Ruislip & Eastcote & Northwood Gazette
Mind the gap?
AFTER A STABBING AT PARTY, VICTIM’S BOXING COACH DENOUNCES THE ‘DISCONNECT’ OVER KNIFE CRIME
ANDREW is a secondary school pupil and during his summer break he was stabbed at a party in front of his friends by another youngster who wanted his designer bag.
Andrew – not his real name – remembers how the stranger walked up to him, and demanded the satchel.
“I said no, then he said he wanted my belt, and I said no, and he stabbed me. Then he took my bag,” he said.
Andrew said he didn’t feel anything at first. Then he saw the blood, and all his friends could do was sit him down and call an ambulance.
The knife had caused his lung to collapse, and he required drainage tubes at hospital.
Andrew’s mother said she was told by doctors that if he had arrived five minutes later he might have bled to death, and it would have been a murder case.
She said: “I’ve been through quite a few things in my life, I’ve had medical problems, I’ve lost my mum and dad, but that was the worst thing. He’s a very lucky boy.”
Practical programme
Leroy Nicholas trains Andrew as part of his Sweet Science programme, which tours schools in West London, teaching discipline and self determination through boxing.
When he heard about the stabbing, the coach said he had only one thought – ‘not again.’
He said: “It’s everywhere, unbelievable.”
Leeroy set up Sweet Science in 2005 after the birth of his daughter, and has now taught in more than 50 schools.
Since he got involved, he says he’s witnessed a disconnect between what young people respond to, and what government and schools provide.
Sweet Science, which has been endorsed by the World Health Organisation as a means of improving young lives, was recently dropped from one innercity school in place of zumba.
Leeroy says schools are too often staffed with teachers the kids don’t feel they can talk to – especially when it comes to the crime.
He said: “They won’t tell a white, middle-class lady from Oxford who gets on her train and goes home to her gated community.”
Nothing sums up the disconnect for Leeroy like Boris Johnson’s recent plan to spend £57,500 on fried chicken boxes bearing warnings about the dangers of knife crime.
He said the kids he trains rarely read books, and definitely wouldn’t bother reading the inside of their fried chicken container.
“For that amount of money you could have 806 hours of face-toface work with my coaches, talking and communicating and engaging and changing kids in schools,” he said.
A big part of Sweet Science involves presenting students with scenarios, asking them what they would do, then telling them the consequences of their actions. it’s
Leeroy said: “It’s terrifying sometimes to hear how the kids would react.
“There are kids out there who think that, if they are walking down the street and someone calls them the N-word, they should smack them.”
“I say right okay, okay – you’ll smack them – you’re going to jail. Witnesses will say the other guy said something to you, and you smacked them.
“You’re getting in the back of the van, you’re getting the criminal record, you’re not going to America.”
Leeroy said these kinds of lessons are so obvious, but they aren’t getting taught.
Leeroy’s programme can only do so much, especially with schools on the lookout for ways to save money – and it’s not only schools.
According to the Labour Party, cuts in Ministry of Justice grants have seen spending on Youth Offending Teams in West London plummet since 2010.
These teams work with youngsters who get into trouble to help them move away from crime and support youngsters through the justice system.
In Hillingdon during the 201011 financial year, roughly £415,800 was spent on such teams, a figure that dropped to £258,367 by 201718 (a drop of 38%).
In Hounslow during the same period spending fell from £791,874 to £356,683, a drop of 55%, and in Ealing the reduction was £839,555 to £378,636, a fall of 55%.
Youth funding has plummeted
The cuts also coincide with falls in council funding for youth services.
Recent figures revealed some areas of West London have lost the equivalent of 88% of their youth funding since 2010, while knife crime has doubled in some boroughs in three years.
According to Labour Party figures, the total spend on youth services in Hillingdon was £55 back in 2010, a figure that sits at £21 per person today.
In Hillingdon, knife crime has almost doubled, going from 159 cases in 2015/2016 to 312 in 2018/19, and Hounslow has seen a 52% increase in the same period reaching 370 in the last year.
‘An idiotic way of thinking’
Leeroy says the cuts are like government refusing to refill a car, and expecting it not to break down.
He said: “This is definitely the government’s nature. They’ll put money into something and when it gets to the point where it looks better on paper then they will pull the money.”
What the government says
A Ministry of Justice spokesman responded to the criticism by saying that for each of the last three years the Youth Justice Board has given more than £70 million to local authorities to support youth offending services.
He said: “This year we are increasing funding for front line services and tackling serious youth violence.
“This investment helps provide the best services for children in, or at risk of entering, the criminal justice system.”
Figures from the MoJ suggest in the last decade there has been an 86% reduction in the number of children entering the youth justice system for the first time.
In October the Government also announced £200m over the next 10 years through a Youth Endowment Fund.
“The fund will focus on those most at risk of youth violence including those displaying signs such as truancy, aggression and involvement in antisocial behaviour in order to steer them away from crime.”
Labour’s Shadow Justice Secretary, Richard Burgon, said cuts to youth offending teams were completely unacceptable.
He said: “It is appalling that, with youth violence rising, the government is still failing to prioritise funding for this essential service – with belowinflation real terms cuts year after year.
“You can’t keep the public safe on the cheap. Boris Johnson must guarantee the resources needed to protect our communities and help prevent young people from getting involved in crime in the first place.”
What do West London’s councils say?
Hillingdon’s Conservative council leader, Ray Puddifoot, said that the major factor in both knife crime and youth offending was the lack of police officers on the street and closure of police stations.
He said: “Hillingdon’s offer to spend £5million to allow Uxbridge police station to remain open was rejected by the Labour Mayor of London, which made no sense at all.“
The council had also been given additional Home Office funding to develop new prevention programmes.
“We have not cut programmes. On the contrary we have expanded our prevention and early intervention offer and we have not seen an increase in youth offending.
“Our rates of offending and reoffending have decreased year on year. The number of first time entrants by young people fell from 81 in 2017/18 to 51 in 2018/19.
None of the stats really mean that much to Andrew, but the impact of training with Leeroy Nicholas does.
He said boxing and similar programmes had helped him to keep kids on the straight and narrow and should be made a priority for funding.