In the heart-wrenching documentary 'Grief,' delve into the stark realities of knife crime gripping the Black Country as two grieving parents, a mother and a father, bravely share their haunting stories of loss.
Unveiling the emotional aftermath and shattered lives left in the wake of senseless violence, this powerful film not only sheds light on the epidemic of knife crime but also explores the resilient spirit of those left behind.
'Grief' is a poignant call for awareness and change, urging society to confront the harsh truths that echo in the shadows of our communities.
Unveiling the emotional aftermath and shattered lives left in the wake of senseless violence, this powerful film not only sheds light on the epidemic of knife crime but also explores the resilient spirit of those left behind.
'Grief' is a poignant call for awareness and change, urging society to confront the harsh truths that echo in the shadows of our communities.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 [Music]
00:09 We literally abandoned our cars, ran across the grass verge to where we could see a huddle
00:17 of paramedics and witnessed James having open heart surgery.
00:21 [Music]
00:24 How could I leave my child? How could I leave my son lying on the road and sit inside on a sofa?
00:33 [Music]
00:36 I stayed there till my son was there, 4 o'clock in the morning. I stayed on the road.
00:43 Whether it rained, snowed, anything, I would not have left that road.
00:49 My child was lying there. I wasn't allowed to go and see him. I'm not leaving my child.
00:57 [Music]
01:13 [Music]
01:19 It's our last day in the iconic Express and Star building in Wolverhampton,
01:23 and to mark the end of an era, we're producing a film on a topic that should matter to every single one of our readers.
01:30 [Music]
01:32 My name's Mark Morris, and I'm one of the Star's journalists.
01:36 We cover knife crime all the time, but in the last year, something's changed.
01:41 With so many cases, it's as if the public are growing used to something that should be seen as truly shocking.
01:48 I wanted to make a film to change that.
01:53 I'm in the Express and Star conference room for the last time before we move offices.
01:58 This is where the editor would host conference, and we'd discuss ideas.
02:02 There's just so much history inside this building in Wolverhampton.
02:06 I wanted the last thing that we produced from inside it to be something important,
02:11 something that really matters or should matter to the region.
02:14 That's why we're making this film about knife crime, because it really is the issue of our time.
02:20 But how do you cut through the noise on this topic and remind everyone that what's happening to young people across the region simply isn't okay?
02:29 It's not normal.
02:31 I think the best way is to speak to those who have experienced the horrifying effects of knife crime first-hand.
02:38 You're about to see two interviews with two very courageous people.
02:42 Ready to go? Both recording?
02:44 Not only will they remind you that knife crime can affect anyone, but by the end of this film,
02:49 I think a number of people will be joining the Express and Star in saying enough is enough.
02:57 (No audio)
03:00 It was on Aldridge High Street in June 2017 that James Brindley was murdered.
03:11 The 26-year-old was walking home from a night out with friends when he was stabbed through the heart by Amar Karod, then just 17 years old.
03:20 James had been out drinking in the Aldridge area, at the Weatherspoons pub.
03:23 He'd left some friends with a view to returning home.
03:26 He was walking back to the top of Aldridge Town Centre, onto the Little Aston Road, heading in the direction of home.
03:33 We believe he was approached and attacked somewhere near to the entrance to the Croft Park.
03:39 At that point, he returns back towards the town centre and collapses,
03:44 where he is given first aid from four 16-year-old lads who have just finished their school prom.
03:52 He's joined by his parents, who've been called to the scene,
03:55 and despite the best efforts of the ambulance staff, he died in the arms of his parents.
04:01 Karod was sentenced to life in prison, but the justice process left a lot of unanswered questions for James' family.
04:13 His father, Mark, has agreed to be interviewed for this film.
04:16 His story communicates the sheer grief and life-ruining horror of knife crime,
04:21 and I believe it needs telling again and again, until something changes.
04:26 We're now on our way to interview Mark Brindley.
04:30 He's the father of James Brindley, who was killed in 2017.
04:34 Like Pooja Kander, Mark and his wife Beverly have since had a big impact on the community.
04:40 The James Brindley Foundation works with local young people to create a better future.
04:45 It would probably be wrong to start an interview like this without asking how you are.
04:58 How are you?
04:59 That's very kind of you.
05:00 I've not had an interview where somebody's actually asked that, but that's very kind.
05:05 I'm very much up and down, like the whole family, and like so many families across the UK.
