Protestors have demanded an increase in prison sentences for knife crimes.
Hundreds of people have marched through central London calling on the government to take more action to stop knife crime.
The march, which took place on December 7, was organised in honour of aspiring Olympian Tashan Daniel, 20, who was stabbed to death on September 24.
Protestors gathered at Marble Arch before heading for Whitehall to hear speeches on the issue. Organisers want to put tackling knife crime at the top of the political agenda.
Tashan’s father, Chandima Daniel, said the government should take action now to stop the knife crime: “We are fed up with hearing about another death due to knife crime.”
“We, as parents, have to take some responsibility for that, we have to talk to our children [that] carrying a knife is not only wrong, it’s unacceptable,” he said. “The pain and the destruction it causes are devastating.”
Leroy Logan MBE, a former superintendent in Metropolitan police, highlighted that the violence is worse than before but “it’s not inevitable and it can change.” He hoped that the march would put pressure on local MPs and the Home Secretary to take action and encouraged people to “come together in solidarity”.
According to the latest ONS statistics, knife crime has reached a record high with such crimes up 45 per cent since 2011.
There were 47,513 offences involving a knife, or sharp instrument, over the 12 months to June 2019.
The march organisers want the minimum sentence for carrying a knife extended to five years, which is also the minimum sentence for carrying a gun. At present, the minimum sentencing guidelines for knife crime is four months for those aged 16 to 17 years. The punishment sentence for such crimes for adults is six months.
Minister of Hillingdon Park Baptist Church, Rev Reg Craig, told Raven News that whilst the campaign is focused on London for now, it has the potential to become a nationwide movement.
“We are trying to get people to see that [knife] crime is abnormal,” he said. “Our society seems to see it as a normal thing today. Kids outside are thinking normal living is carrying a knife, and it is not.”
Rev Craig, who is a friend of the Tashan’s family and conducted Tashan’s funeral, added: “It’s not the society I grew up in.
“I was able to play safely in our streets,” he said. “Our country has turned into an unsafe place.”
Michelle West-Fazlollahi from Camden Against Violence, told Raven News before the march, that most London families believe the knife crime will not affect their children.
“Unfortunately, between the ages of eight to eleven, you are not criminally responsible,” she said. “So people exploit young children into gangs and get them to run drug rings, carry knives.”
“If this wasn’t an issue, I would not be in the school talking about it [knife crime].”
Liberal Democrat candidate for the upcoming Mayor of London election, Siobhan Benita, stood in solidarity with the protestors and said: “I am here as a Londoner, I am here as a mother. I absolutely agree with [that] we need looking at enforcement, looking at sentence and deterrent,” she said.
“And I agree with Leroy that we need to start looking at early intervention,” she added.
“All of us have to take responsibility for this now, listen to the victims,” Benita said, “and to make that much desperately needed change happened”.
Among the protesters were Susan Clifton and her friend, Maureen Senatore. They said that the Mayor of London should “give the police officers more power to stop-and-search”, as also highlighted in the petition of The Tashan Daniel campaign.