things that can be done.
35:12Can I ask you a question? Yeah.
35:14You can say, shut up, we're just...
35:16We're going to pay for it. It's a lot.
35:18Yeah, we're going to pay for it.
35:20The way we've said to pay for it at the moment is to get very longed on tax status
35:24and crack down on terms of weather, so we can make a pot of money available.
35:27Right.
35:28As you turn this corner, you're on camera as soon as you turn left.
35:32Thank you. Thank you.
35:34Hey. Hello.
35:36Hi, guys. How are you?
35:38Hi. How are you? You OK? Good to see you.
35:41We can't keep on meeting families and having a version of the same conversation.
35:45We've got to change the system. That's really important.
35:48That's the spirit of it. Yeah.
35:50This doesn't stop. We're going to keep going and we have to hold the government,
35:54whatever government it is, accountable.
36:00I felt like a bit of a prop, a bit of an imposter.
36:04Out of everyone on that table, I stand out as, why are you here, Idris?
36:12You know, you make films. Why are you here?
36:15I'm an amplification device.
36:18It's all very well wanting to stop knife crime.
36:24The big question is, what can the government do to make a difference for the teenagers that are impacted?
36:32One possible solution is that hospital, an emergency care.
36:36The Royal London Hospital has pioneered a program after seeing young patients leaving with no support and returning to the same dangerous behaviour.
36:54For some young people, the only difference between a victim and a perpetrator is who won the fight that day.
37:04The idea is to intervene at a point where the young person is vulnerable, injured and open to the possibility of things changing.
37:30Samir.
37:33How are you, man?
37:34You all right, yeah? Nice to meet you, man.
37:36Thanks for taking the time to see me. Pleasure. Pleasure, man.
37:38What you're doing?
37:39It's an intervention, right?
37:40This is a system that works right at the moment of crisis here.
37:45Reachable moment.
37:46It's a reachable moment.
37:47Okay.
37:48Yeah.
37:49Our intervention kind of offers support and essentially going on the journey with that young person.
37:54We're not trying to remove knives from young people's possessions. We're trying to move it from their heart.
38:00A lot of young people think they've got nothing to live for. It's not worth it.
38:03And it's about instilling that value to say, bro, you've got so much potential.
38:07We've worked with young people, Idris, and said, how are you today? He said, no one's ever asked me that. No one's ever asked them, how are you? How are you?
38:20So for me, it's basics, man, like basics, especially if you're growing up in a dysfunctional family. So nurturing is very important.
38:26It's really important.
38:27This here is a program. We now work on a multi-agency approach that gets our young people safer, but then hopefully go on to live prosperous lives.
38:35And in that, I feel like there needs to be a much deeper understanding of why.
38:42Yeah, first and foremost.
38:43Right.
38:44Yeah.
38:45Why is this happening?
38:46100%.
38:47Poverty is number one at the forefront of violence within the UK. Whether that goes down the throats of people or not, it's the reality.
38:55Yeah, we've got a case at the moment. It's a young adult that was stabbed multiple times in the East London borough.
39:18Quite a complex case. Quite a lot of childhood traumas.
39:24We'll try to identify services to ensure that, you know, he has that ongoing support.
39:33We've supported education, getting them back into mainstream school. Mental health support, support around employment.
39:41Some young people don't have ID. We've got the ID. Sounds very trivial, but ID opens up the door and that was £35 that they don't have.
39:50So the opportunity to operate with them in the community starts to build trust and they're like, oh, you're really in my life.
39:56It is an incredible intervention, but doesn't change the fact that someone is already seriously injured.
40:21Are there ways to intervene earlier?
40:26OK, what happens before the stabbing? And can we do that guidance from that junction before there's an incident?
40:34It's like having those things pop up in the back of your garden. If you decide to just chop it and chop it and chop it every time you see it grow again, then what do you think is going to keep happening?
40:51You're going to have to keep chopping it. If you take it out by the root nine times out of ten, it's not going to grow back again.
41:01Because of my youth work, I got into the world of horses and I feel like it's helped me level myself.
41:10The environment I come from, there's a lot of violence. What was so astonishing about it for me was if I can communicate with such a big animal that can actually cause me a lot of damage if it wants to, and the fact that I'm not having to be forceful or violent with it, it's like, hold on a minute.
