The town that’s a sea of purple in memory of knife victim Jodie
THOUSANDS have expressed their grief and horror over the murder of 17-year-old Jodie Chesney by turning the town where she was stabbed to death into a sea of purple.
Purple was the teenager’s favourite colour and her family have launched a purple ribbon campaign in her name calling for more police on the streets and tougher penalties for knife crime.
The campaign has quickly been embraced by local people. Many wore purple ribbons when up to 2,000 marched through Romford, east London, on Thursday evening to demand justice.
Purple balloons decorated the demonstrators’ route as they chanted ‘no more knives’ in a powerful and poignant reaction to the bloodshed on Britain’s streets.
At the end of the march, youngsters tied purple ribbons to a railing outside Romford police station as onlookers stood in silence holding placards saying, ‘Lives not knives, RIP Jodie’. Three petitions were taken inside.
Jodie, who wanted to be a vet, was playing music with friends near a children’s playground in Harold Hill, a suburb of Romford, when she was knifed in the back on Friday, March 1. Police have described it as a ‘ completely motiveless attack’.
Residents have also started turning Harold Hill purple by tying bows round trees, and on front doors, fences and balconies. They have been wearing ribbons and laying flowers in memory of Jodie.
Florists in the area, who have been dishing out metres of ribbon for free, have been ordering in extra supplies.
Jodie was studying for A-levels in psychology, sociology and photography at Havering Sixth Form College in nearby Hornchurch.
There was a purple theme there too yesterday as students, teachers and friends gathered to pay tribute to her.
College principal Paul Wakeling recalled Jodie as a ‘wonderful’ and ‘caring’ student, who sometimes dyed her hair purple.
He said: ‘We all had banter with Jodie about her different hair colours and that made her laugh. Jodie would talk to her teachers, who she had great relationships with, about her lovely family, and that’s because she loved the college.’
Community members also gathered in Barking Town Hall square for minute’s silence. Stood among them was Jodie’s sister Lucy, 19, who marked the moment wearing a small purple ribbon. Jodie, from Dagenham, was a keen Explorer Scout, and she had also attained silver level in her Duke of Edinburgh Award and was just two weeks away from reaching gold. In Harold Hill, Jodie’s death has unleashed a wave of anger that will not disappear until action is taken – if nothing else because as her father Peter put it this week: ‘Jodie needs justice and we need justice.’ And at the start of the march through Romford on Thursday, a woman, who only wanted to be known as a friend of the family, delivered a speech describing knife crime as a disease which had to be cured. She said: ‘Knife crime is not something confined to gangs. It has no colour, no faith, no sexual orientation. Just victims. Tonight we march h peacefully f ll with ith l love i in our hearts.
‘For our children. For our children’s children. For our young people. And for justice for Jodie.’
A second male was arrested yesterday on suspicion of Jodie’s murder and is being held in custody. Scotland Yard did not give his age. A 20-year- old man, who was arrested in Leicester on Tuesday, remained in custody on suspicion of her murder.
Jodie is among ten people to be stabbed to death in London in the last 18 days and six teenagers to be murdered in the capital this year, as Britain grapples with a knife crime epidemic.