Lucinda Herbert looks into the crisis of knife crime in the UK, and talks to one of the most hard-hitting anti-knife crime school teachers in the country.
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00:00 More young people than ever are carrying knives.
00:09 These deadly weapons are now so ingrained in youth culture that children are virtually
00:14 wearing them as fashion accessories.
00:18 Recent ONS figures show that knife crime has risen by 7% in the past year.
00:24 How did we get to this point and how can we keep our children safe from this epidemic?
00:32 In a special film for Shots TV, I talk to youth workers, police and one of the UK's
00:39 most shocking anti-knife crime educators, whose brother was hacked to death with a machete.
00:44 It's a part of young kids' lives now, but it doesn't have to be.
00:49 For the next half an hour, we get a picture of what's going on and examine how social
00:54 media is driving this horrifying craze.
01:02 In 2013, a teenage boy called John Joe Highton was stabbed 24 times in a brutal attack.
01:09 Miraculously, he survived.
01:11 I went to meet his older brother Byron to find out what happened on that day.
01:18 I was at home with my partner at the time and there was the loudest bang on the door
01:23 and bang, bang, bang screaming.
01:25 So I ran downstairs and the lad, one of JJ's really good friends, was saying, "He's dead.
01:32 He's been stabbed.
01:33 Will you help us?
01:34 He's been injured."
01:36 So we run down the street together.
01:37 It's raining.
01:38 Turn left and I could just see an ambulance wobbling, police officers screaming, shouting,
01:43 paramedics, just exactly what you'd imagine.
01:46 I got in the ambulance.
01:48 My first ever experience of meeting an actual police officer.
01:51 He probably would have died the first time that he got stabbed if we hadn't had this
01:55 police officer, let alone the paramedics as well, because this police officer drove that
01:58 ambulance like he'd stolen it.
02:00 It was crazy.
02:01 It was in and out of traffic.
02:03 It was insane.
02:04 I even remember the paramedics shouting through the window, telling him what buttons to press
02:08 for the lights to come on, because I remember it.
02:10 He went, "I don't know what to do.
02:11 What am I doing?"
02:12 But he did it anyway.
02:13 I looked in the back and there was a belt wrapped around my brother's leg because he
02:18 was hit so hard, it pretty much did mega damage to his leg.
02:24 Some would say nearly chopped off.
02:26 Same to his arm, his upper arm, injuries to his back, fractured spine.
02:32 A part of his spine was hit and broke or cracked.
02:36 Glutamous maximus was extremely damaged.
02:40 I remember thinking, "What am I going to tell my mum?"
02:42 Because obviously he's screaming in the back and I'm shouting, "You're going to be okay.
02:47 Listen, mum's on her way.
02:49 Everything's going to be all right.
02:50 Listen, your dad's soon on his way.
02:51 Everything's going to be okay."
02:52 All this stuff that you'd normally shout, but you'd never think you'd have to do it.
02:57 Fast forward all the little bits.
02:58 We're in the hospital and with my mum, we're both, everyone's, he's dead.
03:02 24 pretty much injuries, you're dead.
03:04 The police, no one had a glimpse of hope really.
03:08 And then a paramedic burst through the door of a police officer and a surgeon and said,
03:12 "He's alive."
03:13 Wow.
03:14 I remember it hit me like a ton of bricks and my mum going whoosh from like zero, talking
03:19 about horrible things that you never want your mum to talk about, jumping up and then
03:23 being all right.
03:24 And then over the next course of six months, my mum's phone calls then went from, "Please
03:31 help me.
03:32 He's kicking off," or, "I need you to talk to him," or, "Help me," or crying because she
03:35 was so upset about him.
03:37 And then two of the phone calls went to, "He's behaving."
03:43 His family noticed a real positive change in a teenager, but a year later, John Joe
03:48 was attacked again and this time proved fatal.
03:53 It was good.
03:55 And then next minute, I got a phone call, "It's happened again."
03:58 We went to the hospital.
03:59 So we sat outside the hospital for about an hour, all of us.
04:03 So me and my mum, JJ's dad, it was horrendous.
04:09 And then literally every time an ambulance pulled up, we was all excited.
04:13 It weren't him.
04:14 Another one, it weren't him.
04:15 Then eventually a car rolled up really slow and said he died at the scene.
