Reframing the Southport killings as being about knife availability

[Macrodatarefiner]

AIBU to think that's the least of it?

I can't stop thinking about it, it's so horrific. The poor families and neighbours and everyone involved or touched by this. Hearing it said that its somehow Amazon's fault sounds completely absurd to me. He produced ricin for goodness sake, if he didn't get the knife from Amazon it would have been somewhere else. This incident should (and will I believe) change history. And it has NOTHING to do with where or how he got hold of a knife.

Those who are experts in youth knife crime say that the type of knives that are available are a contributory factor in the decision to carry a knife amongst young people.

I think it is wise to listen to those who are working in the field - the charities and bereaved parents working in this area know so much more than you do.

The tough reality is about schools is that the police very rarely prosecute knife carriers in them. This covers a lot of teenage boys.

Even then, their chances of going to prison are very small. I think that should change myself.

Not the government then.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/07/staggeringly-high-number-of-people-with-autism-on-uk-prevent-scheme

Starmer too. He's government:

Writing in the Sun, Starmer said: “It remains shockingly easy for our children to get their hands on deadly knives. The lessons of this case could not be clearer.
“Time and again, as a child, the Southport murderer carried knives. Time and again, he showed clear intent to use them. And yet, tragically, he was still able to order the murder weapon off the internet without any checks or barriers. A two-click killer. This cannot continue.
“The technology is there to set up age verification checks, even for kitchen knives ordered online. We must now use it to protect our children from future attack and I will ensure that this happens.”

( The Guardian )

His father stopped him getting a taxi on one occasion when he on his way to kill kids at school. Why didn’t he report him? Why didn’t his family tell authorities he was becoming dangerous?

I understand the father reported to the Police 4 times in the prior 6 months. They told parents to lock away their knives or something ridiculous.

Source - Guardian

It's a multi factorial tragedy that requires a multi factorial response.

We need to do something about psychopathy in this country and decide whether we detain people who are 'a risk' without any criminality having occurred.

His parents... I mean I feel for them... but they had a library of terror resources in their house? Were they just spewing this to happen under their roof?

Schools, social services and police... they need support to deal with violent and potentially violent young people. The mainstream setting is simply not suitable for all.

Knife crime is real. We need to address it as a public health issue.

Violence against women and girls is real. We need to make it when we see it and address it as society.

Sincere condolences to everyone affected by this unspeakable tragedy.

Guns and knives are very different though, on the whole. I don't think the same arguments apply.

Guns have one purpose - to kill.

Knives have several purposes. Their main purpose is not to be a weapon or to kill.

There should be additional restrictions on the ease of access to the larger knives, machete style knives, zombie knives, etc. But most people will own a number of sharp knives - their purpose will be primarily for cooking and eating purposes.

This is relevant

Stan Reiz KC, defending, told the court: “For offences of such wickedness, the mitigation that I can meaningfully advance on behalf of the defendant is limited.”
Reiz said: “There is no psychiatric evidence before the court that could suggest that a mental disorder contributed to the defendant’s actions.*

In other words he had a full understanding of what he did.

I see children of 11-14 who carry knives and are caught at school regularly. A school will exclude them but there is rarely other action taken - Prevent uninterested unless there is a bigger picture related to suspected radicalisation (there usually is not at this point), police are loathe to prosecute, social services will only get involved if there are other family issues, CAMHS only if there are perceived mental health issues (and the waiting list is 18 months here for an initial appointment).
Usually, they are permanently excluded and end up in a PRU or if they have an EHCP, a special school, more rarely they go to another secondary school if it is thought it might work.
I think people would be astonished at how common knife carrying and violence is.
Occasionally, if it is completely out of their usual behaviour range and there is a reason (eg they were genuinely scared or showing it off to a friend), I have known schools allow them to stay on the condition that they are brought to the building by a parent and they and their bag are searched every morning before they are allowed into the building and can be subject to random searches during the day. I have never known a child in this group repeat offend because they are decent children who have done something stupid with no intention of using a knife. Their parents are usually horrified and completely supportive of the school.