05:15 When a traumatic, tragic event happens like the one that happened to James, you're never the same again.
05:26 You learn to deal with it, you get better at dealing with it, but the pain is just underneath the surface of the skin.
05:39 So we're all on a rollercoaster, and sometimes we're okay, and other times we're not.
05:47 You've mentioned that you don't feel comfortable talking about James as a person in this setting,
05:53 because there simply isn't enough time to do him justice as a man.
05:57 Instead, can we start from that day in June 2017?
06:03 Where were you, and what were you doing when you first heard the terrible news?
06:08 Yeah. We were fast asleep.
06:14 Absolutely fast asleep and oblivious to what James was going through.
06:22 We were woken by Charlotte bursting into our bedroom, screaming that James had been stabbed.
06:33 She shot off, left the house, and we got up and went straight up to Aldridge as well,
06:45 to witness what I describe as a sea of blue lights, the kind of which I've never seen before,
06:54 other than perhaps on the TV with a motor accident on the motorway, you know, car lorries,
07:03 because the whole of the high street was just blue flashing lights.
07:09 When we saw that, there was this terrible sinking feeling that it was true, and he was in serious trouble.
07:20 And we literally abandoned our cars. Charlotte had abandoned her car on Little Aston Road.
07:28 We abandoned ours in the same, and literally just leapt out,
07:35 ran across the grass verge to where we could see a huddle of paramedics
07:40 and witnessed James having open-heart surgery, which was shocking, to say the least.
07:50 It's bad enough that I was 57 at the time, but our daughter was 21, 22, and so much more unable to cope with that trauma.
08:09 But yes, I mean, that's how it happened.
08:12 James was walking along the road, talking to his girlfriend on the phone, and he was attacked.
08:21 But the girlfriend heard nothing. We don't think James was aware of anybody or anything.
08:30 And we think it was a complete and utter surprise.
08:34 It's clear the James Brinley Foundation has almost given Mark another reason to live.
08:40 I was keen to find out how his work with local young people and in installing knife bins across the region
08:46 helped him and the family emerge from the deepest abyss.
08:50 You can find knife bins like this all over the black country now, places for people to hand in their weapons anonymously.
08:56 Things like bleed kits are more readily available too, so stab victims stand a better chance of survival.
09:03 The thing is, it should be shocking that these things are needed at all, but it's kind of not.
09:09 It's as if we've all grown used to it.
09:11 Part of the reason for making this film is to communicate or re-communicate to people how horrific knife crime is,
09:22 and you've just communicated that very, very well.
09:25 The other reason is to communicate to people how you've gone from witnessing something so horrific,
09:32 the worst possible grief, to setting up a foundation, doing good in the community and the courage that that takes.
09:40 What were the days and weeks like for you as a family after James' murder?
09:48 Well, it was a spiral, a downward spiral, of 18 months, and I didn't open any mail for 18 months.
10:04 Can you believe that? I mean, I had a business, and I didn't open anything.
10:10 The business couldn't carry on without me.
10:15 And I didn't reply to emails, telephone calls, and neither did my wife.
10:22 My child looks rather aware.
10:24 Yeah, it was just a descent into despair, and just an abyss.
10:34 And we had a moment after 18 months where a letter landed on our mat that had come from an organisation that run care homes for looked-after children.
10:50 And that letter spoke about things that, as a family, we'd discussed in detail, which was about how could this possibly have happened to our son?
11:02 How could it have happened in Aldridge, of all places, with a very high retirement age population?
11:13 And why did it happen?
11:18 And of course we agonised over that, but this letter spoke about all the things that we'd spoken about and we agreed with.
11:28 And that was the start of this moment where we started talking to them about that subject,
11:37 and we then decided that we would work together to create a solution.
11:44 As a family, we'd decided we were going to start a charity, come what may,
11:49 but we hadn't thought about the educational element of changing attitudes, of changing behaviour.
12:00 We'd just thought about, well, James was such a good person, not a goody-two-shoes, but a good, kind-hearted, generous, full of fun,
12:14 gentle nature, naturally. We're not going to let him become a faceless victim of knife crime.
12:24 James' killer was jailed for at least 17 years, but Mark thinks the criminal justice process left a lot to be desired.
12:33 As we moved towards discussing possible solutions to the knife crime epidemic, I wanted to get his view on justice in general.
12:41 Were you happy with the sentence? You'll never be happy because it would never bring James back, obviously, but was justice done?
