News

Two deaths of young men in London through knife crime

Monday 10th May 2010

We at Leap were shocked and saddened to hear of the loss of two young men in London on separate incidents within the last week.

Nicholas Pearton, 16, from Sydenham in south London, was fatally stabbed by a group of young people at a recreation ground on Wednesday. Marcin Bilaszewski, 19, who lived in Tottenham, north London, was killed outside Finsbury Park tube station on Saturday night. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Nicholas and Marcin at this time.

The terrible shame of these two crimes is that they did not need to happen. Leap’s experience, gained over 20 years, is that young people at risk of getting caught up in this kind of violence can be supported to make different choices in their lives. With the right skills and resources young people can learn how to manage conflict constructively and can become forces for positive change in their communities.

Leap Confronting Conflict is currently working in partnership with a number of agencies that are finding solutions around the current and persistent use of knives and weapons by young people. Fear and Fashion, our Tackling Knives programme works with young people at risk of using and carrying knives in the London borough of Westminster. Young people are trained in conflict awareness and knife prevention skills and go on to train other young people in the borough. Since the programme began three years ago only one young person has reoffended.

Leap has recently released a short film which showcases this project, highlighting the need and demonstrating our practical work training young people in conflict resolution skills. The film is available here.

In Enfield, police credit Leap’s work to a 53% reduction across the borough in crime committed by young people.

In Glasgow, Leap is a key partner of the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence (CIRV) project set up to address gang violence in the city. We have trained over 60 practitioners from various agencies including Strathclyde police, health agencies, social services, education, community safety, housing and local voluntary groups, and there has been an impressive 49% decrease in violence within the group of 368 young people who have so far committed to the CIRV project.
Working with schools, community groups, youth groups and urban estates, Leap provides training to equip young people to become peer leaders and peacemakers, often in extremely challenging environments, to prevent youth violence in our schools and communities.
Leap believes that young people are the future. Through an increase in our work in schools and communities across the UK, we can work to make a significant reduction in knife-related crime amongst young people, and help prevent the terrible tragedies of the last week.