This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.
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Hello? Faz, what's happening, my G? How are you?
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Oh, it's Idris. IDRIS CHUCKLES
I'm good, man, I'm good. How are you?
What's happening? Are you good?
How you doing? You been busy? Yeah.
Ids, look. Last seven weeks, boy,
this is what we're messing with, yeah?
All these cases.
All these cases? Yeah.
I'm about to go to the station to hand these in.
Oh, my days.
So, like, these are the typical Rambos that a lot of the people use.
Yeah. Like, these cost, like, tenners, Idris.
£10?
But we got weapons that the tubes just can't facilitate.
Yeah. Like, look.
You know what I mean?
Oh, my God.
These are the kind of weapons that we're trying to get banned.
SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY
You think you're a bad boy, yeah?
Knife crime is a heartbreaking problem,
and in the past ten years has almost doubled.
I'm Idris Elba, and a few years ago, I became involved in the fight
against knife crime.
In 2024, I invited a film crew to join me as I try to get
to the root of the problem.
I want to meet people who have carried a knife...
Now I realise I was carrying a deadly weapon.
Back in the day, carrying was pretty normal.
Where your keys? Where your phone? Where your knife?
..and get everyone talking about the challenges ahead...
Morning.
Morning. Hi, how are you?
..so we can all push those in power to take action...
It's a lot of money. How are we going to pay for it?
Just follow me. ..and find real solutions.
It is the most rewarding job I've done
since I've been in the police in 19 years.
It definitely works.
There is hope.
There's got to be ways that this can be done.
No issue is permanent.
There's got to be a way out of it.
Because this is a problem that can affect anyone.
You don't have to be a bad child.
You don't have to be in a gang.
You don't have to carry the knife to be the victim of knife crime.
If you've got a knife or you know someone that's got a knife,
tell them to stab themselves right now.
Trust me, because you're just going to stab your future
if you go and stab someone else.
You become a murderer, you go to prison, you ain't got shit.
For what?
For some beef that lives within your community.
You need to see past that.
We have to say something about it.
Five years ago, I had this rant.
Just felt quite overwhelmed and angry.
It's just a constant flux of young people murdering each other.
Knife crime happens every day.
But that particular day was just very...
You know, It was really painful for me.
I felt the need and the urge to speak up.
So, over the last five years, my focus has been on campaigning
to raise awareness and push for solutions.
But to be effective, we need to understand why some people
are choosing to carry a knife in the first place.
How old were you when you started carrying a knife?
I think I was 12.
In a park in Coventry,
I got 20 people run up on me, carrying all sorts of things.
And one of them swung an axe.
And then, ever since then, I didn't step outside without a knife.
Well, you're scared after that, ain't you?
You're going to be.
You got jumped.
So you're going to want to protect yourself some way, innit?
And that was the only way I could think of.
But I don't do that no more.
That's old me.
It still is quite normal for where I'm from to see someone
carrying a blade on them.
I nearly got two pulled out on me this week.
So...
Police are appealing for information
after the fatal stabbing of 16-year-old Harry Pitman,
who had gone with a group of friends to see
the New Year's Eve fireworks from Primrose Hill.
He was killed as hundreds of people gathered at the popular spot.
SIREN BLARES
We often assume all sorts of things
about those who get involved in knife crime.
But is there a type?
Tayla. Hi, mate. Lovely to meet you.
Nice to meet you, Tayla, how are you?
How's your family?
We're getting there.
This is his memorial.
It's really nice to come and sit here and just, like, be with him...
Yeah. ..because it feels like he's here.
You could spot Harry a mile off.
He had bright orange hair. He was your younger brother, right?
Yeah. Was Harry at school? He was at college.
He was studying law.
He wanted to do something in that sort of field.
Yeah. He was very clever. Very clever boy.
Smart boy. Yeah.
That's heartbreaking.
You know, I would be in bits all the time.
I have my days, I do. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure, man.
But was it just a beef? Was it a fight?
All we know is there was some sort of altercation.
And within that altercation, Harry was stabbed and killed.
Yeah.
The boy's the same age as my brother. Really? 16-year-old.
I hate to say it, but people think it's a race thing.
Exactly. You know.
That was the first thing that come out, when Harry was killed,
was, "I bet it was a black person. I bet it was a black person."
And it wasn't. It was another white boy.
So it can literally be anyone and happen to anyone.
