Death toll makes us more determined says campaigner
AWOMAN who helped to set up an anti-knife crime foundation after her nephew was stabbed to death vowed yesterday to keep fighting the scourge.
Daniel Fox, 29, a carer for autistic children, was slashed in the chest by an 11-inch butterfly knife in a petty row about a cigarette.
The blade penetrated his lung and cut his jugular vein. His traumatised friends revealed his last words were: “Please don’t let me die. I don’t want to die.”
Now two years on, his aunt Dawn Jones has described the aftermath of the tragedy as her “worst nightmare ever”.
She says the recent spike in knife crime has brought the horror of that night in St Helens, Merseyside, flooding back.
Speaking yesterday outside Liverpool Crown Court, where she was protesting against the judicial system with Daniel’s mother Lynda Ashton, she said: “We’ve been fighting our campaign, the Daniel Fox Foundation, for two years now to make our town safer and we will continue doing that.
“You’ve just got to keep fighting against it all.”
Daniel’s killer, Leighton Holt, walked free from court after a jury failed to reach a verdict in two murder trials. It was argued that while he inflicted the fatal blow, he acted in self-defence.
But last week he was jailed for more than eight years for other offences, including stashing a sawn-off shotgun at his mother’s home and two robberies.