Knife Crime: West Midlands

Wendy Morton Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Suzanne Webb]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very powerful intervention. Again, I completely agree. The intention had always been that the police and crime commissioner role and the mayoral role would be a combined role, and I cannot think of anyone more fitting than our current Mayor, Andy Street, to pick up that combined role. His heart and his passion in the community, as someone who understands that community so well, mean that he would do an absolutely amazing job, and I really cannot believe that he would find any part of this situation acceptable if it had happened under his watch.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for securing this debate. On that specific point about the complete lack of visibility of the police and crime commissioner, I can honestly say that we do not see him in Aldridge-Brownhills; he is not supporting our local campaign to keep the police station open. It was Andy Street who joined me in Aldridge, just a couple of weeks ago, at the launch of the first knife bin that has been installed through the work of the James Brindley Foundation. The Brindley family is another family that was tragically hit when their son was stabbed to death a number of years ago.

Does my hon. Friend agree that although the role of policing is hugely important and the role of Government is important, organisations such as the James Brindley Foundation have a really important place in the community for the work that they do, not just by providing knife bins but in terms of education and going into schools, which is a critical part of tackling the heinous problem of knife crime?

[Suzanne Webb]

I thank my right hon. Friend for making that point. I am keen to see early intervention. Where there is a failing police and crime commissioner, community groups seem to do a much better job of understanding and tackling the problem.

I am keen to ensure that we get into schools and local community groups. It would be fantastic to get perpetrators of the crime who have gone through the rehabilitation process to speak to young adults, and explain what it is like to go out with a knife, resulting in blood on their hands and ultimately a criminal record. They could explain that that is not a good thing. Equally, families of victims could speak to schoolchildren to explain that they have a choice: to carry a knife or not to carry a knife. If they carry a knife, they will be either the perpetrator or the victim.

On the point about the police and crime commissioner, one might criticise the two police and crime commissioners in post during this decade, which we do. That is reflected in the crime rate across the west Midlands at the moment. Knowing the Passey family so well, and being so close to the impacts of knife crime, I believe this is bigger than politics. Whoever is in post, we need to fix this and get a grip. Do not blame austerity, do not throw the political book at it, which I know the police and crime commissioner has done and would do; throw heart and commitment at stopping young adults carrying knives. That is what it is all about and what needs to be done.

This is skyrocketing crime and we need to stop it. We need to prevent more lives from being lost. Knife crime destroys lives and families, and it is blighting our communities. We need to take knives off our streets. Only yesterday, the chair of the West Midlands Police Federation called for a ban on the sale of machetes, as part of an all-out assault on knife crime. We need to listen to officers on the frontline. I would be happy to meet the Police Federation to hear more about what is happening on our streets.

[Wendy Morton]

Will my hon. Friend indulge me once more? She has talked about support for police, and she has raised many topics. Another area that is often thought about, especially when a crime has been committed, is the use of curfews. Does she agree that when the police recommend curfews to a local authority, it is important for local councillors to work hand in glove with the police to deliver these extra measures to help to protect our town centres and citizens?

[Suzanne Webb]

Again, I cannot but agree. I have just done a radio interview, prior to coming here, in which I talked about that. I completely agree that we need to bring together the community—councillors, councils and MPs—to talk about this.

The Government have already acted by making the west midlands one of four pilot areas for serious violence reduction orders, which involve stop and search. I thank them for that, and I look forward to hearing the outcome and results. I also welcome the news that the force is set to launch a serious youth violence strategy, which aims to reduce youth crime by focusing on early intervention. I support West Midlands police in doing that, and I would very much like to be part of it, if there is anything I can do to facilitate it.

As I mentioned, my constituents have been brilliant—there are two e-petitions relevant to this debate, asking for changes to the level of sentencing for knife crime, and I thank my constituents for their action on this. A knife bin has been installed in Stourbridge after the successful campaign by the Passey family. I have distributed bleed kits that were donated by the family to local clubs and pubs. More needs to be done to prevent from anyone wanting or feeling the need to carry a knife. I do not ever want another family to lose a loved one to knife crime in my constituency.

We have to ask the question: why do people carry a knife in the first place? The reasons are multifold: to be respected, to fit in, for protection or even with the intent to commit a heinous crime. It is also linked to gang crime. Many who carry a knife will have no premeditated intention of using it, but they may unintentionally end up doing so. The consequences are life changing. The stark truth is that a person is more likely to be stabbed with their own knife than anyone else’s. Let us not forget that anyone carrying a knife has a choice not to carry a knife.