There is such a general perception about this whole thing...
..that knife crime just affects black and brown communities.
And it's just so, um...disheartening
because it's like no-one really cares to really understand it.
And the truth is that the majority of people
that are involved in knife crime are white.
There's also a perception that knife crime just happens in big cities.
Knife crime impacts lives across the UK.
The areas with the highest rate of increase are Avon and Somerset,
Bedfordshire and Sussex.
But the worst affected area over the past two years
is the West Midlands.
Go on!
Two 12-year-old boys have been found guilty
of murdering a man with a machete in a park in Wolverhampton.
The pair, who can't be named because of their age,
are thought to be the youngest boys
to have committed a knife-related murder in the UK.
It's in suburban neighbourhoods
that some of the most horrific attacks have taken place.
Nice to meet you. I'm Damian.
Idris. Thanks for meeting me.
Yeah, no problem.
I've been sort of campaigning
against knife crime for about five years.
What's been happening is, I've just been learning
that I don't know enough.
Yeah. And in this area, it was quite significant.
Something happened here, right? Yeah.
We had a 19-year-old lad, Shawn Seesahai,
sitting over on that bench, over there,
and then two other lads, 12 years old,
approached him and they were carrying a machete.
A 12-year-old? Yeah.
I mean... They've had a row,
next thing you know, Shawn's lying, you know,
not 15 metres from where we are now.
Massive stab wounds to the back of his skull.
A burr in his skull.
Stab wounds all down his back, and he's dead.
What was the nature of the fight? We don't know.
We've never found anything or there's nothing been said
to suggest that there, you know, there was any way
this is, like, postcode or gang related.
But, you know, the reality is, the two defendants have gone out
with a knife. You carry that knife and it's in play.
There's the knife, after we'd recovered it.
See this? Wow. That's... That's the machete?
That's the machete.
I mean, look at that thing.
Yep.
My son's ten.
Yeah. You know, so this is, like, right under my nose.
You know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah.
When you see, you know, 12-year-olds...
Yep. ..that must be unusual.
When we learnt the identity of the two lads involved,
there was a bit of a collective pause where everyone was, like,
it feels like something's different here.
It feels, you know, you're crossing the Rubicon a bit. Mm.
But at the same time,
it was more the grim reality of where we're at... Yeah.
..rather than complete surprise.
How does this community sort of get past that?
How do we not see it happen again?
Knife crime will not be stopped by police officers alone.
Yeah. That will never happen.
I started the year thinking about how easy it is for people
to buy knives and how accessible they are.
Morning.
We're on something Idris Elba is talking about today.
The actor is starting a campaign to speed up changes to law.
He joined victims' families outside parliament later
to launch a new campaign calling for an immediate ban
on zombie style knives and machetes.
At the top of this year, usually everyone's got
a New Year's resolution, got some new vigour.
Let's take that new vigour and let's apply it to eradicating knife crime.
The campaign really landed and made as much noise as possible,
to the point where, you know, the Government at the time pledged
to change a loophole in the law about zombie knives.
It's the first step, with a ban on zombie style knives and machetes.
But it doesn't fix the problem, because there are so many knives
and swords that are still legal to own and sell.
It's complicated because we all have knives in the kitchen.
But maybe the answer is simple -
introduce ironclad restrictions on the sale
of all dangerous knives that aren't used for cooking.
Six men have been sentenced to life in prison
for the murder of a teenager in south-east London.
Just 17 years old when he was stabbed to death in Betts Park
in Bromley in 2017.
When I lost my brother, I was 15 at the time when that happened.
You'd never been faced with that situation before.
You don't actually know what to say.
To put it quite simply,
I had many different offers involving retaliation
around what happened with my brother.
You've got to remember, you're looking at it from the outside,
and you live in a completely different world
to the world that these young people are living in.
Even with me and my situation,
I could have became a habitual knife carrier.
A lot of young people, if they come from certain areas within the UK,
before they reached the age of 14, witness some form of stabbing.
That's how a lot of young people grew up, seeing it happen.
That's how I grew up, seeing it happen.
We have to take knives off the streets,
but we have to also go further than that.
This problem of knife crime, it's a real indication of how much
we have failed young people, how much the society that that kid
is brought up into has allowed this to happen,
and it hasn't safeguarded them enough.
Mate, what are you doing?
Get back!
Oi!
Oh, shit.
