MOTD star on the terrifying I had a blade pulled on me at 19 but now kids of eight carry knives Jermaine Jenas
He said: “Carrying a knife has come from my fear of what someone might do to me. So I’ll do something to them first.
“All you have to do is get a hint of danger and I’ll all-out attack. There won’t be waiting about to see if this person will attack me first.”
Incredibly, another gang member pulls out an enormous meat cleaver from behind his back, boasting to an alarmed Jermaine of how he used it during bloody drug feuds.
He also met a teenage knife-user who claimed carrying a weapon made him “feel like superman”.
He flashes his blade to Jermaine and chillingly tells the dad of three: “The bigger, the better.”
The encounters bring back disturbing memories for Jermaine.
He recalled: “As I left the barber’s one day this man came running towards me with a knife in the alleyway. Then four more appeared behind me.
“I just said ‘Take everything’ and gave them my money and watch. But I fell out of love with Nottingham for a long time after that.”
In 12 months from June 2015 the number of stabbings in the city increased from 80 to 99. And the number of ten to 17-year-olds sentenced or cautioned t here f or possessing knives rose from 85 to 98, 15 per cent, from 2015-16.
Nottingham boxing star Joshua Bradley, 19, was stabbed in the heart with a ten-inch knife in 2015. Jailing his killer Richard Johnson, 24, for life, Judge Gregory Dickinson said: “He would still be alive but for the fact when you went out that night you took with you a knife and you were ready and willing to use it.”
Jermaine, who was making a BBC Three documentary, Teenage Knife Wars, said hearing of old school pals getting caught up in violence inspired him to do more to tackle the issue.
He said: “There have always been gangland- type areas in Nottingham – but what’swh really
hit me hard is kids as young as eight are now carrying knives to school. That was something I never saw when I was growing up.
“I was getting a number of text messages from friends saying, ‘Oh, do you remember so-and-so? He’s just got stabbed.’
“I even received one saying a friend I grew up with up had an altercation that involved a knife that he might end up getting in trouble for.
“The police and families have got a responsibility. These young people are feeling trapped. They don’t even have somewhere to go to just have fun.”
Adam Brooks, of East Midlands Trauma Centre, said: “We’re also seeing more severe stab wounds. We’ve had a few where we’ve still have the knife in situ.”
While Marcellus Baz, of Nottingham’s Switch Up charity, said: “We know of incidents where eight-yearold kids have been handed a knife – and some occasions when they’ve used them.
“If leaders are doing bad things the younger ones will follow. Gangs are getting younger kids to be street soldiers.”
Jermaine said: “It’s horrifying that kids of eight carry knives. Gangs target them that young because they know they are less likely to be the subject of a stop and search.”
The star credits his passion for football and his mum Lynette Sharpe, a single parent, for keeping him out of trouble.
He was raised on a council estate in the Clifton area of Nottingham. His dad walked out when Jermaine was eight.
Grave
Lynette said: “As a parent, to think your child is going to go out and [either end up in prison or dead] is really, really scary to me.”
Jermaine said: “When you have a focus in life, like I did, you tend to make the right decisions.
“I found myself in situations when I was a teenager when I would be at a house party and someone would start smoking some weed, and I’d ask for some.
“But then my mate would say: ‘No Jermaine, you have a game tomorrow.’ My friends and my mum genuinely had my back.” The