12:50 No. No, no, it wasn't, because there were two people who attacked James.
12:57 They were witnessed attacking James, and only one was sentenced. So I have to express my personal pain with that.
13:13 I don't think it's right, and we were told there was nothing we could do about it.
13:21 When we cover knife crime at the Express and Star, the comments will be full of references to give people five-year, seven-year sentences just for carrying knife.
13:32 That will solve the problem. They obviously aren't considering that you would have to build extra prisons and that there's rehabilitation issues and all sorts of social problems associated with that.
13:42 But because so many people seem to believe it, does that have a part to play in the solution?
13:51 I think everything has a part to play in the solution. There isn't a single solution. It's a very complex issue, and it's a very complex social issue.
14:04 So, yeah, I do have sympathy, empathy with some of these views, but it does tend to paint a black-and-white picture, and it isn't black and white.
14:20 So, for instance, 50% of the young people that are referred to us as a charity to mentor come from a single-parent family.
14:36 50% of them also come from some of the most deprived areas in the UK.
14:43 So there's deprivation of opportunity in education and future, and a mother who's trying to raise children single-handedly.
14:56 So then think, well, there's a problem with money making ends meet.
15:03 If you look behind some of the motivation then to go out and offend, it's to help in certain circumstances with the family budget.
15:14 The West Midlands has one of the highest rates of knife crime in the country.
15:19 In the last year, two-thirds of knife crime incidents involved first-time offenders.
15:24 Only around a fifth of those were immediately jailed.
15:27 I was keen to understand what's behind the rise, and Mark's work with the Foundation gives him more insight than most.
15:34 What are the root causes, in your view and in the work that the Foundation has done, of this increase?
15:42 Yeah. Well, there's some root causes that we can't impact, which are really fundamental, and that is obviously deprivation and poverty.
15:55 And that's something for government, isn't it?
15:59 But if you take a wider look at young people's lives, what's going on in the home?
16:09 What kind of influences are there within the home?
16:13 Good family functioning is where it all starts, and where parents and young people aren't developing a healthy relationship for whatever reason.
16:27 That sense of belonging inside the family is missing or not fully formed.
16:36 Then young people look elsewhere for a sense of belonging, don't they? It's a natural thing to do, which immediately means that they're vulnerable to exploitation.
16:46 And the gangs know that, and they exploit young people, particularly if they've been excluded because they're on the street.
16:53 So it starts with family functioning, but then there's peer pressure, there's gang culture, there's substance misuse, whether it's drink or drugs.
17:04 There's violent behaviour, there's radicalisation and prejudice, and exploitation, whether it's sexual or criminal.
17:15 And all these things you can't think about in isolation as one subject, because they're all so interlinked in families and with young people all across the country.
17:29 So you can't talk about gang culture without talking about violent behaviour, exploitation, substance misuse, peer pressure, exploitation.
17:40 Let's call it right family function is one of the solutions, or the solution.
17:45 What can central and local government do, if anything, to encourage that, in your view?
17:54 Well, I campaigned not very long ago for a programme of consequential thinking to be part of the revamped PHSC curriculum in school.
18:09 And it's got to start, as I said earlier, as early as we can possibly make it.
18:16 But then you could argue, and our programme is called the Full Circle programme, because we look at the whole spectrum of a person's life.
18:27 We look at their life in the round and all those influences.
18:32 And I've already said, you know, the major influence on any young person is the family.
18:39 And so we also have to help families that don't have the capacity or the knowledge or understanding or the time to look after their children vigilantly and with love and care.
18:59 All this great work that you're doing, does it help you cope with what happened to James?
19:07 Does it serve that function?
19:09 Well, absolutely it does. I think if we hadn't met the people that we did all those years ago now, we could very easily have spiralled down and down and down.
19:25 For me, on a daily basis, I get up with the knowledge that I'm going to do something that's going to contribute to young people being safer in the Walsall Borough.
19:41 And I know that we're doing that as a charity because of the impacts that our programme manager is having when she delivers one to one mentoring using the Full Circle programme.
19:55 And the turnaround are spectacular.
20:00 So if a young person is robbing someone at knife point and they've stopped doing it, if they've felt able to turn their back on a gang that they're a member of, you know, if they're no longer county lining,
20:15 we know that they're no longer in situations where they're going to be exploited and they're going to have to carry a knife or feel that they have to carry a knife.