04:19 So we had to go back to the scene, which is at the bottom of pretty much my mum's street
04:23 nearly.
04:24 And I said, we walked up to the ambulance.
04:26 It was one of the worst experiences a human can go through, or I have, because there were
04:30 so many people out and as we were walking down, no one would talk to us.
04:35 It was very awkward.
04:36 You could see everyone's eyes.
04:38 We got to the red tape.
04:40 My brother's body was probably 10 meters away in the ambulance.
04:46 You could see they were trying to hide the blood and stuff.
04:48 I was crying.
04:49 My mum was crying.
04:50 And a very good police officer friend of mine put the brolly over my head and I said, "Please
04:55 let me see him."
04:56 And he won't let me see him.
04:57 And I had to say bye to the ambulance.
04:58 And that all happened within the space of a year.
05:05 Your time means more to me than it does yourself.
05:09 What we've come up with at the Safety Guide Foundation is going to give you the tools
05:12 to stop you ending up dead.
05:15 Byron channeled his grief to make positive change.
05:19 And soon he found his own way of educating youngsters on the dangers of carrying a knife.
05:25 You might save someone's life without even knowing it.
05:27 You might be someone's hero without even knowing it.
05:32 And then after that, started the healing process which took many, many years.
05:37 Another main thing that my mum probably won't mind me saying it because she's a legend.
05:41 She's a hero.
05:42 You know, imagine on Mother's Day your mum saying, "Is it my fault that my son's dead?
05:46 Should I kill myself?
05:47 Should I be dead?"
05:48 I was still young as well.
05:50 So I was trying to mask everything going out, abusing drugs, doing this, hanging around
05:54 with people I thought were my friends, being an idiot, being a bad friend myself.
05:57 I admit that.
05:59 It's only when I got the opportunity to be a knife crime teacher and I was bodybuilding
06:03 at the time because the gym saved my life, pretty much is the only thing that I've ever
06:08 done my entire life that has made me become who I am as well.
06:12 I put them two together when I finally found that out, got the opportunity, working with
06:16 other local boxers from around my community.
06:20 And then I would meet teachers that said, "You need to do this full-time."
06:24 Police officers say, "Whoa, you are good at this."
06:26 And I was like, you know, people laugh at it.
06:29 I go, "I'm just a chav from Deepdale.
06:31 How can I be good at this?"
06:32 I literally went to my mum, "Can I have a thousand pounds?"
06:35 She gave me the last penny and I paid her back within six weeks because the police came
06:41 and knocked in and said, "That's one of the best things we've ever seen.
06:44 Keep developing it.
06:45 It's going to get better."
06:46 I remember meeting a woman called Anne-Marie and she literally said I was going to take
06:50 over and be the best 9th grade teacher in the country.
06:52 I didn't believe it.
06:53 I was sat there going, "What?
06:55 I'm just me.
06:56 I'm just a chav.
06:57 I left school early.
06:58 I'm dyslexic.
06:59 I never tell anyone I'm anything good, ever.
07:02 I'm quite proud of it."
07:03 You know what I mean?
07:04 I'm honest.
07:05 And she went, "Trust me.
07:06 I've seen what you're doing.
07:07 If you carry on that path, you're going to be the best teacher in the country."
07:10 And I went, "Really?"
07:12 Ranga got advice off other people in our community, set my own company up, made the JJF logo.
07:18 And seven years later, I'm sat with you.
07:21 This guy that does this, I don't think any kid, teenager, would not respond well to him.
07:27 He is awesome.
07:28 He is amazing.
07:29 He is clever.
07:30 He is relatable.
07:31 He is funny.
07:32 He is interactive.
07:33 He's engaging.
07:34 And then he can get really deep just like that, like it was captivating.
07:38 That's a good word to use, captivating.
07:44 So these are just a small amount of the 2,000 plus knives I've taken off the streets in
07:49 the last few years, ranging from the type of ZK that sort of like what most kids that
07:57 I train sort of think about when it comes to knife crime.
08:01 I show this in schools, and honestly, the kids' eyes light up like it was Christmas.
08:06 As you can see, this is the one that's not, or the type, if you will, that's not got ZK,
08:10 zombie killer, or any sort of lettering on it, so that way it avoided and worked its
08:15 way around that law that came in around 2016, banning ZKs.