Oh, shit!
Shit!
Now, these images are being fed to, like, young people.
It's going, you know, in their social media,
and it's being fed through their algorithms.
And, I mean, when you watch this stuff,
it's crazy what you're seeing.
And for me, all this does is just really perpetuate more fear.
You see that, you go, "Well, I haven't got a shank.
"I haven't got a knife. I might need one."
And it glorifies it.
It might even be pushing kids towards, you know,
some sort of, like, arms race
where they want to get bigger and more scarier knives.
For young people's minds that are developing,
acting out of fear and high anxiety, they resort to knife carrying.
That's almost glamorised in certain spaces.
I'm Samir. I work with 11 to 25-year-olds who have been stabbed.
So my background, growing up in a loving family,
but I would say slightly dysfunctional.
No father was involved.
So, you know, mum was mum and dad.
Mum was incarcerated at a period of time.
Mum experienced domestic violence. We went into foster care.
Did you ever carry a knife?
It was just standard.
Carrying was pretty normal. Pretty normal.
Where your keys? Where your phone? Where your knife?
And you look at the timeline of all these contributing factors.
To me, in the end,
got involved in a gang related murder where I stabbed someone,
who subsequently died.
I was incarcerated at age 18 and spent 16 years in custody.
I've been to Feltham Young Offenders Institute a number of times.
I've been there as a resident, as an inmate,
but I've also been there to deliver workshops as well.
So, yeah, Feltham, I know really well.
The mission statement on prison walls
talks about, in capital letters, rehabilitation.
But, you know, a victim's family would want to see you sometimes die,
you know, capital punishment, or see you rot in prison.
There's definitely, like, a whole sector of people that just believe
that people should just be sent to jail.
That's it, you know?
That's the only deterrent.
And if there was tougher sentencing, there'll be less knife crime.
For sure, I can understand why people are just like,
"That's what we've got jails for, send them to jail."
I've been given access to Feltham, the most violent prison in the UK.
If there was no law, we'd be at each other's throats.
It's just human nature.
So it is important to have deterrence.
What I want to try and understand, direct from the young people
that are in prison for knife related crime, is where it all went wrong.
Trying to really understand what that fork in the road was...
..because obviously the threat of prison hasn't deterred them.
Thank you.
Go on in.
Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, man.
Thanks for meeting me.
Do you mind me asking, how long have you been in?
Oh, two and a bit months.
Why are you in?
For a stabbing.
Stabbing? Yeah, GBH.
How old are you? I'm 17.
17? Yeah.
When was the first time you held a knife?
Probably like 13.
So what I'm trying to understand here is, like,
ten years ago, you were seven.
What was life like for you then? Family life? Pretty...
No, family life was messy, to be honest with you.
OK. My dad used to have mad anger issues.
He's making no money, coming home, taking it out on whatever.
Right. How was school life for you?
Did you...? No, school life was shit.
I'd be so raw.
I'd be so raw, like, and I started getting mega bullied.
I used to get really bad dandruff and people used to, like... OK.
..take the piss, say, like, "Has it been snowing?" and that.
Cos obviously I had it on the back of my blazer. Yeah.
And then I used to just look around,
and I used to think, like, the only people that ain't getting bullied
is the people that are this certain way.
So I sort of felt the need to become that person.
Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah.
But then obviously, I stopped going to school quite a lot.
Did you get excluded from school?
Yeah, like, four or five times. Really? Yeah.
And then when you picked up a knife,
what was the thinking around the time?
When I had a knife, I felt like I could do anything,
and I felt like I was a god, you know what I mean?
Nobody can touch me.
It makes you the bad man in the situations, you get it, like?
But then push comes to shove and you end up using it.
All of a sudden, do you know what I mean,
this stuff becomes real.
I have a really good relationship with a lot of the kids.
I think they can genuinely see I want to help them to change.
But you need to get it when they're young now.
Get to them young. What does that actually look like?
Cos that's one of the things that I'm trying to understand.
So, speaking to the boys,
it's as soon as they're disengaged with any school,
the boys are telling us that's where you start losing them.
CLAMOUR
This is our gym.
Who's there? Who's there? Who's there?
BANGING
How are you? I'm good.
Idris. Nice to meet you.
How old are you? Er, I'm 18.
18? Yeah. Wow. How long have you been inside?
Three months this time.
But unfortunately, I've been in five different prisons
before my 18th birthday.