20:29 In order for this film to truly showcase just how devastating knife crime is, I had to ask Mark one last question.
20:37 If it's not possible for a parent who loses a son in such a violent way to ever fully recover, what sort of future does he see himself having?
20:47 Final question, then. Do you see the future as positive, both from a personal perspective and from a social knife crime perspective?
20:58 Yeah, that's a tough question.
21:05 Taking the charity first, what we know, what I've learned in the six and a half years since James was murdered, is that serious youth violence is not inevitable.
21:29 Behaviours can be changed, attitudes can be changed, so it is preventable.
21:37 And that's why it's so important to get into people's lives early, young people and the family, where they need help, as early as possible, to prevent knife crime, to prevent these things happening.
21:53 So, positivity on the impact of our charity, no question. No question.
22:01 Positivity over whether we can have enough of a voice as a charity to influence the public to play a part, I'm not sure.
22:15 I just feel that it's too easy for people to say, "Oh, I just haven't got the time."
22:22 And I don't think it's likely to happen to me or my child.
22:28 So I'm less positive about that, but that won't stop me heading towards that and trying to make that happen, because that is very much in the forefront of my mind.
22:39 Changing public attitude to knife crime and getting people to understand that it can be changed and it must be changed.
22:49 And there is urgency to it. How many more lives should be lost before the public say, "This just can't be right."
22:58 There's a battle going on on our streets. It's war in the UK and we're losing our sons. We've got to stop it.
23:06 And the message is, "Enough is enough."
23:08 Absolutely it is. Positivity for the future.
23:11 Well, if the charity, for me personally, if the charity continues to grow and continues to do the work that we're doing that's making a difference in the lives of these young people and their families,
23:26 then there's positivity for me. And that's what keeps me going.
23:32 Fantastic. Well, thank you very much for your time, Mark.
23:34 Thank you.
23:35 Really appreciate it.
23:36 Thank you.
23:38 [Music]
23:57 It was on this road in Wolverhampton in June 2022 that 16-year-old Ronan Kander was walking home from buying a PlayStation controller from a friend.
24:07 He had just finished his GCSEs and had his whole life ahead of him.
24:12 The CCTV of what happened next is enough to make you turn away from the screen.
24:18 [Music]
24:22 Just yards from his family home, Ronan was brutally attacked from behind by two teenagers, one of whom was carrying a ninja sword.
24:30 [Music]
24:34 It was a case of mistaken identity. They wanted to attack someone else.
24:39 But Ronan's wounds were so severe he died of his injuries.
24:43 [Music]
24:47 Last year, Prabjit Vardesa was found guilty of the killing and sentenced to 18 years in prison.
24:53 His accomplice Sukhman Shergil was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years.
24:58 Both were just 17 at the time.
25:01 Like Mark Brindley, Ronan's devastated mother Pooja agreed to be interviewed for this film.
25:07 Are you ready to go?
25:08 I am.
25:10 Her courage and willingness to speak so openly about something so terrible will be clear for all to see.
25:17 We're nearly at the end of our day's filming and we're on our way to interview Pooja Kander and possibly other members of Ronan's family.
25:25 On all accounts, they're very resilient people. They've been campaigning for a change in the law on how weapons are bought and sold online.
25:32 Of course, in reality, Knife Prime is actually getting worse. I want to know what they think about that.
25:38 Pooja, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview. We really appreciate it because I know it must be difficult.
25:50 I think it would be wrong to start an interview like this without asking how you are. So how are you doing?
25:56 I am breathing. I am here. I am broken inside so much.
26:04 Losing him the way I did, it actually haunts you every single day, every moment you wake up.
26:14 Ronan used to come to my bedroom and say, "Mum, time to drop me off."
26:20 I was like, "Mum, this is like..." I remember the end times.
26:26 I would get up, get dressed and drop him off. So I miss that bit.
26:32 First thing, I open my eyes to my son. That's not there anymore.
26:38 It's very painful. Every second is just like a ticking bomb.
26:45 The moment that hits you and you can't control your eyes and your emotions.
26:52 You mentioned to me off camera that you want to speak about what Ronan was like as much as possible
27:00 because by every single account imaginable, he was an amazing young man.
27:04 What was Ronan like in his mother's words?
27:09 Absolutely beautiful son. Every mother's dream. Every mother would want a son like Ronan.
27:16 He made this house a home and his house was full of laughter.
