Knife crime: 'There is a war going on in the UK'

"There is a war going on in the United Kingdom. If we don't do anything, things are going to get bad."

Michael, who has just been released from prison after serving a sentence for stabbing a man, is speaking to me at location I cannot reveal as he is worried about reprisals.

In April 2022, the then gang member attacked a rival on a busy shopping street in Maidstone. "I stabbed him three times. Luckily, he didn't die," he explains.

The 24-year-old from south London went on to plead guilty to wounding with intent to do grievous bodily harm and was jailed for two years and eight months.

Reflecting on his attack, he explains to me why he did it.

"He beefs my crew, so I have to stab him so people can respect me," Michael says.

When he was arrested three days later, he realised that "respect" meant nothing - he was alone in a cell, while the world outside moved on without him.

"Be ready to sit in a prison cell for hours and hours and hours, while people forget about you," he says.

Michael was a member of a south London gang for most of his teenage years.

There were a number of factors that led him towards that life, he says. When his father went to prison, he says his attendance at school dropped.

As his mother worked long hours, she was unaware he was not going to school.

He also describes how his family was struggling financially. "There's no food in the fridge, no electricity for one week. You are 15, thinking you have to provide for your family," he says.

He explains how he got in with a group of youngsters who thought gang life was "cool" and offered respect in a world that gave them very little.

In order to join the gang, he had to have something to offer, whether it be money or clout in the area.

Michael says he offered the gang "recklessness" and would buy knives for the group, which included anything from machetes to zombie knives.

He says he would conceal them in his tracksuit bottoms as he walked around the streets. He would also keep a folding knife in his pocket.

"I could walk past you now, and you would have no idea that I was carrying one."

As a teenager he also got into drill music under the name WoolyO. But his videos put a target on his back, he says, and led to him being targeted in a "honeytrap", which is a tactic frequently used by gangs.

It involves an individual or individuals who assume a false identity to cultivate a relationship with the target online.

In this instance, Michael says a woman lured him to a hotel where members of a rival gang were hiding.

"I look across. I just see 10 people emerging, running after me, trying to kill me."

A mother told BBC London that a similar thing happened to her son.

She said he has had a target on his back since their local council moved them from one borough to another, crossing postcodes.

"He can't walk down the street," she said. "If someone was to see him, they will stab him. His life is in danger."

Between March 2024 and February 2025, the Metropolitan Police recorded 15,182 incidents of knife crime, up 2.7% on the previous 12 months.

The force also recorded 1,958 gun crime offences between March 2024 and February 2025, up 31.9% on the previous 12 months.

The Met said this rise in gun crime was due to changes in crime recording, with the rise driven predominantly by low level threats including non-lethal barrelled weapons and no discharges.

Across England and Wales, excluding Greater Manchester, there were around 50,500 offences involving a sharp instrument recorded in the year ending March 2024.

This was 4.4% higher than in 2022/23 and 2.8% lower than in 2019/20.

London's deputy mayor for policing and crime, Kaya Comer-Schwartz, said: "Thanks to the mayor's proactivity, homicides, gun crime lethal barrel discharges and the number of young people being injured with knives have all fallen in London since 2016.

"Last year there were fewer homicides of people under 25 in London than any year since 2003. But we are far from complacent and there's much more to do."

She added that Sir Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, had led a public health approach to tackling violence through England's first Violence Reduction Unit.

Since Michael's release from prison, two teenagers have been killed in attacks in London.

Kelyan Bokassa, 14, was stabbed on a London bus in Woolwich in January, while 16-year-old Lathaniel Burrell was shot in Stockwell on 4 March.

Michael wants to help prevent such deaths.

He hopes to encourage young people to reject gang life, which he believes "makes no sense".

He says he thinks very few youngsters actually know why they are attacking each other.

The south Londoner is calling on older gang members to stop using teenagers to do their "dirty work".

He also wants the government to start investing more in families who are struggling in the UK, rather than in conflicts overseas.

Mark Rodney, from Project Lifeline, said he is talking to older gang members in the hope of saving younger lives.

"Our aim is to get the older generation of these guys around the table to discuss ways forward for each individual gang," he said.

"Children are dying. If survival is your game, don't let killing be your legacy."

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