41:34Why should I need to be violent in any other form of communicating with other people?
41:41All right, you just follow me.
41:49So, like, people at home watching this documentary will be like, wait, how are we here?
41:55Obviously, people definitely don't expect this at all. I mean, it's not normal to see a South Londoner just chilling around horses in a yard.
42:01So, let me ask you, like, how's your upbringing lead you to where you are now?
42:08I had, like, a mentor for over ten years.
42:13My mentor, he was provided to me by a youth service I used to go to on a regular basis.
42:20There was a lot of lessons and advice that was given to me by that individual.
42:25He's known me since I was, like, 11, 12.
42:31What was it like, at 12, having a mentor?
42:33It was strange at first, but then it's like, when you start having conversations, you start to see it completely differently.
42:39Yeah.
42:40Because then you start to realise, wait, there's other people in the world that actually care about who I am as an individual and actually want to see me do something positive.
42:48Yeah, yeah, yeah.
42:49Do you know what I mean? And it's like, if you're in an environment where all you're being role-modelled and taught is wrong, then if that's what you know, that's what you're going to do, do you know what I mean?
42:57That's what you know, yeah, yeah.
42:58I don't know much about what happened to your brother.
43:01My eldest brother, he was out and about one evening, bumped into a certain group of individuals.
43:10It's believed that they had a bit of a dispute and it ended with him being knife to death.
43:16Your mentor had a lot to do with helping you not basically go for revenge or anything like that.
43:22No, 100%, 100%.
43:23These are the reasons why I'm not sitting in jail right now.
43:26That's the best way to put it.
43:28Obviously it helped me at the time, understanding that you doing what you were going to do ain't bringing nobody back.
43:34If I didn't have a role model like him, my life would look very different.
43:42Jamal, you know, he's a lovely kid.
43:44I understand that intervention has really changed the life around.
43:48You can see it in his soul, you can see it when you meet him.
43:52So that's a really good example of mentorship gone right and done really well.
44:00The more people I can get talking about this, the more likely change will happen.
44:14Banging the pot and making noise works.
44:16Someone's got to take advantage of a soapbox.
44:20Someone's got to take advantage of the breach and I have those.
44:28About to head into the palace, see the king.
44:32I'm always sort of thankful for him setting up the Prince's Trust, regardless.
44:38Like, it's changed lives, it changed mine, it gave me an opportunity.
44:44They gave me a grant when I was 16 to go to the National Youth Music Theatre and study.
44:54Thinking back there, I was filling out the form and thinking, this is stupid.
44:58He's not going to choose me.
45:00I came home from school, my mum said, she's got a letter.
45:06It was a white envelope, handwritten, Idris Elba Esquire.
45:12And it had the royal seal.
45:15I was like, nah, no way.
45:18Open it up.
45:19And in the letter was a cheque.
45:22If I hadn't gotten the Prince's Trust, I wouldn't have had that experience because we couldn't afford to go.
45:30And it definitely put me on the right map.
45:33You know, on the right trajectory.
45:45The king is going to actually come and greet you at the car.
45:48What?
45:49Yeah.
45:50No.
45:51He says, they're going to open the door and he's going to be there.
45:52No, man.
45:53Which is why we cannot be late.
45:54Are you serious?
45:55Yeah.
45:56What are you saying?
45:58There's a lot of traffic.
46:00Are you going to bring them at the door, sir?
46:03Yes.
46:04I'm waiting for him to a right.
46:14Oh, I need a good morning.
46:15It's an afternoon.
46:16Hi.
46:17Good to see you.
46:18Good to see you.
46:19Where's it?
46:20It's been such a difficult nut to crack, hasn't it?
46:23Yeah, it really is.
46:24The campaigning continues.
46:25I'm so thankful to have you here.
46:27I've always believed that, as an adolescent, what you really need is channelling into something constructive.
46:34It's my honor, I think, to have young people at the table, okay, having their voice a part of this.
46:43It seems to be the great ambition now should be to be able to go into, you know, to try and dig people out from all the most, the hardest areas to reach.
