In 2019, Idris Elba decided he could no longer remain silent on the subject of knife crime. The actor had seen a news story about a teenage girl being stabbed to death in an East London park and it prompted him to make an impassioned video in which he urged young men to put down their knives.
Six years on, knife crime is still rising – with four people a week losing their lives to it – and Idris has become heavily involved in trying to find solutions. While the challenges of the task make him frustrated and emotional at times, he remains driven by optimism that positive change is possible. The Luther star, and dad of three, says he’s entered the “noisy” phase of his campaign, which is why he’s made a hard-hitting BBC documentary to highlight the problems and flag some potential answers.
On the day we meet, he has watched the finished film for the first time, and admits it made him weep. There’s no denying that the stark facts and warnings make it a tough watch, but it also contains success stories in which youngsters are helped to turn away from knives with the help of mentors, schemes and interventions. He is hoping it might galvanise some viewers into action. “I wouldn’t mind a big old debate,” he says. “We need to be screaming it now – this is a call to action. This is an opportunity to really look at the slices of perspective on offer. Some you will agree with, some of you won’t, but at least get engaged.”
As ever, finance is a key issue and he and other campaigners were left disappointed when there was no increase to youth funding offered in the current budget. “Needless to say, without funding, without real focus, it’s going to get worse,” he sighs. But spending the cash that IS available wisely is also crucial. “We live in a data-driven world and there are stats that tell you this works, that doesn’t work. Let’s really look at that and figure out if we’re spending the money in the right place.”
Idris, who grew up in the London borough of Hackney and got his big break in US series The Wire, says he was spurred into action because he always felt he was one of the lucky ones. At school, a drama teacher was impressed by his talent and told him he was going to be a good actor – which set him on the right path, but he feels he could just as easily have taken a different turn. “I was like, ‘What, acting? I just like you, miss. I just like coming to your class. I can’t be an actor.’ She’s like, ‘Why not?’ Fourteen years old, I was swayed. Could have been someone saying to me, ‘Bro, you can make a lot of money if you just pushed this little bag for me.’ Could have been swayed the same way.”
With this in mind, he thinks that early intervention using schemes and mentors is the key to success when it comes to knife crime – catching kids at risk before they get caught up in gangs. “I do think that if we catch them young enough, we’ve got an opportunity to intervene and show them a different life. There’s four people next week that we might be able to save.”
One of the positive case studies features 16-year-old Jayden from Coventry, who was mentored by female cop Laura Cuthbertson. He had carried a knife since the age of 12 after being “jumped” by 20 boys. The quiet teen, who has previously undiagnosed ADHD and autism, has blossomed in Laura’s care, which has seen him training as a football coach. “There’s some beauty in the world for me now that wasn’t there before,” he says.
Idris admits the words moved him to tears. “His experience of the world was always challenging,” the actor says. “No one picked up on that, so he put his fist up and his knife eventually. And then comes a policewoman who says, ‘Hold on, let me help you.’ He didn’t even want to talk to her, but he did, eventually. Now at the end of that film when he talks, he’s not what people think knife crime is, a kid from Coventry. But he says there’s hope. I saw it today and I was moved. I was in tears.”
The statistics highlighted in the film are troubling. Idris believes that many people see knife crime as a problem for ethnic minorities, but 69% of those convicted for carrying a knife in the UK are white and knife crime is on the rise in rural areas. “It isn’t just a black and brown problem,” he says. “I think that’s important because we need to look at it like COVID. It can affect everybody.”
He thinks the country is becoming desensitised to attacks taking place in the capital, with our conversation happening just days after 14-year-old Kelyan Bokassa was knifed more than 25 times on his way home from school in south London. “If that young kid who got stabbed on the bus in Woolwich happened in a small seaside town, it would’ve actually caused a lot more media attention, unfortunately,” he says.
Changes also need to be made by the big tech companies, with 50% of young people saying that social media serves to normalise knife carrying. “There needs to be accountability within their own policies, (which) need to be driven by what society deems as right or wrong. We’re not going to tolerate you advertising knives to young people, please. It can be done.”
In the film, when Idris visits Feltham Young Offenders Institution to speak to teens with convictions, he finds the threat of prison is not working as a deterrent, because 30% reoffend – with the highest rates among those aged 10 to 17. The governor tells him that by the time the boys are locked up, it’s often too late to turn their lives around. “It just felt like they were banged up and no one cares,” he says. sadly. “It did feel like we’ve just turned our back on them. We’re expecting them to come out of there ready to get back into society. It was really educational for me.”
th the annual cost of imprisonment at Feltham an eye-watering £120k, he would like to see a move towards the Scottish system, which prioritises rehabilitation. “I do think that intervention is better than prevention. And it’s definitely cheaper.”
School exclusions have doubled in the past decade as headteachers struggle with funding cuts and he feels there’s a direct link between that and the number of kids getting involved in knife crime – with 75% of victims also perpetrators. “Exclusion is definitely linked to some of the numbers we’re seeing in prison. I think if we really sat down and examined where the money goes into our education system, literally line by line, I think we’ll find that we can be smarter.”
With zombie knives successfully being banned from going on sale last year, he’d like to see machetes and Ninja swords added to the list – it’s too late for Ronan Kanda, who was killed with a 20-inch Ninja sword in a case of mistaken identity in June 2022, but his mother Pooja is part of the fight to ensure no parent ever has to suffer as she has.
His talks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer were fruitful, Idris says. “At the beginning of the campaign, I was hopeful, but that sounds naive. Now I’m optimistic that I’ve recognised some intervention schemes that actually work, and I’m optimistic that we can put our heads together and get them going.” He feels that Starmer is listening. “He has made it very clear that he wants to half knife crime in ten years. That is a target. Whether we reach it or not, at least it gives me optimism that we’re going to work towards it.”
Idris, the only child of a father from Sierra Leone and Ghanaian mother, said his shock over knife crime exploded when he returned to England after working in the US. Admitting that he finds celebrities getting involved in politics “annoying sometimes” he stresses that doing nothing was no longer an option. “I looked around and no one is piping up. Nobody was saying anything.”
In 2019, he’d heard about the murder of Jodie Chesney, a 17-year-old stabbed in a park in east London. “I’ve got three kids, one of them’s a girl, and it broke my heart. I just was like, ‘What is going on?’” In the video he posted in anger that day, Idris declares: “You’re just going to stab your future if you go and stab someone else”. Six years on, let’s hope more people are listening.
– Idris Elba: Our Knife Crime Crisis, BBC1, 9pm (Weds 29 Jan)
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