I will touch on the relevance of social media as an aggravating factor in the perpetuation of knife crime. Last week, I met the parents of Olly Stephens, who told me their horrific story. Their story is well known in the public domain but, my goodness, it is more harrowing when one of the parents reads out in person exactly what happened, and the raw emotion of the impact profoundly affects those in the room.

Olly was stabbed to death by two teenage boys in a field behind their house in Reading, after a gang recruited a girl online to lure him there. The entire attack had been planned on social media and triggered by a dispute in a social media chat group. In the words of Olly’s father,

“They hunted him, tracked him, and executed him through social media.”

This is another family who watched their son leave home, not realising that it would be the last time they would see him alive. A much-loved son killed at the mercy of a knife, perpetuated by social media—another reason to detoxify the world of social media.

I have secured this debate to highlight the story of Ryan and the escalating level of knife crime in the west midlands, and to emphasise that I will not let go of Ryan’s story until justice is done. I realise that this falls outside the Minister’s brief, but I think it is important that I comment on the perverse verdict in Ryan’s case. The question is how we can accept our justice system is fair when we accept that juries can make mistakes and wrongly convict, and there is a mechanism to appeal a wrongful conviction; and yet we do not accept that the jury can make a wrongful acquittal decision, and there is currently no mechanism for appeal.

To put this in perspective, Ryan’s family have already pursued legal action against Kobe Murray and won. In a civil case in November 2021, the judge agreed with the family that Kobe Murray was found responsible for killing Ryan. It was a landmark judgment. Just prior to that, in October 2021, in another significant breakthrough, the West Midlands police agreed to open an independent review into the police investigation into Ryan’s death. The review is ongoing. I thank the West Yorkshire police for their diligence in exploring additional lines of inquiry, and I thank the deputy chief constable for the west midlands for making this happen. I hope that the Minister can help to signpost me to the correct Minister to continue those conversations with the family.

I never knew Ryan, but I knew of him, as the news of his death ricocheted across the west midlands. The moment I became an MP, it was a no-brainer that I wanted to help the family, but it was a hard slog trying to open the doors of bureaucracy to get people to listen to the injustice of Ryan’s death. It took 16 to 18 months for anyone in the West Midlands police force to listen to me and even try to have that conversation. One by one, however, the doors are now opening up.

It is now five years of injustice for the Passey family. I have got to know them well, and I consider them friends. When I see them—Ade, Jill, Phil, Debbie and Jason—[Interruption.]

[Wendy Morton]

My hon. Friend is telling so well the story of what happens, even for us as Members of Parliament, when a tragic event such as this takes place in our constituency and we go out and meet the family. They will owe a huge debt of gratitude to my hon. Friend for the way in which she is campaigning for them and seeking justice.

[Suzanne Webb]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that. When I am with Ryan’s parents, Ade and Jill, there is a moment every single time when I have to remind myself that every day, every hour, every minute and every second, they mourn the loss of their beloved son. They lost their only child to a heinous knife crime.

This year would have been Ryan’s 30th birthday. I will be joining his family and friends as they celebrate his heavenly birthday in April. I will support them to the end of the earth, and then some, until they get the peace they deserve, which is justice for Ryan. To those who carry a knife, the simple truth is that they will either be the perpetrator of a knife crime or the victim, and those who carry knives have a simple choice not to do so. There is one other important truth: Ryan was not carrying a knife. His life tragically got caught up in what is quickly becoming an escalating horror story of knife crime in the west midlands. I urge the police and crime commissioner and West Midlands police to do more to ensure that no other family suffers as much as the Passey family have had to, and still do.

[The Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire (Chris Philp)]

It is a pleasure, as always, to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Caroline. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) for securing this debate and giving such a powerful testimony about the terrible tragedies that she described. All of us here will want to remember the victims of the terrible crimes that she described: Ryan Passey, Cody Fisher, Bailey Atkinson, Akeem Francis-Kerr and Olly Stephens. Their deaths are a tragedy, and we will all want to remember them and convey to their families our very deepest sympathy. Every death is a tragedy, and each of them is mourned deeply by the families. It is our duty in public life to do everything that we can to try to protect families from similar tragedies occurring in the future.

[Wendy Morton]

The Minister is rightly naming a number of individuals. I would like him to acknowledge James Brindley—the son of Mark and Bev Brindley—who was stabbed to death in Aldridge, hence the James Brindley Foundation.