46:52It's really interesting just being around, you know, that sort of level of exposure.
47:01And I didn't realize that we'd be sitting next to the king and people from the community discussing it.
47:07I didn't think that would happen.
47:10You know, if every newspaper tomorrow says, ah, that there was a moment where the king and young people and Idris all sat around the table, that's what we need to see.
47:21You know, the media have a massive role to play in this, because they've got the loudest soapbox amongst us all.
47:27And I'm just like, um, I'm very hopeful right now.
47:40This government has been elected to deliver nothing less than national renewal.
47:46With a new government in power, they've invited people who know the reality of knife crime to meet every two months to influence policy.
47:57Actor Idris Elba is in Downing Street today.
48:00He's taking part in the knife crime summit.
48:07It's rare to actually be here.
48:09At the beginning of it, of this documentary, we didn't know this was going to happen, so here we are.
48:14Got my notes.
48:17I'm going to speak for three minutes.
48:18I don't know what I'm going to say, but I'm just going to say it from the heart.
48:23I find it amazing that people who've been through experiences the like of which some people around the table have been through are able to come forward.
48:31You have to be brutally frank with us today and every time we meet.
48:35Five, six years ago, I started to speak up and say something.
48:40Five years later, six years later, though, unfortunately, we're still talking.
48:44Um, and you know, talk is good, but action is more important.
48:49We need joined up thinking and there are all kinds of people here today from organisations, charities, victims, youth services, health services, police, education, home secretary, because everyone here has something to offer this.
49:06And, um, let's hold ourselves to task.
49:11My name is Pooja Kanda.
49:13I'm here today to tell you about my beautiful salon problem.
49:17Rona didn't stand a chance.
49:19He tried to run for the house which was only two doors away.
49:23He didn't reach his house and he dropped there on the road.
49:34I finally believe that I've been hurt.
49:38And, and that's good.
49:40That's good that I was there and was able to express myself and I hope that government listens.
49:48To the House of Commons where Labour's first budget for 14 years will be delivered by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
49:59As Reeves is expected to say, her priority is to invest, invest, invest.
50:03The interventions that I've been learning about, the hospitals, the schools, the community, they all cost money.
50:21The government says the budgets are tight. We get it.
50:25But it's not just about asking for more funding. It's about what you do with the money there is.
50:36Saying knives end lives. Knives get you sent to prison.
50:42Everybody carrying a knife knows that. Everybody involved in a fight knows that.
50:46So we all need to do our best to identify who's at risk.
50:53Help them with showing them that there are other options available.
51:01Carrying a knife by itself is, I mean, kind of is suicidal.
51:08I guess it was just the environment I grew up in.
51:12My mum had custody of me and I got kicked out of there for the stuff I used to be involved in.
51:19Moved into my nan's, got kicked out there because of the stuff I was involved in.
51:25My school, I got kicked out there and then I was out of school for a year.
51:32I have autism and ADHD. It just makes it, I didn't know that.
51:38So it makes it hard to speak to anyone.
51:51In Coventry, the police are piloting a new approach that seems to have potential.
51:56It's called SERV.
51:57SERV is the community initiative to reduce violence.
52:04They're seeking out teenagers they suspect are on a path that leads to knife crime.
52:10Then they step in before a stabbing is committed, build a relationship and suggest opportunities that connect with that teenager.
52:19This programme, it is the most rewarding job I've done since I've been in the police in 19 years.
52:29Children or young people who carry knives, I can honestly say it's a way of life that the majority of them don't want to be in.
52:36But they just, they're so stuck they don't know how to get out.
52:39So it's kind of guiding them out, mentoring them out.
52:45We work with education and career opportunities.
52:49It's about finding something that they enjoy and showing them what they can achieve.
52:54It's a consistent adult figure in their life to guide them and lead them onto a different path.
52:59It definitely works.
53:00Jaden was referred into the programme after concerns that he might have been involved in gangs, carrying knives, etc.
53:13He was a hard nutcrack initially, very quiet, as are most of them initially.
53:21So it was just finding a way of breaking down barriers and kind of just forming a bit of a relationship and a trusting kind of bond between the two of us.
53:36Jaden, how are you doing? Nice to meet you.