Wow. Yeah.
For anyone that has an experience with knife crime, the end goal
is to not have to be in those situations any more.
Unfortunately, life's not that easy for many people.
Yeah.
What was your school life like?
I got kicked out when I was 15.
And you got kicked out, excluded, yeah? Yeah.
Was that the time when you got your own knife, at that juncture?
Yeah, literally very, very soon after.
Do you feel like if people were caught with knives and they get
a mandatory three or four years, do you think that would deter them?
It would have deterred some people, but there's a lot of people
that...they don't get tired of prison.
To them, it's just two sides of the same coin.
You're on the road and you're doing crime, or you're in prison
and waiting to do more crime.
It's more about protecting the public
than about rehabilitating these people.
But on the other hand, you're not protecting the public,
because these people will come out on you.
Yeah. Almost worse sometimes because of what the energy
like is here, breeding it. Yeah.
Violence begets violence. Mm.
For people coming into prison, this is the last part of the journey.
Yeah. There's lots and lots of systems and processes
that have failed them in society, and by the time they get here,
it's very costly for the public.
It's costly in terms of victims, and it's costly in terms
of how we rehabilitate from this point onwards,
because it costs so much per prison place for each individual.
That was very hard to swallow.
Like, you know, finding hope in a place like that is hard.
It's difficult because, you know, by the time they're here...
..they've been cast away from society.
Just had this overwhelming feeling that...
..somewhere along the line,
if someone had intervened earlier,
these prisons would be emptier.
We have this sort of like, you know,
"Take my belt off and beat them and they won't do it again."
That's not the way it works.
That was definitely interesting.
Two teenagers convicted of murdering a 16-year-old boy
in a case of mistaken identity
have been sentenced to more than 16 years in prison.
Ronan Kanda, who had just finished his GCSEs, was walking to a friend's
house in Wolverhampton when he was attacked from behind by the two
teenagers wielding a sword and a large machete.
Ronan was a mistaken identity.
The intended target lives bottom of our street.
Ronan wasn't doing anything to anyone.
He was just walking home.
This perpetrator,
he took my child's life thinking it's his intended target.
When we were shown the ninja sword
that went through my child's heart...
..I fainted on the day when I saw it.
Look at them looking at him.
It's nice pictures of him.
Yeah.
And that's my last Mother's Day with my son.
That is typical Ronan, that is. He was a joker.
Yeah.
It wasn't a dream.
As a mum, like, I'd get up in the morning,
the first thing I used to do is dive into Ronan's room,
hug him, kiss him.
Ronan was, like, still my younger baby.
My baby, he was.
And, er, I would lie here...
"Push, come on, move up."
And he was like, "Mum!"
"No, let me just have a quick cuddle."
And then I'll just have a quick cuddle with him and then go
after that doing what I needed to do.
And this side is empty now.
I get in this bed...
..but this side is empty.
Try making sense of that to me.
It's just...
The perpetrators, what they did was...
They could have been stopped many times.
Everyone failed.
Including police, education system.
There are other perpetrators, families, parents.
So all these failures are the reason my son is not
on this side of the bed today,
and I'm not able to hug him.
And these failures will continue if they are not highlighted.
If they're not being told that you messed up big time.
You failed in your duties.
The perpetrator and intended target started their fight in the school.
It all starts at school for that age group.
He was an angry young man. The school was quite aware of it.
I was like, "He's an angry man.
"You hold on to him." He needed help.
If somebody is troubled, you don't leave them out on the road
to go and do whatever you want
because you don't want that problem on you.
I'm not saying that we should ban exclusions, but is that
an opportunity for rather than excluding them saying, actually,
this is a moment where we could sort of red flag and say, here's, um,
an opportunity to course correct.
This moment of exclusion is not a moment for us to say,
"Let's just forget this kid,"
but it's actually a moment where we can say,
"Let's help this child out. This is the time to help that child."
Look, school exclusions sometimes means keeping pupils safe.
I get it.
But we're not understanding young people in a school place.
We're not approaching it from a trauma-informed lens.
Maybe they experience a bit of domestic violence in the household.
Maybe they were troubled at the bus stop today
and it's acting out in the class.
So it sounds really cliche, but I wanted to join the police
to help people and catch burglars and robbers.
When I was younger, my dad was in the police.
I've been in the police 19 years.
A majority of that has been front-line policing.
