Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
It is still going on.. how many more families will have to go through this? Father calling for tougher laws and for Government to get a grip on crisis
Murdered Jodie’s devastated family speak out and back Mirror’s campaign
JODIE Chesney’s grieving family have backed the Daily Mirror’s campaign to halt knife crime – as they spoke for the first time of their devastating loss.
Dad Peter Chesney, 39, said the unprovoked stabbing a week ago has torn his family apart.
Accompanied by wife Joanne, who is Jodie’s stepmother, and the 17-yearold’s older sister Lucy, 21, he supported our call for a change in the law, including tougher sentences for those carrying knives.
“We 100% back the Mirror’s anti-knife crime campaign,” said Peter, of Dagenham, East London. “The Government needs to do everything in its power to stop the senseless killing.”
Joanne, 36, added: “Even now it is still going on days later, the next day someone was killed.
“And then, now a few days after that, another person. When, where do you stop? How many more families are going to have to go through this?”
In the wake of the fatal stabbing of Jodie and Yousef Makki, also 17, in Manchester, the Mirror is demanding more police officers with greater powers, a reverse of austerity cuts to youth services and a dedicated knife crime tsar. At a New Scotland Yard meeting yesterday Peter was asked if the family would like to see new legislation as part of his daughter’s legacy. He replied: “It would be lovely,”
Jodie was with pals at a park in Romford, East London, when she was approached by two males and knifed in the back in a seemingly motiveless attack on Friday night. Describing the traumatic impact of losing Jodie, Peter continued: “We don’t know how to deal with it. Everyone is suffering because she was so good... everyone just can’t believe – why her?”
After speaking with Detective Chief Inspector Dave Whellams, leading the inquiry, the family said anyone who knows the killer should come forward.
Peter added: “You can’t get kudos for stabbing a 17-year-old in the back. So, just dob them in, grass them up.”
Det Chief Insp Whellams said during his 34 years of service he had never known knife crime to be so bad.
Last night hundreds of people chanting “no more knives” marched through Romford town centre in memory of Jodie.
Generations of families including mums and dads with babies and grandparents walked in solidarity to the police station to protest at cuts.
Balloons, ribbons and streamers in Jodie’s favourite colour purple decorated the route and bystanders clapped the marchers as they passed.
A 20-year-old man arrested in Leicester in connection with Jodie’s murder remains in police custody. Police said up to four people could have been involved.
Meanwhile, the heartbroken family of another victim said his smile “lit up a room”. Connor Brown, 18, was attacked near a pub in his hometown of Sunderland early on February 24.
His parents said in a statement: “His smile was infectious. Every time he was photographed he’d have that big grin on his face.”
Two men have been charged with murder over Connor’s death.
In Birmingham, the brother of fatally stabbed Abdullah Muhammad, 16, spoke out over gang crime.
Abdul Muhammad, 15, was with his sibling on the night he was attacked in Small Heath on February 20.
He said: “The only thing the youths care about is area and cannabis – and they will stab people over this like it’s the norm. He was from Hodge Hill and was stabbed to death because he was in Small Heath.
“No one fights with their fists any more, everyone has a knife.”