Idris: Take a look in mirror before you carry a knife
Star’s warning to teens as his gang film hits screens
IDRIS Elba has sent out a warning to knife-wielding teens as his brutal new gangland film hits cinemas.
The Luther star – whose big-screen directorial debut Yardie was premiered last week – said: “Look in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Where do you want to end up?’
“It is really clear. You can end up in jail for stabbing someone. Put the knife down, go somewhere else and make a career.”
HARROWING
Elba, 45, spoke after harrowing pictures emerged of paramedics and police tending victims of a mass knifing involving 30 youngsters on an estate in Camberwell, South London on August 16. Four teenagers were stabbed, leaving one with life-changing injuries. Eight people were later arrested.
Elba’s film sees a young Jamaican called D seeking revenge on the Yardie gangster who killed his brother.
Elba said: “D faces two roads. The left one is full of hatred. Down the right lies a better person within himself.
“I think for an 18-year-old kid now, it is really hard to separate themselves from the clouds.”
Latest statistics reveal knife crime nationwide rose by 21 per cent last year. The figures, released by the Office for National Statistics, reveal almost 40,000 offences involving knives or sharp weapons were recorded by police. They also reveal stabbings in London are at their highest level in six years, with a 23 per cent rise from the previous year.
The sobering figures come despite crime levels falling across England and Wales.
Elba is familiar with the dilemma facing inner-city teens, having grown up in a council flat in North London’s Hackney – an area he previously described as “crawling with gangs, crime and poverty”.
He has told how he witnessed his peers “mixing with the wrong crowd” and heading “down the wrong path” to a life of unemployment and drugs.
He left school at 15 and, with the help of a grant from the Prince’s Trust, studied at the National Youth Music Theatre.
Before landing his breakthrough role as crack dealer Stringer Bell in hit American TV series The Wire, the struggling actor was homeless for three months, living in his van.
antonia.paget@trinitymirror.com
You can end up in jail. Put the knife down, go somewhere else and make a career IDRIS ELBA PLEA TO TEENS TO AVOID ROAD TO BLOODSHED