SIREN
When you're front-line policing on response, you turn up
with your lights on to the incident
that you're dealing with, and you do stick a plaster on it.
You don't get to find out why these problems are happening.
A lot of the young people we work with have had a rough time.
There's been something in their lives
that has been a trigger or a trauma that has led them to the path
that they're on.
When they're excluded, there is no reason to get up in the mornings.
There is no, um...
..no diversion out of life for them.
You know, it's, what are they going to do with their time?
They'll go and hang around with older people or people in the same
position as them, and they're going to fill their time
probably not positively.
I run an organisation taking weapons from people in the community
and then disposing of them.
My 14-year-old daughter said,
"Dad, can I go to my cousin's party?"
My brother's told me,
he said there's a few guys outside with a problem.
16-year-old party.
Yeah?
That's what I confiscated.
And if you think that's shocking...
..these things come to the party.
What's this?
There's two times in my life
where I was personally affected by knife crime.
I was 19 years old when I got stabbed the first time.
And the second time I got stabbed three years after.
And I was stabbed nine times on both occasions.
First it was like disbelief.
Then it went from disbelief to almost why?
And then stuck in that process there,
the anger came up, but I never, ever was tempted to carry a knife.
Um, I just didn't see longevity in revenge.
Do you know, how is that going to affect other people around me?
My mother, my children, you know?
That's what I've kind of used as a driving force
to build my organisation.
And that's why I can almost call it like a relentless fight against
knife crime, because every time I do something for knife crime, I feel
like I'm kind of getting back at my personal situation.
If I can find a way for these young people to look at me as a person
to get rid of weapons, then that'd be amazing.
Do you know what I mean?
OK, so what we're going to do is we'll examine them.
We just want to make sure that there's...none of them are things
that we have interest in. Copy that.
A young person finds it hard to walk into a police station and drop
a knife off, you know.
Managed to pick up 5,000 weapons over thousands of people.
No-one's ever been arrested.
No-one's ever gotten into trouble.
No-one's ever been hurt in a collection.
What Faz is doing is important, but I'd like the Government
to make it harder for young people to buy knives in the first place.
MPs are debating just this,
extending a ban on zombie knives and machetes
to include a ban on ninja swords.
Many will be, quite frankly, shocked that such weapons
are not banned already.
This is the issue of ninja swords, and the reason why straight swords
are more difficult to ban is because, of course, some of them
are held by military historians and for commemorative purposes.
It felt like there was an attachment to swords,
which may have some sort of traditional heritage thing.
I just couldn't understand it, quite frankly.
We are live in Downing Street
as Rishi Sunak calls a general election.
Now is the moment for Britain to choose its future.
At a point where the country will vote a new leader,
you've got to be intentional in what you do.
If I can influence a government or any leader to kind of,
"Yo, can you please pay attention," then I'm going to do that.
Hi. Good morning.
Nice to see you. Good to see you. I'm very well.
Thanks so much. Hi, everyone. How are you doing? Thank you.
How you been? Been all right? Yeah.
Do you know the families we've got around the table?
Yeah, I've met most of them. Yeah.
Um, all of them have got, you know, experiences that they need to share
and things that can be done.
Can I ask a question, and you can say, "Shut up, Idris."
As you turn this corner, you're on camera as soon as you turn left.
Thank you. Thank you.
Hey. Hello.
Hi, guys. How are you?
How are you? You OK? Good.
We can't keep on meeting families and having a version
of the same conversation.
We've got to change the system.
That's really important. That's the spirit of it. Yeah.
This doesn't stop. We're going to keep going.
And we have to hold the Government,
whatever government it is, accountable.
I felt like a bit of a prop. A bit of an impostor.
Out of everyone on that table,
I stand out as the,
"Why are you here, Idris?" You know?
"You make films. Why are you here?"
I'm an amplification device.
It's all very well wanting to stop knife crime.
The big question is, what can the Government do to make
a difference for the teenagers that are impacted?
One possible solution is at hospital, in emergency care.
The Royal London Hospital has pioneered a programme
after seeing young patients leaving with no support and returning
to the same dangerous behaviour.
For some young people,
the only difference between a victim and a perpetrator
is who won the fight that day.
The idea is to intervene at a point where the young person
is vulnerable, injured and open to the possibility...
..of things changing.
Samir. Idris. How are you, man? You all right, yeah?
