Latest news with #antiKnifeCrime
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Yahoo
'When my son was murdered, knife crime was still a shock - now it's just part of the news'
It's been 11 years since Joshua Ribera was stabbed through the heart in a Birmingham nightclub. Back then in 2013, knife crime was still a huge shock, insists mum and vocal anti-knife crime campaigner Alison Cope. "Now it's not a case of if, but when are you going to run the next headline? That's where we've come to. Now it's just part of the news." Another week, another stabbing outside a college, another schoolboy bleeding out alone on the pavement. Read more: Reality of Birmingham knife crime as 'kids kill kids' and children groomed into life of crime with 'trainers and fast cash' Speaking from her Moseley home as part of our Deep Cuts investigation - which can be read in full below - Alison reflects on the relentless violence plaguing the city and the wider West Midlands. Knife possession in the West Midlands has doubled since the pandemic, according to our stats, but it's fear that's driving more and more youngsters to carry weapons, Alison suggests. Figures for the UK state it's around four per cent of people who carry knives - but depending on their age, schoolkids think it's more like 80 - 100 per cent. "They think: 'There's all these scary people wearing Ballies, acting bad, I've seen a headline 'someone got stabbed on a bus', I'm just going to put a knife in my sock and pull it out if anyone tries to hurt me.' "And then you end up with a situation that's so horrendous." For Alison, her son - a rapper widely known as Depzman -kissed her on the cheek and told her 'I love you'. The next time she saw him he was dead - and she was identifying his body. She continues: "We're not seeing it getting any better at the moment. "It's as if we're accepting the level of violence at the moment. I don't think we should ever accept it. We're not at war. It can never be ok and the ages, as we see, are getting younger - younger murderers, younger victims." What's changed and why are we seeing such violence inflicted on our region's children? "What's shifted in the last six years or so is the social media element," she insists. "You go to a school then, you'd explain it all and you'd be left with one or two kids who really needed to hear that message, now, 90 per cent do. It's really shifted now. "The more they're exposed to, the harder it is to get the message across. My session has really stepped up and it's really to the point. It's really extreme. "When I talk about losing Josh, I say even if there's a 1 per cent chance that what you put on your phone ultimately does make someone who does carry a knife want to come for you after school, come for you when they see you in the park, are you going to be ready for the consequence of lying on the floor bleeding out, thinking of your mum or dad's face as you pass away, are you really ready for that? "Or there was a dad in Birmingham where a teenager had issues with a rival group, so if you're acting like the badman and causing trouble, and your parents clash outside school and you see your dad slashed across his jugular vein, who's fault is that, yours? So you can see them going 's***', "Social media has got a huge role in all this." "47 per cent of people being groomed are through Meta owned platforms, and some people are doing it through headsets, through gaming, through mobile phones and social media. When parents are made aware of that, they're absolutely gobsmacked. "The problem is with phones if you're not aware is that you then see the level of sexual violence, stabbings without editing, totally inappropriate things, and we know that has an impact on the mindset of young people and they become totally desensitised. "Every school you go to, it's getting harder and harder to get people to see this isn't acceptable. All of it plays a role in fuelling the negativity we're living in at the moment." All the violence on social media and in films, games and more are all worsening the problem, slowly desensitising children to the violence. She added: "Squid Games, Top Boy, Supercell, so when you say, this behaviour is not ok? "Don't film fights, don't run towards fights, don't all attack on the back of the bus, but they're still doing it, because we're not doing enough." This piece forms part of our Deep Cuts project, our three-month investigation into knife crime in the West Midlands, which can be read in full here.
BBC News
22-05-2025
- BBC News
Mum of stabbed Norwich teen fears more young lives will be lost
The mother of a teenager who was stabbed to death said she fears history could repeat itself. Emma Dix, who with her family started an anti-knife crime charity after the murder of her son Joe, 18, on Norwich's Mile Cross estate in 2022, was speaking at a community Dix, who organised the event, said it was "only a matter of time" before another young life was lost. Supt Wes Hornigold, from Norfolk Police, said: "We're working really hard to disrupt, prevent, and robustly respond to people in our community who decide to carry a knife." The Joe Dix Foundation was launched in 2023 to raise awareness of knife crime and child criminal exploitation. Tuesday's meeting was held to address Mile Cross residents' concerns. "This is the area that Joe lost his life in, and I'm really passionate that no other child loses their life like my son," said Mrs Dix."There's an awful lot that needs to be done, and I don't think anything's going to happen very quickly.""Today was a start, and it's about getting like-minded people together to see what we can do," she crime statistics, released by the Office of National Statistics in April, showed that knife crime had fallen in Norfolk by 6.6% in 2024. It also showed that the possession of a weapon had increased by 0.8%. If you have been affected by this story or would like support then you can find organisations which offer help and information at the BBC Action Line. One resident at the meeting, who declined to give her name, said she was frightened knife crime could affect her children when they grow up."You want them to be safe, but you also need to give them freedom," she said."I'm terrified of giving them that freedom."Another resident, who also declined to give her name, said she wanted to highlight the impact knife crime has on the whole community. "It's not just affecting young children, it's affecting me and I'm nearly 70," she said."It makes me feel quite scared actually, it intimidates you." Gill Baker, 63, did not attend the meeting, but was visiting family on the Mile Cross estate from her home in Hastings, East Sussex. "Compared to where I live, it's OK. "Knife crime, drugs, alcoholism - it's everywhere," she said. "It doesn't matter where you go, it's rife. We need more police." Supt Hornigold, who was at the meeting, said the Norfolk force was working across the county to tackle knife crime. "We understand that one incident involving a knife is one too many," he said."We will see those times when incidents spike, but we are committed to robustly responding and having a real partnership approach to the way in which we tackle knife crime and violence." Follow Norfolk news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
