Original subtitles

Faz, what's happening? My G, how are you?

Yeah, who's that?

Oh, it's Idris.

I'm good, man. I'm good. How are you?

What's happening?

You good?

You been busy?

Yeah.

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 rambles that a lot of the people use.

Yeah. Like, these cost like ten as they just... Ten pounds.

But we've got weapons that the tubes just can't facilitate.

Yeah. But look.

You know what I mean?

Oh my God. These are the kind of weapons that we're trying to get banned.

Knife crime is a heartbreaking problem and in the past 10 years has almost

doubled.

I'm Idris Elba and a few years ago I became involved in the fight against

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.

Wear your keys, wear your phone, wear your knife.

And get everyone talking about the challenges ahead.

So we can all push those in power to take action.

And find real solutions.

It is the most rewarding job I've done since being in the police.

In 19 years.

It definitely worked.

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

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.

I 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 the last five years, my focus has been on campaigning to raise awareness

push for solutions.

But to be effective, we need to understand why some people were choosing

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 running off 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.

Police are appealing for information after the fatal stabbing of 16 -year

Harry Pittman, who'd 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.

We often assume all sorts of things about those who get involved in knife

But is there a type?

Taylor. Hi, mate.

Lovely to meet you.

Nice to meet you, Taylor. 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. It feels like he's here.

You could spot Harry a mile off. He had bright orange hair.

He's younger, by the way. Yeah.

Harry at school.

He was at college. He was studying law.

He wanted to do something in that sort of field.

Yeah. He's a very clever, very clever boy. He's a smart boy.

Yeah. That's heartbreaking.

You know, I would be in bits all the time. I have my days. I do have my days.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sure of that.

But was it just a beef? Was it a fight?

All we know is there was some sort of altercation, and within that

Harry was stabbed and killed. Yeah.

The boy, same age as my brother. Really? 16 -year -old.

I hate to say it, but people think it's a race thing.

Exactly. That was the first thing that came out when Harry was killed. 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 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,

and Sussex.

But the worst affected area over the past two years is the West Midlands.

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 Damien. 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's quite significant. Something happened here,

Yeah, we had a 19 -year -old lad, Sean C. Sahai, sitting over on that bench

there. And then two other lads, 12 years old, approached him and they were

carrying a machete.

Ah, 12 -year -old. Yeah.

I mean... They've had a row.

Next thing you know,

Sean'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, in any way this is, like, postcode or gang -related, but, you

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. Wow.

That's the machete? That's the machete.

I mean, look at that thing.

Yep.

My son's ten.

Yep. 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. You know, you're crossing the

a bit. But at the same time, it was more the grim reality of where we're at

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 act of

starting a campaign to speed up changes to law. We'll join 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

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

to say.

To put it quite simply, I had many different offers involved in 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

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 reach 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.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

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 is 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 result to knife -carrying that's almost glamorised in certain

spaces.

Answer me. 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?

That was the standard.

Carrying was pretty normal.

Pretty normal.

Wear your keys, wear your phone, wear 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 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.

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 is tougher sentencing, there'll be less knife crime.

For sure.

I can understand where 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.

Come on in.

Nice to meet you, man. Nice to meet you, man. Thanks for meeting me.

Do you mind me asking how long you've been in?

Oh!

Two and a bit months.

Why are you in?

For a stabbing. Stabbing? Yeah, GVH.

How old are you?

I'm 17. 17?

Yeah.

When was the first time you held a knife?

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 is messy, to be honest with you.

And my dad used to have mad anger. She used to go making no money, coming home,

taking it out and whatever.

Right. How was school life for you?

No, school life was shit.

I was so old.

I was so old, like, I started getting mega bullied. I used to get really bad

dandruff, and people used to, like, 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, but in a certain way. So I sort of felt the need to become

person, do you know what I mean?

Yeah, 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... Yeah. ..just thinking around the time...

When I had a knife, I felt like I could do anything and I felt like I was a god,

do you know what I mean? Nobody can touch me. It makes you the bad man in

situation, do you get it?

But then push comes to shove and you end up using it.