Nice to meet you, man. Thanks for taking the time to see me.
Pleasure. Pleasure, man.
What you're doing, it's an intervention, right?
This is a system that works right at the moment of crisis here.
Reachable moment. It's a reachable moment. OK. Yeah.
Our intervention kind of offers support and essentially
going on the journey with that young person.
We're not trying to remove knives from young people's possession.
We're trying to remove it from their heart.
A lot of young people think they've got nothing to live for.
It's not worth it.
And it's about instilling that value to say, bro, like,
you've got so much potential.
We've worked with young people and said, "How are you today?"
They said, "No-one's ever asked me that."
No-one's ever asked them, "How are you?"
Mm. "How are you?" So for me it's basics, man.
Like basics, especially for growing up in a dysfunctional family.
So nurturing is very important. It's very important.
This here is a programme. We're working a multi-agency approach
that gets our young people safer, but then hopefully go on
to live prosperous lives.
And in that I feel like there needs to be a much deeper
understanding of why. Yeah. First and foremost.
Right? Yeah. Why is this happening? 100%.
Poverty is number one at the forefront of, um,
violence within the UK.
Whether that goes down the throats of people or not, it's the reality.
Yeah, we've got a case at the moment -
it's a young adult, um, that was stabbed multiple times,
in an East London borough.
Quite a complex case, quite a lot of childhood traumas.
We'll try to identify services to ensure that, you know,
he has that ongoing support.
We've supported with education, getting them back into mainstream
school, mental health support.
Support around employment.
Some young people don't have ID.
We've got them ID.
Sounds very trivial, but ID opens up the door and that was £35
that they don't have.
So the opportunity to operate with them in the community
starts to build trust.
And they're like, "Oh, you're really in my life."
It is an incredible intervention, but doesn't change the fact
that someone is already seriously injured.
Are there ways to intervene earlier?
OK, what happens before the stabbing?
And can we do that guidance from that junction
before there's an incident?
It's like having those things pop up in the back of your garden.
If you decide to just chop it and chop it and chop it
every time you see it grow again,
then what do you think is going to keep happening?
You're going to have to keep chopping it.
If you take it out by the root, nine times out of ten,
it's not going to grow back again.
Because of my youth work, I got into the world of horses,
and I feel like it's helped me level myself.
The environment I come from, there's a lot of violence.
What was so astonishing about it for me was,
if I can communicate with such a big animal, that can actually cause me
a lot of damage if it wants to,
and the fact that I'm not having to be forceful or violent
with it, it's like, "Hold on a minute.
"Why should I need to be violent in any other form of communicating
"with other people?"
Idris, follow me.
So, like, people at home watching this documentary would be like,
"Wait, how are we here?"
Obviously, people definitely don't expect this at all.
I mean, it's not normal to see a South Londoner just chilling
around horses in a yard.
So let me ask you, like, how has your upbringing
lead you to where you are now?
I had, like, a mentor for over ten years.
My mentor, he was provided to me by a youth service I used to go to
on a regular basis.
There was a lot of lessons and advice that was given to me
by that individual.
He's known me since I was, like...
..11, 12.
What was it like at 12 having a mentor?
It was strange at first, but then it's like, when you start
having conversations, you start to see it completely differently.
Yeah. Because then you start to realise, wait, there's other
people in the world that actually care about who I am as an individual
and actually want to see me do something positive.
Yeah, yeah. Know what I mean? And it's like, if you're in
an environment where all you're being role modelled and taught
is wrong, then if that's what you know, that's you're going to do.
You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know much about what happened to your brother.
My eldest brother, he was out and about one evening,
bumped into a certain group of individuals.
It's believed that they had a bit of a dispute, and it ended with him
being knifed to death.
Your mentor had a lot to do with helping you not basically go
for revenge or anything like that.
100%. 100%.
These are the reasons why I'm not sitting in jail right now.
That's the best way to put it.
Obviously helped me at the time.
Understanding that you doing what you were going to do
ain't bringing nobody back.
If I didn't have a role model like him, my life
would look very different.
Jhemar, you know, he's a lovely kid.
And this intervention has really changed a life around.
And you could see it in his soul.
You can see it when you meet him.
So that's a really good example of mentorship gone right
and done really well.
The more people I can get talking about this, the more likely
change will happen.
Banging the pot and making noise works.
Someone's got to take advantage of a soap box.