08:20 So these companies are extremely smart about what they do and how they combat the law.
08:26 Going all the way up to much bigger knives, same sort of style, but this one is actually
08:31 called the Avenger.
08:33 So some of these knives are actually, you know, they've got brutal names as well.
08:37 Then you've got like your stereotypical, what kids call Rambos.
08:41 So Rambos come in many different shapes and sizes and what they look like, but predominantly
08:45 they're about this size, look like this.
08:48 This is a very, very sturdy one, this one.
08:50 This is actually a pretty much well-manufactured one.
08:54 Again, quite difficult, quite strong, good grip, but again, imagine what that could do
09:01 in a young, uneducated hand.
09:03 Then obviously, like I said, they come in many different shapes and sizes.
09:08 Now this one is good to show you because not all knives are made like that one.
09:12 And what a lot of people don't understand with knives, especially ZK stuff like that,
09:16 they're not made in this country.
09:18 So they're made in another country and then shipped to this country knowing that Great
09:21 Britain has a problem with children killing children with these weapons.
09:25 It's very, very frightening what these organisations are doing.
09:28 And you've got to understand how the companies make profit off selling knives this cheap.
09:34 But this is why I could actually snap that knife, look how cheap it is made.
09:37 In fact, if I twist hard enough, I could probably break it.
09:40 Look how it's twisting.
09:41 I could probably break it.
09:42 But that shows you they're not made out of fancy materials or anything like that.
09:46 They're just a sharp piece of metal made to look glorified so a young person can be attracted
09:51 to it.
09:52 Now one of the questions I ask in schools is, when I pull a ZK out, I say, "Can we all
09:56 be honest?" and I even ask the teachers, "Be honest.
10:00 Do you think this is a cool looking knife?"
10:02 I've not yet in over 550,000 people heard one person, including women, say, "That is
10:09 not a cool knife."
10:10 But watch, I could snap it.
10:13 That's how cheap they're made.
10:16 So they make them cheap and look like that.
10:18 It's exactly the same as e-cigarettes.
10:20 They're made so kids are attracted to them.
10:23 Then obviously you've got fire escape axes, meat cleavers.
10:30 I've got a lot of these.
10:31 Meat cleavers.
10:32 You've got swords.
10:33 You can see I've got a lot of them as well.
10:38 Ones that have got protection for the hand.
10:41 Again, that's another well-made one, that one.
10:45 Bayonets.
10:46 Again, why does it need to be that color?
10:50 Different type of bayonet.
10:52 That knife, you can see this actually comes in its sleeve.
10:55 Goes onto your webbing or military clothing or hunting.
11:00 Again, pull it out.
11:03 This knife is actually so sharp.
11:06 I've actually got to be very careful with this one, but you can see, razor sharp.
11:11 Then all the way down the line to homemade shanks.
11:14 So this one is a snooker cue, as you can see.
11:19 The very clever person has cut the snooker cue down the middle, inserted a very large,
11:27 I think what it is, it's either off another knife or it is like a woodworking tool.
11:34 You can see they've cut it, manipulated it, used some metal straps, put it in, and there's
11:39 your two, three foot weapon.
11:45 Crazy isn't it?
11:47 And again, this is just a very small part of my collection, ranging from kids as young
11:52 as six all the way up to adults.
12:06 The person that I trusted the most in the world is gone.
12:10 My best friend, my other half, my favourite person in the whole world is gone.
12:17 He was confronted with a group of lads who were messing about.
12:23 And from what I can gather, they approached him and a fight ensued and he was stabbed
12:32 in the chest and died on the floor of After.
12:35 Through the trial we found out it was they were meeting a rival gang.
12:42 And the idea was to steal from them.
12:43 He wasn't even due home and I knew something wasn't right.
12:48 Just had this feeling and I kept phoning him and I phoned the police and I checked the
12:54 bank balance and nothing had changed, just he didn't come home.
13:02 I miss him every day.
13:06 I question everything around me.
13:10 I went for a ride along with Sergeant Dan Whittaker who heads up the Serious Crime Unit
13:16 with Lancashire Police.
13:19 Sergeant Whittaker also explained what the police are doing to combat knife crime.
13:26 Operation GRID is our, Lancashire's response to knife crime and other serious violence
13:31 crime.