However, that is not always the case where the child who brought the weapon intended to do harm. I once dealt with a 14 year old boy who stole a hammer and a screwdriver from DT and was seen doing it. He was brought to my office and they were in his bag. He admitted it and said he intended to attack the teacher at the end of the lesson. He was very calm. I called the police and after the police arrived we called his parents- they arrived screaming, threatening me and the teacher physically for 'picking on him' and ended up being arrested by the police too. He was permanently excluded but for months I parked right next to Reception because I was so sure the dad would come back for me. They were not psychologically disturbed, just local thugs with a long crime record. The police told us later they had moved to south of the Tyne, much to my relief.

They probably did. From experience it is hard to get anyone to listen when you say you are worried about the things your child says or does. They just recommend a parenting course!

He'd concocted ricin. A knife happened to be his weapon of choice that day. He could have taken a kitchen knife, so the Amazon point is moot.

The prevent angle and ricin surely point to radicalisation and terrorism. That's the issue that should be focused on IMO.

Umm, yes. Obviously. " we" pay for everything anyway, so I'd quite like our money to be put to better use. Would you not?

Couldn't Prevent have alerted other services (the police, social services) about the danger posed by this individual even if he didn't qualify as a terrorist threat? or maybe they did and no one took any notice?

We seem to hear "multi agency failure" in many cases of appalling loss of life.

Which makes me ask why are these multi agencies acting in silo and not more effectively linked. We live in the digital age, what better use does it have?

The definition of terrorism that Prevent was working under required their to be an over-arching ideology, religion etc. There wasn’t one here. There’s a guardian article on it.

Yes, I can see that, but didn't they see what a threat he was? not a terrorist one, sure, but he was researching how to commit mass murder, after all!

@LuluBlakey1 I don’t have sympathy for ANY dc carrying a knife! This is where we have become too accepting. I worked as an Education Officer in the dark ages and this would have been a serious offence. We now seem to say it’s ok because ——- you film in the reasons. It’s not ok.

I guess we need more secure special schools! Anyone carrying knife into school goes to one. It’s a horrible punishment but there needs to be a tough stance on this now. We are putting up with such stupid and dangerous dc. We need to make all of them understand there are consequences to carrying a knife.

Absolutely!

You've missed out the major one - the internet. It has emboldened and enabled psychopaths to act out their violent sadistic fantasies.

But there are not consequences. Even if you do get prosecuted for carrying, the time spent in a YOI is going to be in order of months. Carry a knife in school and it's very unlikely school or the police will act,

And you have to be prosecuted to start with. The court system has huge delays.

Only children who have an EHCP can go to a Special School.

I don't have sympathy for any DC carrying a knife but have seen small 11 year olds who have brought one because:

1. He was going on a field trip to the coast and thought it might be useful to collect shells - he was caught because he showed it to the teacher and told her
2. He was scared of a boy who was bullying him on the way home- the other boy admitted it. His friend told a teacher he had it and that he was scared because he knew he shouldn't have taken it out of the kitchen at home.
3. It was his grandad's pearlised handled knife and his grandad had given him it (but told him he must never take it out of the house) and he wanted to show it to his friend.The teacher saw them looking at it in Registration.

None of them were criminals and I really think treating them as criminals would not have helped. Their parents were furious with them, the police were involved, they were fixed-term excluded and all had search sanctions in place on their return and work done with them by the school and community police officer. There were no further issues.

They are very different to children bringing knives because they carry one all the time or because they intend to harm a member if staff/ another student/s and already have records of aggressive, uncooperative, disturbing behaviour

Can George Osborne and David Cameron have had any real idea what they were doing when they dreamt up "austerity" as a way to "balance the books"? When they withdrew funding from education, schools, mental health services, youth services, the police, from Sure Start, from local authorities....the list goes on an on.

You'd have to hope they didn't or couldn't realise.