All of a sudden, do you know what I mean? The stuff becomes real.

I have a really good relationship with a lot of boys. I think they can genuinely

see what 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? Because that's one

things I'm trying to understand.

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.

This is our feeling.

Who's there? Who's there? Who's there?

Who's there? Who's there? Who's there? Who's there? Who's there?

Who's there?

Three months this time.

Unfortunately, I've been in five different prisons before my 18th

Wow. Yeah.

For anyone that has an experience with knife crime, the end goal is to not have

to be in those situations anymore.

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 time? Yeah, literally.

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 beats violence.

For people coming into prison, this is the last part of the journey.

There's lots and lots of systems and processes that fail 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

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'd been cast away from society.

I just had this overwhelming feeling that somewhere along the line, if

someone had intervened earlier, these prisons would be emptier. You have this

sort of like, you know, take my belt off and beat them.

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

Wolverhampton when he was attacked from behind by the two teenagers wielding a

sword and a large machete.

Ronan was 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 life.

Thinking is 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.

Because I'm looking at him.

It's nice pictures of him.

Yeah.

And that's my last Mother's Day.

With my son.

That is your typical Ronan, that is.

He was a joker.

I was 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 I would lie here and say, push, don't move up.

And he was like, Mom.

And I said, no, no, let me just have a quick cuddle.

And then I'll just have a quick cuddle with him and 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 that 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.

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, an 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's 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.

This is a moment where we could sort of red flag and say, here's 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 exclusion 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 experienced a bit of domestic violence here 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...

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 frontline

policing.

When you're frontline policing, on response, you turn up with your lights

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... ..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.

What's this?

There were 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.

I just didn't see longevity in revenge.

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

crimes. Every time I do something for knife crimes, 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 and that'd be amazing. Do you

know I mean?

Okay, so what we're gonna do is we'll examine them we just want to make sure

that none of the other things we have interest in copier a Young person finds

hard to walk into a police station and drop a knife off, you know Managed to

pick up five thousand weapons over thousands of people

No one's ever been arrested.

No one's ever gone 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 justice.

extending a ban on zombie knives and machetes to include a ban on ninja

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 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 heal, Can you please

pay attention?

Then I'm going to do that.

Hello. Hi.

Good morning.

How are you? Good to see you. I'm very well. Hi, everyone. How are you doing?

Thank you.

How have you been?

Do you know the families we've got around the town? Yeah, I've met most of

yeah.

All of them have got experiences that they need to share and things that can

done. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. You can say, shut up and just... We're

going to pay for it.

It's a lot of money. How are we going to pay for it? Well, the way we've said to

pay for it at the moment is...

to get very long on tax status and crack down on terms of wages. We can make a

pot of money on it.

Right. As you turn this corner, you're on camera soon to turn left.

Thank you. Thank you.

Hey. Hello.

Hi, guys. How are you?

How are you? You OK? Good to see you.

We can't keep on meeting families and having a version of the same

We've got to change the system.

That's really important. That's the spirit of it.

This doesn't stop. We're going to keep going and we have to hold the

whatever government it is, accountable.

I feel like a bit of a prop, a bit of an imposter.

Out of everyone on that table...

I stand out. 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

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.

Shamir. 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

possessions, we're trying to move 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, Idris, and said, how are you

He said, no -one's ever asked me that.

No -one's ever asked them, how are you?

how are you so for me it's basics man like basics especially for growing up in

dysfunctional family so nurturing is very important it's really important

here is a program we're now working a multi -agency approach that gets our

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

foremost right yeah why is this happening poverty

is number one at the forefront of 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 that was stabbed

multiple times.

in the 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 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?

Okay, 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

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

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?

You just follow me?

So, like, people at home watching this documentary will be like, wait, how are

we here?

Obviously, people definitely don't expect this at all. I mean, it's not

to see a South Londoner just chilling around horses in a yard.

So, let me ask you, like, how's your upbringing lead you to where you are

I had, like, a mentor for over ten years.