Someone's got to take advantage of the reach. And I have those.
About to head into the palace. See the King.
I'm always sort of thankful for him setting up
the Prince's Trust regardless.
Like, it's changed lives.
It changed...changed mine. It gave me an opportunity.
They gave me a grant when I was 16
to go to the National Youth Music Theatre and study.
Thinking back there, I was filling out the form and thinking,
"This is stupid. He's not going to choose me."
I came home from school, my mum said, "You got a letter."
It was a white envelope, handwritten.
"Idris Elba, Esquire."
And it had the royal seal on it.
I was like, "Nah, no way."
I opened it up and in the letter was a cheque.
If I hadn't gotten the Prince's Trust,
I wouldn't have had that experience, because we couldn't afford to go.
And it definitely put me on the right map.
You know, on the right trajectory.
Where is he coming from?
He's coming from the right, sir.
The King is going to actually come and greet you at the car.
What?! Yeah.
No. They're going to open the door, and he's going to be there.
No, man. Which is why we cannot be late.
Are you serious? Yeah.
Any sign?
There's a lot of traffic.
Are you going to greet him at the door, sir?
Yes. I'm waiting for him to arrive.
DOORBELL
Good morning. Good afternoon.
Sir. Good to see you.
It's been such a difficult nut to crack, hasn't it?
It really is. The campaigning continues.
I'm so thankful to have your ear.
I've always believed that, as an adolescent, what you really need
is channelling into something constructive.
It's my honour, I think, to have young people at the table,
OK, having their voice a part of this.
It seems to me the great ambition now should be to be able to go into,
you know, to try and dig people out from all the most...
the hardest areas to reach.
It's really interesting just being around, you know,
that sort of level of exposure.
And I didn't realise that we'd be sitting next to the King and people
from the community discussing it.
I didn't think that would happen.
You know, if every newspaper tomorrow says,
"Oh, there was a moment where the King and the young people
"and Idris all sat around the table,"
that's what we need to see.
You know, the media have a massive role to play in this,
cos they've got the loudest soapbox amongst us all.
And I'm just like, um...
..I'm very hopeful right now.
This Government has been elected to deliver nothing less
than national renewal.
With a new government in power,
they've invited people who know the reality of knife crime
to meet every two months to influence policy.
Actor Idris Elba is in Downing Street today.
He's taking part in a knife crime summit.
It's rare to actually be here at the beginning of it,
of this documentary.
We didn't know this was going to happen. So here we are.
Got my notes.
I'm going to speak for three minutes.
I don't know what I'm going to say,
but I'm just going to say it from the heart.
I find it amazing that people who've been through experiences
the like of which some people around this table have been through
are able to come forward.
You have to be brutally frank with us,
today and every time we meet.
Five or six years ago, I started to speak up and say something.
Five years later, six years later, though, unfortunately,
we're still talking.
Um, and, you know, talk is good,
but action is more important.
We need joined up thinking.
And there are all kinds of people here today from organisations,
charities, victims, youth services, health services, police, education,
Home Secretary, because everyone here has something to offer this.
And, um, let's hold ourselves to task.
My name is Pooja Kanda.
I'm here today to tell you about my beautiful son, Ronan.
Ronan didn't stand a chance.
He tried to run for the house, which was only two doors away.
He didn't reach his house and he dropped there on the road.
I finally believe that I've been heard...
..and that's good.
That's good that I was there and was able to express myself.
And I hope the Government listens.
BIG BEN CHIMES
To the House of Commons, where Labour's first Budget
for 14 years will be delivered by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves.
Ms Reeves is expected to say her priority
is to invest, invest, invest.
The interventions that I've been learning about -
the hospitals, the schools, the community - they all cost money.
Government says the budgets are tight. We get it.
But it's not just about asking for more funding,
it's about what you do with the money there is.
Saying, "Knives end lives.
"Knives get you sent to prison."
Everybody carrying a knife knows that.
Everybody involved in a fight knows that.
So we all need to do our best to identify who's at risk,
help them with showing them that there are other options available.
Carrying a knife by itself is...
..I mean, kind of is suicidal.
I guess it was just the environment I grew up in.
My mum had custody of me, and I got kicked out of there
for the stuff I used to be involved with.
I moved into my nan's.
Got kicked out of there cos of the stuff I was involved in.
My school, I got kicked out there.
And then I was out of school for a year.
I have autism and ADHD.