27:25 We had an amazing time. He would come and say, "Mum, what's there to eat?"
27:32 I would take the pleasure. I would wait for him after 3.30, wait for him looking through the window
27:40 because my son Sean was coming home. He was very kind.
27:47 From a very young age, he would say, "Mum, I can't go past this poor man and not give him anything."
27:56 From a young age, he had a habit of giving a pound or even a penny, whatever he can get out of me,
28:02 to give to them. He would do it. He was very passionate about Yemen children.
28:09 He was a light that walks in the room and everybody would look and get happy.
28:17 His friends absolutely loved him. His family absolutely adored him.
28:23 He was a glue to our family life as well because not long before what happened to Ronan,
28:31 me and my ex-husband got together and that was because we wanted to be a family.
28:39 Ronan was the instigator of that. He was just all about making everything happy around him.
28:46 Absolutely brilliant child. Not one fault. I could not fault him one thing.
28:53 Obviously, talking about him in an interview scenario can't do it justice because you could probably talk forever
28:59 about how wonderful he was.
29:01 I can. There's so much to say about Ronan, but so little time. According to time, I will only say what is essential.
29:10 But there is much more to Ronan. Incredibly amazing, kind-hearted, loving, caring.
29:16 Everything, every attribute he had in him.
29:20 As you would expect, Pooja has nothing but brilliant things to say about her son.
29:25 But in order for this film to stick to its objectives, we had to move on to more difficult questions.
29:32 Where were you when you first heard that something had happened to Ronan?
29:38 And what was your initial thought?
29:42 I was at Wolverhampton Town Centre. I was in a meditation class and I only go one evening a week.
29:54 And that was Wednesday evening. My neighbour who was with me as well there, she got a phone call.
30:06 She got a phone call that somebody had been stabbed outside her house.
30:10 So she kept Pooja. I had urged to get up from my meditation and I followed her.
30:17 And she told me that somebody had been stabbed. And the next thing I do, I'm picking the phone up to make sure, shake her.
30:25 Is Ronan okay? It's like, have you picked Ronan up from snooker club?
30:29 Not even thinking that Ronan has gone out.
30:33 And because Ronan went snooker club with his friends for the first time.
30:39 First time my child went out to play snooker with his friends.
30:45 But he came home on that day with his dad. He was here.
30:49 And he said to his dad, I need to just collect a remote control from a friend's house.
30:56 He went out and then at that time I was so uneasy in my class, rang Shaker.
31:04 He said, Ronan just popped out for five minutes.
31:07 And I was like, I was ringing Ronan and Shaker's ringing Ronan.
31:12 And both are ringing. Where are you? It's not like Ronan not to answer the phone because he always knows what I'm like.
31:18 And he didn't answer his phone. He didn't answer because it was him.
31:26 That was stabbed. So I came running from the meditation class.
31:36 I came, you know, the upcoming that way, they wouldn't let me go through with the police because there were tapes around already.
31:44 I begged them, but they didn't. So I have to go around and come this way.
31:50 The child I knew and there I was, home without his mum.
31:58 I read, I believe in one of our reports that you stayed on the curb where he was killed for quite some time afterwards.
32:10 Is that true? And if so, why did you do that?
32:14 How could I leave my child? How could I leave my son lying on the road and sit inside on the sofa?
32:23 No. I stayed there till my son was there, till four o'clock in the morning.
32:31 I stayed on the road. Whether it rains, snowed, anything, I would not have left the road.
32:39 My child was lying there. I wasn't allowed to go and see him. I'm not leaving my child.
32:48 What was the immediate period afterwards like for you as a family? And how did you cope with what was happening?
32:57 It's a shock. You're just shocked. It can't happen to you. No, it won't happen to your son because your son's a good boy, isn't he?
33:05 It's a good boy. He's always making friends, friends with everyone. He's kind to everyone. He's loving to everyone.
33:12 It can't happen to your son. And you're in denial mode. You're just screaming because you're not able to touch him.
33:19 I was screaming because I wasn't able to touch him when everyone's telling me that, even though an ambulance was there to me.
33:27 I'm sorry we couldn't save him. I don't believe it. You don't believe it.
33:34 You don't. If you're in a denial mode, that you have gone through such an ordeal, you're screaming, you're shouting.
33:44 It makes no sense. And your screaming will make no sense to anyone either because your child can't hear you.