13:32 We do it in hot spot locations, so areas that we know that violent crime is happening.
13:36 And we're out there on a randomised patrolling schedule, making sure that we're highly visible
13:41 at the right times of day and we're interacting with the right people, whether that be stopping
13:46 searching, some positive engagement, making arrests or just being there and reassuring
13:51 the community.
13:53 Social media is a big player in that in terms of highlighting and spreading that information
13:58 about why people should carry a knife and we want to counter that and tell people why
14:03 they shouldn't carry a knife.
14:04 Whether it's they're carrying it for their own protection, whether they become involved
14:08 in drug dealing, county lines, whether they are a gang member, whether they're seeking
14:14 revenge on someone, whether they've taken the knife out just to feel big or they've seen
14:20 someone do it on social media and they want to copy that, replicate it and take it out
14:24 there onto the streets.
14:26 So it's about randomised patrolling, so it's making sure that we keep that regular presence
14:30 on those hot spot locations and that might not be every day but it might be every other
14:35 day.
14:36 We may do two consecutive days and we want to be there as that regular presence, that
14:42 people will see us.
14:43 Throughout that week, a number of times, just because we're having a busy policing incident
14:49 night doesn't mean that we therefore can't fulfil our commitment to be there in that
14:54 hot spot location at that time.
14:56 Due to the extra funding we can fulfil that commitment, we will be there whatever the
15:00 demand is anywhere else on us policing locally.
15:04 JJFx in itself is the UK's most powerful and hard hitting anti-knife crime presentation
15:10 that's ever legally been shown in schools.
15:12 So we're the people that get called in to hit the hard to hit audience, the hard to
15:19 reach children, so when we get called in it's because the extremes of how they need to be
15:27 taught, the extreme on how graphic the education needs to be, they bring us in to do that.
15:33 It's called the JJFx because it's the effect of when you use what these companies are doing,
15:39 like manipulating them to listen to dual music, buy products, we take that, implement these
15:45 certain tests we're at the talk, then at the end bring JJ into it in the last 15 minutes
15:50 and that's why we get people passing out, throwing up, but that's the real reason that
15:56 we are a deterrent because we have that effect.
15:59 So the JJFx is the Jon Jo effect, but the JJ is for Jon Jo, it's dedicated to him, but
16:06 the effect is the effects of when you take what corporations are doing and what society
16:11 is doing by brainwashing children, you add that and you get the JJ effect.
16:17 There's no thing as well as the wrong crowd or the wrong social circle, because you don't
16:22 see it like that when you're young, there's groups of people hanging around with each
16:26 other doing exactly what every other group of people are doing, whether they're gangs
16:31 or not, it's just brainwashing on the masses of the country.
16:35 The difference between when I was a kid and you as a kid is we didn't care what a rival
16:39 group of people were doing unless we bumped into them or saw them, but because of social
16:44 media there's only one thing that changes on the way that kids in this sort of demographic
16:49 - if it gives you a knife crime, drug abuse, drug dealing - there's only one thing that
16:54 changes and it's the accent.
16:57 That's it, they're all brainwashed, they all listen to the same drill music, all want to
17:00 be the same person, all shop at the same places, all use the same slang words, ain't that weird?
17:07 That shows you that knife crime is fashion, the pressure of social media.
17:13 Social media causes anxiety, depression, suicide and violence in adults, let alone the catastrophic
17:19 damage it does to children.
17:20 It's crazy, isn't it?
17:21 They're all just brainwashed to act in the way that another set of people are.
17:26 And then a new slang word comes out, a new drug comes out, a new term comes out, a new
17:29 thing to do and they all seem to do it.
17:33 And then the corporations come in and sell the clothes that match that demographic.
17:38 Then they sponsor the rappers that become famous by selling drugs, treating girls terrible,
17:43 killing people, stabbing people.
17:45 [Music]
18:14 You know what, you can walk through any major shopping centre and walk past extremely huge
18:21 clothing brand shops and the sponsoring rappers that talk about knife crime, that have been
18:27 through knife crime, that have lost brothers and sisters but yet they're famous now so
18:32 they don't go through that now but yet they get paid for dying but council estate kids
18:37 and kids in poverty don't get paid for dying.