My mentor, he's provided to me by a youth service I used to go to on a

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, yeah. You know what I mean? And it's like, if

you're in an environment where all you're being role -modelled and taught

wrong, then if that's what you know, that's what you're going to do, do you

what I mean? Yeah, 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. No, 100%, 100%. These are the reasons why I'm 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

going to do ain't bringing nobody back.

If I didn't have a role model like him, my life would look very different.

Jamal, you know, he's a lovely kid, and this step intervention has really

changed the life around him. 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

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 soapbox.

Someone's got to take advantage of the reach.

And I have those.

About to head into the palace to see the king.

I'm always sort of thankful for him setting up the Prince's Trust,

Like, it's changed lives. It 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, she's got a letter.

It was a white envelope, handwritten, Idris Elba Esquire, and it had the Royal

Seal on it.

I was like, no way, opening 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.

The king is going to actually come and greet you at the car.

What? Yeah.

They're going to open the door and he's going to be there, which is why we

cannot be late.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

Any sign?

There's a lot of traffic.

Are you going to brief me about the door, sir? Yes, I'm waiting for you to

arrive.

It's been such a

difficult... nut to crack, hasn't it?

Yeah, it really is. The campaigning continues. I'm so thankful they have

ear. I've always believed that as an adolescent, what you really need is

channeling 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 be the great ambition now should be to be able to go into, you

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 realize 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, that there was a moment where

the king and young people and Idris all sat around the table.

That's what we need to see.

The media have a massive role to play in this because they've got the loudest

soapbox amongst us all.

And I'm just like... I'm very hopeful right now.

This government has been elected to deliver nothing less than national

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 the Knife

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

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, six years ago, I started to speak up and say something.

Five years later, six years later, though, unfortunately, we're still

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 let's hold ourselves to talk.

My name is Pooja Kanda. I'm here today to tell you about my beautiful son from

then. Rona 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 hurt.

And that's good. That's good that I was there and was able to express myself.

And I hope the government listens.

To the House of Commons, where Labour's first budget for 14 years will be

delivered by the Chancellor, Rachel Reeve.

As Reeve is expected to say, her priority is to invest, invest, invest.

The interventions that I've been learning about, the hospitals, the

community, they all cost money.

The government says the budget's tight.

We get it. But it's not just about asking for more funding. It's about what

do with the money there is.

Fame, knives, end lives, knives, get you sent to prison, everybody carrying a

knife. knows that everybody involved in the fight knows that so we all need to

do our best to identify who's at risk help them with showing them that there

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

be involved in.

Moved into my nan's, got kicked out there because of the stuff I was

in.

My school, I got kicked out there and then I was out of school for a year.

I have autism and ADHD.

I didn't know that, so it makes it hard to speak.

21.

In Coventry, the police are piloting a new approach that seems to have

potential. It's called SERV.

SERV is the Community Initiative to Reduce Violence.

They're seeking out teenagers they suspect are on a path that leads to

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

that the majority of them don't want to be in, but 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

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, et cetera.

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.

How are you?

I'm good, you?

I'm all right. I can't complain.

I know that you've been working with Laura and the CERB team for a little

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 CERB programme, I had no confidence in

And, like, well, she helped me out a lot.

Yeah, it's helped me a lot.

It's helped me a lot.

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.

And it's hard to. It's proper hard to. 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 staring.

What?

Now you're chatting. Now you're chatting. Now you're chatting, Laura.

Come on. You set me up.

What team?

Villa. Villa? Yeah.

He's my great -grandad.

All my life, I've loved football.

I'm joining the 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 is

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, 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

terms of qualifications, and one of them could be a coaching qualification.

And he'd 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?

Me off, Laura.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Really nice meeting you. Thank you.

What was great is coming here and seeing a version of hope with the Serve

program.

You know, the Serve program actually really ticks a lot of the boxes that

been talking about.

And then with stories like Jaden, 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 is

struggling, who's, you know, he's just this far away from going back to his old

roots, and then he's got this program that can help him, right?

And that's... I guess, you know, when people watch this film,

so what's the point of it? What's the point? Well, this is the point, that

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.

because 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.