33:54 You're just lost in that moment. Absolutely lost. Nothing exists apart from that pain. No one exists apart from that pain.
34:09 The coroner process was a difficult one and made a situation that's already as bad as it can be even worse.
34:19 Can you tell me about that?
34:21 When I first found out what happened to Ronan, I was like, "Give me my son back. Let me see him."
34:30 To the police, they said, "It's not your property anymore. You don't own your son anymore. It's actually the coroner who owns your son."
34:40 It's the fact that these are the words I hear that makes me angry.
34:45 What? How can you say that's my child? Don't say that to me.
34:51 Then we requested to see Ronan. This happened on Wednesday and we got to see him on Monday.
34:59 You can't touch him. He's an evidence. You can't touch the child of yours.
35:04 And then the next time you see him, he's deteriorating. You can see the face is turning blue and black.
35:11 You can't touch your child. You see him from far.
35:15 We were reassured by the police and the coroner.
35:20 You can have him back when the second post-mortem is done.
35:25 I was sending emails to the coroner every day, ringing them, "What's going on? Why are you not releasing my son?"
35:33 "I need to see my child."
35:35 They said, "Sorry, we need to wait for the post-mortem."
35:40 The second post-mortem, I'm all for it. If that's what legally needed doing, then do it.
35:46 What I am not all for is the long time it took.
35:51 So long my son deteriorated to the point where I couldn't touch him, couldn't hug him, and couldn't even see him.
35:59 They just gave me a white bag. A white bag that you can't even go near.
36:06 The reason for asking about some of the more procedural aspects of losing a child to knife crime, such as the coroner process,
36:13 is that it's not something we usually consider.
36:16 These things tend to be necessary, but they add to the grief in a way those of us who haven't lost sons or daughters find it hard to comprehend.
36:24 It helps us showcase just how awful knife crime is, and why it has to stop.
36:30 The police investigation is going on. The justice process is in motion.
36:36 Were you able to start to rebuild your life, to start coping better over time, or have you not been able to recover at all since it happened?
36:47 I think recovery is not there anymore. It's just that you're living with it, with the fact that my son's not sitting here,
36:56 my beautiful child. Like last night, I went to sleep and then woke up with the noise.
37:02 And there was Nikita's father crying to her at like 2 o'clock in the morning, and seeing him cry, and seeing what he was going through.
37:13 It's never going to go from recovery's not there. What you do, you learn to live with this.
37:21 You're living with this pain. You're living with this hurt.
37:26 And what I've tried to do out of this pain is make this an awareness now.
37:35 People need to know this could happen to rodents, this could happen to anyone.
37:39 You don't need to be in a gang. You don't need to be selling the drugs. You don't need to be a bad kid.
37:44 It could happen to good people. And I want to put that message across that this needs to stop.
37:53 We should not normalise this kind of behaviour. That's all I can fight for now, because I feel like what happened to Ronan, I can't say yes.
38:06 You've been campaigning for a change in the law on how knives are bought and sold online.
38:11 Like you say, you've been raising awareness, and I must say, you've been doing a fantastic job, a very courageous job.
38:17 Is there an element of doing Ronan proud when you're doing these things at all?
38:22 Absolutely. It is all for Ronan. It's all for Ronan. Ronan said to me, Mum, I want to make you proud.
38:28 This is my moment to make him proud. And this is also one more thing, that I cannot be okay with what happened to Ronan.
38:38 When the Prabhjit Videsa was the murderer, he had 25 plus weapons in his house.
38:46 He bought 25 plus weapons and they were shown to us in the court.
38:50 They were not kitchen knives that small. They were big swords. They were big machetes.
38:55 They're ugly looking things. And they were shown to us, to the jury, to the judge, to the people who were sitting there.
39:06 They were bought by a 16-year-old for a very long time. It wasn't just we bought them in one go.
39:12 He bought them and he was selling them to other children. And that's what I saw. I saw a danger in all that.
39:20 And I thought, he's exploiting other children as well with him.
39:27 And if I could save one person or one child, I would name that on my sentence.
39:37 Were you satisfied with the sentences handed down to the two people convicted of Ronan's killing?
39:45 Okay, I'm going to tell you this is another thing that I don't want to,
39:50 but people say to me that I should be grateful for the sentencing because not many 16-year-old,
39:57 well, I guess, excuse me, 16-year-old or 18-year-old, 18 years in prison.