53:38Good to meet you. How are you?
53:39I'm good, you?
53:40I'm all right, I can't complain.
53:43I know that you've been working with Laura and the serve team for a little bit and I'm just curious.
53:49I just wanted to hear how you found it and, you know, how you're getting on a bit.
53:54Yeah.
53:57Well, when I first joined the serve programme, I had no confidence in myself.
54:03And like, well, she helped me out a lot.
54:06Yeah, it's helped me a lot. It's helped me a lot.
54:10Do you don't carry a knife?
54:12No, I used to. I used to carry a knife and I used to be scared.
54:15Some people, they said they feel naked without it. I felt naked without it.
54:21You've got to make that change.
54:24And it's hard to. It's proper hard to. I'm still struggling now, but...
54:29I'm finding my way. I'm finding my way, innit.
54:33I heard you as an Arsenal fan as well.
54:35Me?
54:37He's staring.
54:38What?
54:40Now you're chatting. Now you're chatting. Now you're chatting, Laura.
54:44Come on.
54:45You set me up.
54:47What team?
54:49Villa.
54:50Villa? Yeah.
54:51Okay.
54:52He's my great granddad. All my life. I love football.
54:55I'm joining the academy scene as well.
54:57That's amazing. How does that? Do you get in contact with the academy?
55:01Yeah. I just sent an email and just said who we are, what the programme's about.
55:06The programme's giving you ways to figure out how to get past the bad days, yeah?
55:11Yeah, yeah, yeah, loads.
55:13And then, I guess, like, what you're doing with your sports, that's almost another anchor, innit?
55:19Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything that's good for me, she'll make sure it happens.
55:23Yeah.
55:25But you're already talking about the opportunities the academy might give him in terms of qualifications,
55:30and one of them could be a coaching qualification, and he's already said the other week, didn't you?
55:34Yeah, I'd love to coach. I'd love to be a coach.
55:37That seems like a really hopeful step.
55:40Mate, nice meeting you, man. Thanks for your time, yeah?
55:43Yeah?
55:44Laura?
55:46Thank you very much.
55:47Really nice meeting you.
55:49What's great is coming here and seeing a version of Hope with the SERV programme.
56:06You know, the SERV programme actually really ticks a lot of the boxes that we've been talking about.
56:14And then, with stories like Jayden, you're kind of saying to yourself,
56:18all right, is there a version that happens nationwide?
56:20Is there a version that can be done at a much, much larger scale?
56:24It's a larger scale.
56:25That is going to be a massive logistical conundrum.
56:31But it is so worth it when you watch a kid like that, who a year ago is struggling, who's, you know,
56:38he's just this far away from going back to his old roots.
56:42And then he's got this programme that can help him, right?
56:45And that's...
56:49I guess, you know, when people watch this film,
56:52so what's the point of it? What's the point?
56:54Well, this is the point.
56:55That there is hope.
56:57There's got to be ways that this can be done.
56:59You know, no issue is permanent.
57:02There's got to be a way out of it.
57:04This is too dangerous to be, not speak about it.
57:11It could happen to another child.
57:13We just need to get it right.
57:21What I want people to understand is, is that it takes a village to raise a child.
57:25What's happening with young people is,
57:27they are burning down that village
57:29because they're not feeling the embrace of that place.
57:32And I'm inviting you to be part of this village
57:35and play into it and invest in our young people.
57:39There's a bigger picture that needs looking at.
57:41Everybody deserves a chance at the end of the day.
57:43And it is about that chance.
57:45It's a no-brainer to me, to be honest.
57:49I value life a lot more now.
57:51There's some beauty in the world for me.
57:57That wasn't there before.
58:02I love you.
58:03I love you.
58:04I love you.
58:05I love you.
58:06I love you.
58:07I love you.
58:08I love you.
58:09I love you.
58:10I love you.
58:11I love you.
58:12I love you.
58:13I love you.
58:14I love you.
58:15I love you.
58:16I love you.
58:17I love you.
58:18I love you.
58:19I love you.
58:20I love you.
58:21I love you.
58:22I love you.
58:23I love you.
58:24I love you.
58:25I love you.
58:26I love you.
58:27I love you.
58:28I love you.
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