18:40 Clothing, media, social media, knives, e-cigarettes, everything is targeted at children even though
18:48 they know we live in a country where kids kill kids.
18:53 Social media is bad for us all because we can't turn off that part of our brain.
18:58 So it's alright when we're an adult and we can go, "I understand how the brain works,
19:03 I know it's not me, it's just the way the world works.
19:06 Put the phone down, I'm going to bring my mum, I'm going to bring my mate, it's going
19:08 to go on the computer, I'm going to go to work, do something creative."
19:11 But when you're a kid and all you are fighting for is to fit in, to not get bullied, to not
19:17 be zero, to be number one, "I've got to have the best clothes, all this, I'm addicted to
19:22 my phone" because it also creates addiction.
19:25 That's why it needs to be banned until kids are 18 so at least they've got a fighting
19:30 chance of having normal life experiences that will create them or edge them towards becoming
19:37 an adult and then hopefully they'll have life experience to deal with the consequences and
19:41 effects of social media.
19:44 But they just roll it out to everyone.
19:47 It's as common now as a cold.
19:49 You will see in high schools when I'm talking to thousands of people, you'll see pockets
19:53 of kids nodding, saying, "I've got one, he's got one" or get kids admitting to me they
20:00 know where to get them.
20:02 It's very, very common because it's just so current and up to date in modern day fashion.
20:07 It's a part of young kids' lives now but it doesn't have to be.
20:12 It can all be stopped.
20:14 Emma Owen delivers music-based workshops with a powerful anti-knife message as part of the
20:20 Christian charity called the Message Trust.
20:23 Their goal is to steer children away from gang culture.
20:28 Often you'll find young people with balaclavas brandishing a knife because they think that's
20:33 going to give them respect but they don't recognise there's a blueprint then that's
20:38 on the internet that actually years down the road they're going for a job.
20:42 That's going to come up, they're not going to get a job.
20:45 And Sergeant Dan Whittaker from Blackpool who'd been on the tour this week, he said
20:50 often they'll find out who that young person is with the balaclava, they'll knock on the
20:53 door and they'll find out it's this young 12-year-old, very innocent, has no intention
20:59 of using a knife but feels the pressure to look big.
21:04 But unfortunately they don't realise the damage that's going to cause their future
21:07 careers and futures in relationships in years to come.
21:18 The most common reason for carrying a knife is one, protection, but also because they
21:22 want to look big.
21:23 They want to get that respect and unfortunately there are some young people that will actually
21:28 use that knife in a threatening way or maybe actually use it to harm somebody.
21:33 And that's why it's really important that we go in and we educate our young people but
21:37 also look about and challenge them about what they put online.
21:42 When we speak to the police officers and they go and knock on, they often find that the
21:45 kids are embarrassed, the parents didn't realise what was happening, they're very
21:49 remorseful and then they change their ways and delete all the posts.
21:58 We've recently had a situation where a young child had lost one of their parents and they
22:04 went to a teacher after our lessons and said, "You know, I'm going through a rough
22:08 patch and actually I've been selling knives to make money because I haven't got a parent
22:14 to give me pocket money anymore."
22:16 A social media has a lot to answer for.
22:18 It's full of influencers but we talk about this in our lessons.
22:22 Who influences you?
22:23 Who are your role models?
22:25 And we talk about how drill is really catchy.
22:28 There's nothing wrong with the sound of drill but actually if you listen to the lyrics of
22:32 the majority of the songs that are drill, it's going to be advertising and encouraging
22:38 violence.
22:39 It's going to be encouraging carrying guns and knives, wearing balaclavas.
22:44 So if you're listening to that 24/7, what you listen to often comes out in your choices
22:50 and your actions.
22:56 People always in this story or any one story like this miss out the start, the middle,
23:01 the beginning, the end and they always focus on the end and my brother wasn't like that.
23:05 He was lovely.
23:07 So were some of the lads that killed him.
23:09 They were just, you know, it's hard for me to say that but they're all trapped in
23:13 the same bubble and it's sad because now in my job I've got to be honest and say
23:18 this needs to stop whether they killed him or he did what or they said what or this beef
23:23 happened.
23:24 If we can cut this down the middle and stop it from happening, we're going to prevent
23:28 any other body from going through this.
23:30 [Music]
23:58 (upbeat music)