40:03 No, I am not satisfied with it and I will never be satisfied with it.
40:08 My son was innocent. He was walking home. He's murderous.
40:14 They killed him. They knew Ronan and they ran away.
40:20 They knew they've killed a wrong person. They still ran away.
40:25 They tried to hide their crime. They did hide their crime by getting rid of the evidence,
40:33 by throwing their swords and changing their clothes.
40:38 It was all premeditated. The sword that killed my son is still out there available.
40:45 You can buy that. So how is that justice? Nothing is justice.
40:50 There is no justice in this world and it's true.
40:53 When we cover horrific incidents like this, a lot of people comment on the stories, as you would imagine.
41:01 And what they often say is people who carry knives, not necessarily use them and get caught,
41:08 should be given serious jail sentences. What are your thoughts on that?
41:16 Why there is a need for any youth or child or any adult to carry a knife
41:21 unless you've gone to a shop to buy a knife and bringing it home.
41:25 I don't think that should, I think there should be serious consequences.
41:29 So people are scared to do the actions they are not scared of today.
41:34 Like when I was interviewing Mark Brindley, I was keen to find out if there is actually a way out of the grief
41:41 associated with losing a child. I suspected from Pooja's perspective there simply isn't.
41:48 And that was my last question.
41:51 My last question is, are you positive about the future, both from a personal perspective
41:59 and from the perspective of the campaign?
42:03 I can, there is no positivity. If you knew me before what happened to Roland,
42:09 I was the most positive person. Even my relationship to anyone, I have turned everything into positivity.
42:19 But there is no positivity of losing your child. There is never going to be that.
42:24 I will always be grieving him, always be crying and I cannot wait to meet him when I die.
42:30 That's how I see my life now.
42:33 But what I can say is that campaign needs to carry on. We need to keep fighting.
42:42 We need to keep fighting. Because this fight is about the crime that we can all stop.
43:01 If we work together, if you work individually, it doesn't look strong.
43:08 But together we can fight it and we can reduce it.
43:14 I don't know if we can ever get rid of it. Hopefully I can work towards completely getting rid of it.
43:20 But this is like a pandemic. It's there and we need to work towards it.
43:26 Why this is happening? It doesn't just start the moment my son was stabbed.
43:30 It started way before that, all this. This crime was happening in the making.
43:36 I think the community point is very poignant. It's going to take everyone becoming shocked by this happening again.
43:47 Because it seems like people are getting used to it because it's in the news so much.
43:51 Part of what you're doing will have that impact and hopefully part of what this documentary has is that impact.
43:58 To remind people that this is not normal and enough is enough.
44:02 It's scary because two 12 year old, not far away from my house,
44:09 two 12 year old children. And what is that age?
44:19 That age, child doesn't even know they're eating from their mom, their parents are cooking for them.
44:27 They're going to school. They should be learning, learning about the coming future they have.
44:33 So there's got to be something going on. A two 12 year old picking the knife up.
44:39 I think we need to open our eyes. Your child can't walk outside the road.
44:45 And you will always be scared whether that child will come back home or not.
44:49 And we need to stop being scared.
44:52 I think that's a really good way to end the interview. Uja, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us.
44:59 Thank you. I think everyone will agree, everyone who watches this will agree that you're a very courageous mother.
45:06 Thank you. It only comes from Ronan. Being Ronan's mum gives me the courage of being who I am today.
45:13 Thank you very much.
45:15 We've just got back to the Express and Star car park again for the last time after a long day's filming.
45:38 We've just finished interviewing Pooja Kanda.
45:40 And I think it's fair to say that both Pooja and Mark Brindley, who we spoke to today, are very inspiring, courageous people, worthy of everyone's respect.
45:50 And the only thing left to say tonight is that we should all do what we can to help them achieve their goals and say enough is enough.
46:05 At around the same time we started making this film, an art installation known as the Knife Angel arrived for a temporary stay in Warsaw.
46:13 It's designed to highlight the haunting horror of knife crime in the UK.
46:18 But I really don't think the message is truly getting through.
46:22 As you watch this, thousands of children around the region will probably be carrying a knife.
46:28 And that means in some people's view, they're willing to kill someone.
46:32 That just isn't normal thinking and it's completely alien to me.
46:37 And I'm willing to bet it's alien to the communities the Express and Star covers too.
46:42 People want this to stop.
46:45 And hopefully this film will influence the right person to make at least some kind of difference.
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