It just makes it... I didn't know that -
so it makes it hard to speak...
..to anyone.
In Coventry, the police are piloting a new approach
that seems to have potential.
It's called CIRV.
CIRV is the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence.
They're seeking out teenagers they suspect are on a path
that leads to knife crime.
Then they step in before a stabbing is committed,
build a relationship and suggest opportunities
that connect with that teenager.
This programme, it is the most rewarding job I've done
since I've been in the police in 19 years.
Children or young people who carry knives,
I can honestly say it's a way of life that the majority of them
don't want to be in, but they just...
They're so stuck, they don't know how to get out.
So it's kind of guiding them out, mentoring them out.
We work with education and career opportunities.
It's about finding something that they enjoy
and showing them what they can achieve.
It's a consistent adult figure in their life
to guide them and lead them onto a different path.
It definitely works.
Jayden was referred into the programme after concerns
that he might have been involved in gangs, carrying knives, etc.
He was a hard nut to crack initially.
Very quiet, as are most of them, initially.
So it was just finding a way of breaking down barriers
and kind of just forming a bit of a relationship
and a trusting kind of bond between the two of us.
Jayden, how are you doing? This is Idris. Nice to meet you.
Good to meet you. How are you?
I'm good. You?
I'm all right. I can't complain.
I know that you've, you know, been working with Laura
and the CIRV team for a little bit, and I'm just curious.
I just wanted to hear how you found it
and, you know, how you're getting on with it.
Yeah.
Well, when I first joined the CIRV programme,
I had no confidence in myself.
And, like, well, she helped me out a lot.
Yeah, it's helped me a lot.
It's helped me a lot.
So you don't carry a knife?
No, I used to.
I used to carry a knife, and I used to be scared.
Some people, they say they feel naked without it.
I felt naked without it.
You've got to make that change. Mm.
And it's hard to. It's proper hard to.
I'm still... I'm still struggling now,
but I'm finding my way.
I'm finding my way, innit?
I heard you was an Arsenal fan as well.
Me?
He's stirring!
What? THEY LAUGH
Now you're chatting. Now you're chatting.
Now you're chatting, Laura.
Come on. You set me up.
LAURA LAUGHS
Wh-What team?
Villa.
Villa? Yeah. OK.
Cos of my great-grandad.
All my life, I've loved football.
I'm joining an academy soon, as well. That's amazing.
How does that...? Do you get in contact with the academy?
Yeah, I just sent an email and just said who we are,
what the programme was about.
The programme's giving you ways to figure out
how to get past the bad days, yeah?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, loads.
And then I guess, like, what you're doing with your sports,
that's almost another anchor, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Anything that's good for me, she'll make sure it happens.
But you're already talking about the opportunities
the academy might give him in terms of qualifications,
and one of them could be a coaching qualification.
And he's already said the other week, didn't you?
Yeah, I'd love to coach. I'd love to be a coach.
That seems like a really hopeful step.
Mate, nice meeting you, man.
Thanks for your time, yeah?
We're off. Laura, thank you very much. Thank you.
Really nice meeting you. And you.
What was great is coming here and seeing a version of hope
with the CIRV programme.
You know, the CIRV programme actually really ticks
a lot of the boxes that we've been talking about.
And then with stories like Jayden, you're kind of saying to yourself,
"All right, is there a version that happens nationwide?
"Is there a version that can be done at a much, much larger scale?"
That is going to be a massive logistical conundrum,
but it is so worth it when you watch a kid like that
who a year ago was struggling, who's, you know...
He's just this far away from going back to his old roots,
and then he's got this programme that can help him, right?
And that's...
I guess, you know, when people watch this film,
say, "What's the point of it? What's the point?"
Well, this is the point, that there is hope,
there's got to be ways that this can be done.
You know, no issue is permanent.
There's got to be a way out of it.
This is too dangerous to be not speak about it.
It could happen to another child.
We just need to get it right.
What I want people to understand
is that it takes a village to raise a child.
What's happening with young people
is they are burning down that village
cos they're not feeling the embrace of that place.
And I'm inviting you to be part of this village,
and play into it, and invest in our young people.
There's a bigger picture that needs looking at.
Everybody deserves a chance at the end of the day,
and it is about that chance.
It's a no-brainer to me, to be honest.
I value life a lot more now.
There's some beauty in the world for me...
..that wasn't there before.