I’ve prosecuted hundreds of killings. But nothing could prepare me for one of MY family being stabbed to death

OvER 25 years as a prosecutor, I have dealt with hundreds of murders. I have talked to the families of the victims, and their stories have moved me to tears.

But those experiences could never have prepared me for the shock of the phone call I received last Tuesday morning, when my brother told me that his wife’s 18-year-old nephew, Hazrat Umar, had been stabbed to the death in the street.

He was the eldest of four siblings, and nothing about him suggested his life might end this way. A popular, warm, kind-hearted teenager who was studying electrical engineering, he was on his way to his local gym in Birmingham at about 2pm last Monday when he was attacked.

Grief

He was the third teenager to be killed in the city in 12 days. So far this year, 269 knife crimes have been reported.

But to our family, of course, Hazrat was not a statistic.

The same must tragically apply to the family of 17-yearold Jodie Chesney, who, on Friday evening, became the 18th person to be stabbed to death in London this year, and the fifth teenager to die.

On Saturday, in another attack, Manchester Grammar School pupil Yousef Makki, 17, was stabbed to death.

I have prosecuted ‘hundreds of homicides’ for the Crown Prosecution Service but nothing can prepare you for what it is like to be a bereaved relative. It is no longer close to home: it is home.

I will never forget the grief and bewilderment in Hazrat’s mother’s voice when I rang to offer her what comfort I could.

‘What could I do to protect him?’ she asked me. ‘I couldn’t wrap him up in cotton wool.’

In those words, she expressed the fears of so many parents.

As the father of four children and, beyond grief, I feel utter outrage that so many young people are dying in alleyways, parks and on our streets.

Thousands more are taken to A&E departments with wounds that bring them inches from death. An investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches to be shown tonight shows that the number of under-16s treated in hospital for stab wounds has almost doubled in five years.

The day after Hazrat’s death, a 16-year-old was arrested on suspicion of killing him. Until we know more, it would not be appropriate to comment further, but I can speak about wider factors.

In particular, I am angry that it has taken so long for the authorities to recognise that the increasing number of such deaths constitutes a national ‘emergency’. That was the word used by Dave Thompson, Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, as he announced that stop- and- searches will be stepped up and more police will patrol the region’s streets.

Stop-and- search is a good policy if done appropriately, but this knee-jerk reaction is no substitute for proper policing — something that seems increasingly rare as a result, in part, to budget cuts.

The truth is that police are less visible on the streets, adding to a sense that people only see police driving past at high speed, blue lights flashing. Often, the police are viewed as instruments of the State rather than protectors of the public.

That needs to change, not least because of the intelligence-gathering that ‘bobbies on the beat’ make possible. Such information is vital in combating knife crime.

The reasons for the recent spate of violence are manifold. They include the drug trade via ‘county lines’, with young men and even children forced to sell by older dealers.

We must also consider the insidious effects of social media, with online insults moving into the real world, threatening the possibility of violence. Good policing can tackle all of these, but they are symptoms of deeper causes.

Yes, the police can arrest drug dealers and gang members who recruit vulnerable youngsters into lives of crime. And yes, ‘drill videos’, which incite acts of violence, can be removed from websites.

But we also need to work to stop young people becoming susceptible to such pernicious influences in the first place.

Further, as Trevor Phillips, the former chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, has said, we must not ‘whitewash’ this issue. We must have an ‘open and honest’ discussion about the fact that young men from ethnic minorities are disproportionately both the perpetrators and victims of knife crime.

Class plays a part, too, and a failure of civil leadership. The fears and vulnerabilities that lead youngsters to carry knives are greatest in poor areas.

Poverty

I discovered this the last time we had a surge in knife crime, around ten years ago. Back then, I was assistant chief crown prosecutor, and youth club volunteers arranged for me to meet a group of about 30 young men to find out what they felt about the problem.

When I asked how many were carrying knives, around twothirds of them put up their hands. One young man made it clear that poverty is often a factor. ‘When you ain’t got s***, you’re going to do what you can to defend it,’ he told me.

Others complained of a lack of discipline at school, leaving them at the mercy of bullies, or that the police had allowed parts of their neighbourhood to become no-go areas for gangs. All had one thing in common, however: they saw knives as essential to their survival.

Subsequently, I met senior police officers and helped devise a violent-crime strategy which involved better engagement with the young and educating them about the consequences of carrying weapons. The following year, knife crime dropped by 50 per cent.

I’m not saying our strategy was a magic wand, but prevention is the way forward. But where can children find the mentoring and support they need when the only places they can congregate are outside takeaways or on park benches?

Expelled

When I was growing up in Birmingham, there were youth clubs. Nor did the education system give up on troubled kids — yet, today, disruptive children are simply expelled. And where do they go after that? Sadly, too many just join other excluded young boys and begin criminal lives or become victims of crime.

Worryingly, the judicial system sends confused messages about deterrents. To reduce the prison population, the Government has announced plans to ban sentences of under six months — which is exactly the kind given to first-time knife offenders. The end result may be no sentence at all.

Meanwhile, every time another young man or woman loses their life, their family — like my brother’s — is left trying to pick up the pieces.

My late father would never have imagined a tragedy like this befalling our family when he moved here from Pakistan more than 60 years ago.

He came here not just because of the opportunities for work and education, but because he believed that Britain was a safer country than his native one.

I can only wonder what he would say about the death of Hazrat, and the violence that plagues our streets today.

My own way of dealing with grief has been to think about ways of reducing the number of crimes so that others will not have to endure the deep sorrow visited upon my family and the families of Jodie Chesney and Yousef Makki over recent days.