Knife Crime

Welcome to another episode of our enlightening series. This is an LCHTV podcast in association with the Navigators team at Leeds Children's Hospital. Today, we bring you a poignant discussion on a topic that has left countless lives altered and communities in distress: knife crime. Matt, who is the lead in the Navigators team, interviews a young adult about their experiences and involvement in knife crime. Our goal is to shed light on the personal stories behind the statistics and explore the efforts being made to combat this pervasive issue. Names have been changed to protect everyone involved.

lchtv.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to another episode of our enlightening series. This is a LCH TV podcast in association with the Navigators team at Leeds Children's Hospital. Today we bring you a poignant discussion on a topic that has left countless lives altered and communities in distress, knife crime. Matt, who is the lead in the Navigators team, interviews a young adult about their experiences and involvement in knife crime. Our goal is to shed light on the personal stories behind the statistics and explore the efforts being made to combat this pervasive issue. Names have been changed to protect everyone involved.

SPEAKER_01: 0:50

Okay, so what happened in the lead-up to the incident? So this is before it happened. So the lead-up was someone owed me some money. He stole some money. He denied it. My family basically tried negotiating and he didn't want to negotiate. And he wanted to meet up. either to negotiate or to cause violence. So we ended up meeting up and it was like awkward silence. From that moment on, I got angry and I turned around. Not gonna lie, we was all tooled up. At this point, Josh

SPEAKER_00: 2:01

was very seriously injured with a knife. I did feel

SPEAKER_01: 2:07

like it was a nightmare. I didn't want it to be real. But quickly my reality hit me straight away. And I just thought, I'm losing a lot of blood. I need to be smart about it. Friends on the street, they came to aid, the ambulance and stuff like that. And to be fair, I was in good spirits. I knew I wasn't going to die I went full of shock and... anger and then I was very upset but at the time I just thought let me just keep in high spirits because everyone's crying and being sick and stuff like that because it's not a sight you want to see somewhat out of a horror movie yeah um when I woke up in hospital um and then yeah just slowly I started Like, just dealing with it. As you could imagine, it was some... I had to go through, like, two years of it, physio and trauma and stuff like that. Even still to this day, but not as intense as back then. Yeah. But, yeah. And what was the... When they said that you went to the hospital and they said, do you remember going in the hospital and do you remember them putting you under sleep to have the operation? No, I don't remember any of that. No, I just remember waking up. Right. And do you remember the ambulance drive from where you were? Yeah, I remember the ambulance drive as they got in, but I don't remember leaving us. I think he gave me morphine. Right. So I'd have been very disorientated. Yeah, yeah. The lads who were with you, I mean, in terms of the issue that you had with this lad that led to this incident happening, what's... Has that kind of been squashed now? Yeah, so we was all in for violent disorder. It runs trial and at the end of it, I end up getting convicted. So in terms of if you see this lad around now, how's... Well, I have seen him around and I'm not going to lie, I've seen the light now, so I haven't got no more grudges or... I've just come to terms with accepting... what's happened to me. A lot of people would be in this position now and be irritated for revenge. I'm doing the opposite. I'm staying humble. I don't need to find revenge and stuff like that. It always comes with consequences and stuff like that. What's wrong with just living your life? Like, just get him on with it. Like, do you know what I mean? And have you been able to communicate to him that you've kind of... Yeah, I'm literally shaping a guy's hand. Yeah, literally shaping a guy's hand. Yeah. I thought I was going to die myself, which I couldn't understand. It was either him or me, do you know what I mean? And I'm surviving, he's surviving. It's better than me being dead or him being dead, and then everyone's on murder charges or stuff like that. So to be fair, I've come to terms with it's not as bad, if you know what I mean. Yeah, well, and in terms of... So kind of since what had happened and that, how has it affected your life kind of since the injury? Well, it's made a big impact on my life. I'm not going to lie about that one. I do have flashbacks. I struggle to go out in public places. I suffer with a very bad vertigo now because of my anxiety. I always feel like somebody's going to say something or try to do something. So it's like I've always got to be constantly wary. My relationships with my friends and family are not good anymore because I'm always angry or I'm very distant. To them, I don't look like I care, but when I do, I just can't help coming out of my shell. Yeah, it's been a very big impact on my life. If you were to go back in time, what things would you do differently? What things would I do differently? Not turn up. Not turn up on that day. Yeah, literally. Not get myself involved. Yeah. Yeah. And is the, I take it you're not, are you involved in gangs or were you involved in gangs? Well, about five years ago, I was hanging around some people that was around in gangs, but me, myself, I was never in a gang. I was just, easily influenced off the people that was in the gang, you know, like with a lot of smoking weed, drinking lean, going out partying or being with them whilst they're getting up to no good, whether that's street robbery or... But me and myself, never been in a gang, never. No. Never wanted to be. I wouldn't have been happy with or had gone to murder trial. Because some of the people that turned up that day were some of them My friends are a little bit younger than me, so he's on a med trial. How are their parents feeling? Or I'm dead, or he's dead, or do you know what I mean? I'm just happy with the facts. No one died that night. Yeah. I just live my life like it's normal. Unfortunately, I've been affected with PTSD and stuff like that, but I do still try to get on my day as much as I can. And that's all I need to do is to get me through my life. And I'm happy with that. Yeah. And do you get enough support from...? I do get enough support. Friends, family, mental health teams. But... It's all to do with you really and it's all to do with your mind, which I know, which I do try my best to. I don't like to rely on other people. I know I'm strong, so I do try to... do things myself. Obviously, you can't do everything yourself. Yeah. Hence why I've got support there on standby when I need it. Yeah. And what's the, like, if you imagine yourself in 10 years' time, if you could just, like, have a little glimpse of the future, where would you like to see yourself? What would you like to see? Where would I like to see myself? I would like to see myself, obviously, with a lot of money. It's everybody's dream. But also, maybe doing something similar to what you're doing. I was having a conversation with my friend... and basically told him I'm having a meeting with you. And he's like, why don't you do something like that? I said, do you know what it is, bro? I said, right now, I'm still young, I've still got my prime life to live, if you know what I mean by that. But when I'm touching 30, 10 years' time, 20 years' time... I possibly will come in and speak to the youth and explain from my side of the story and see if I can... Cos I've been thinking about... Cos once I have my children, I don't want my children coming into this sort of generation. Leeds is like the new London Alpha 9 Prime and stuff like that, as we all know. And I don't want my children growing up and going through what I had to go through. So if that means I can... If I can do something to sort of prevent that, or encourage to prevent something like that, or bring the odds down, then I will do that, of course. So I have got a story to tell, and a story to influence and educate a lot of young people. Cool. Nice one, man.

UNKNOWN: 10:05

All right.

SPEAKER_00: 10:09

We hope this episode has provided valuable insights into the profound impact of knife crime and the ongoing efforts to address it. Thank you for listening to this episode. For any assistance or further information, please contact the navigator team at Leeds Children's Hospital.