“I was in labour for 23 hours with him, yet it took less than four minutes to stab him to death,”

The mother of a teenager stabbed to death by a 15-year-old boy has called on the Government to tackle the “knife crime that seems to have taken over the streets of London”.

Yinka Bankole issued the emotional plea after her son’s killer was convicted of murder at the Old Bailey.  

Fola Orebiyi, 17, died after being knifed in the neck in Notting Hill last July. He had been out with a friend in Colville Square when the pair were approached by a group of boys who began abusing them.

A fight broke out during which a 15-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, jumped on Fola and fatally stabbed him.

His killer was convicted yesterday and will be sentenced next month.

In an emotional statement, Ms Bankole said her son’s death — and a spate of other knife killings in London, including the stabbing of  15-year-old Quamari Barnes outside the gates of Capital City Academy in Willesden — should prompt government action. 

Ms Bankole said her son had been “a vibrant and intelligent young man, with a bright future ahead of him”  and no gang or criminal background.

She added: “I was in labour for 23 hours with him, yet it took less than four minutes to stab him to death, while several youths stood there and didn’t ask for help or assist him, and Fola he bled to death.

“To me this is the most devastating moment of my life. Knowing that I wasn’t there to protect my son, I will have to live with that for the rest of my life. Yet to the system, just another figure added to the statistics.

“In an act that took less than four minutes, several lives were ruined, including that of the boy who has been found guilty of Fola’s murder.

"No length of time will be long enough for what he did. What are the Government doing about this knife crime that seems to have taken over the streets of London?

(Excerpt:January 2017)

Knife Crime - The Reality

KNIFE crime in England and Wales has leapt by as much as 90% in two years in some areas, according to new police data

In fact, the most common weapon used in a violent crime in England and Wales is not a gun - but a knife.

A TERRIFYING knife crime now takes place on the streets of Britain every EIGHT MINUTES

One in five MUGGERS now threatens victims with knives.

Street ROBBERIES in which a knife was used soared from 25,500 in 2005 to 64,000 in the year to April 2007.

On average a shocking 175 people are robbed at knifepoint every day up from 110 last year and 69 two years ago.

Areas with the biggest rises include Devon and Cornwall, Lincolnshire and Bedfordshire - all of which also saw steep increases in overall violence. The highest rise in knife crime was recorded by Nottinghamshire police. There, offences involving blades went up from 338 in 2002 to 650 last year - a rise of 92%. Last year there were 223 muggings using knives in the county a rise of 43% since 2002.

In Nottinghamshire the force said some criminals may be choosing knives rather than guns because of higher mandatory sentences for possession of firearms. Gun crime in the county has fallen by 30% in the past year.

At present, carrying a knife with a blade longer than 3in can lead to a four-year prison term or a fine. This contrasts with illegal possession of firearms, which carries a jail term of 5-10 years.

Recent studies have shown that there has been an increase in the number of knives being taken to school. According to a study by the Youth Justice Board, 300,000 of the country's 10m pupils regularly carry such weapons in school.

Areas with highest knife crime increases

Nottinghamshire: 2002-338; 2004-650; Rise 92%

Bedfordshire: 2002-79; 2004-113; Rise 43%

Devon & Cornwall: 2002-108; 2004-152; Rise 41%

Lincolnshire : 2002-402; 2004-497; Rise 24%

The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London recently conducted some deeper analysis of the available Home Office's statistics.

It concluded that between 22,000 and 57,900 young people could have been victims of knife crime in 2004. However, it says without better official data it is impossible to know for sure - and that we need that data to improve the public debate.

Knife violence in Britain is far worse than official statistics suggest, with almost 14,000 people taken to hospital for injuries caused by knives and other sharp weapons.

According to the latest Department of Health statistics, an average of 38 victims of knife wounds are admitted to accident and emergency departments across the country every day.

The latest statistics from hospitals in England alone highlight an 88 per cent jump in the number of children suffering stab wounds - from 95 in 2002-03 to 179 in 2006-07. And among 16- to 18-year-olds, there has been a 75 per cent rise from 429 to 752.

Most were not jailed, with just 14 per cent ending up in prison for little more than three months on average. Suspended sentences leapt from nine in 1997 to 552 in 2006

Dr Tunji Lasoye, A&E consultant at King's College Hospital, London said: "In a nutshell the numbers of stab victims coming into A&E have gone up. It used to be that we would see isolated cases at weekends, but now it is nearly every day of the week. And the age of the victims has gone down. We used to see people in their early 20s; now they are in their mid-teens. And 10 per cent of the victims we see now are girls, which wasn't the case a few years ago."

Stop and search key to London's battle with knife crime menace

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has told Sky News that stop and search operations could be stepped up in problem areas of the capital after a huge rise in knife crime.

Thirty people have been stabbed to death in London so far in 2017, a rise of almost a third from 23 during the same period in 2016.

In the last four weeks alone, there have been 14 deaths.

A record 300 knives were seized in seven days by officers across the capital.

Scotland Yard has set up a specialist task force to combat the problem, with community leaders claiming some children as young as six are carrying knives.

On a week in which there were three knife killings, Sky News gained exclusive access to the Met's elite gang units, tasked with getting knives and other dangerous weapons off the streets.

Plain-clothed officers in south and west London targeted known gang members and made several knife-related arrests.

Ms Dick said one of her biggest challenges as the UK's most senior officer was tackling knife crime, and indicated the likelihood that stop and search might have to be increased in the worst areas.

She told Sky News: "Stop and search is a very important tactic - it's a very important power for officers and has been hugely powerful in the fight so far against knife crime.

"Thousands and thousands of people have been stopped and successfully searched, where a knife has been recovered.

"So of course I want it to continue and if it increases, because that is the best way that people are finding to reduce knife crime, and to stop young people suffering life-changing injuries, or even being killed, then I will absolutely support it and explain why we've had an increase."

The Commissioner vowed to get to the root of knife crime as she visited a youth centre, where she met the family of 20-year-old Lewis Elwin, who was stabbed to death in Tooting, south London, in 2016.

His killer has not been caught.

His eldest brother, Byron Douglas-Letts, said: "It's frightening knowing someone can commit such an offence, such an act of violence, but yet no one has been caught, and this is just one case - these cases are popping up everywhere now."

(Excerpt from newspaper article)

Gang culture 'can affect schools'

Gang culture is still luring many young people into a life of crime and violence, a report has suggested.

A study for the NASUWT teachers' union found teenagers involved in gangs brought weapons into school and even wore stab-proof clothes for protection.

The study, which examined inner-city schools in London and Birmingham, said gangs were becoming more dangerous and involved children of a younger age.

But the government insisted the vast majority of schools were "very safe".

The report said gangs in schools usually stemmed from established issues in the wider community, rather than developing in schools themselves.

While not all schools had a problem, gang culture was a "significant concern" for those that did.

The research - carried out by the Perpetuity Group, a consultancy which specialises in reducing crime - found pupils often carried weapons or hid them in and around the school grounds.

"I can protect myself with a knife or a gun. I would rather be arrested than dead," one teenager told researchers.

Another said: "It's not a bad thing to bring a weapon into school - you might get attacked on the way to school, on the way back. It's protection."

And not all those pupils who carried a weapon did so because they were part of a gang.

"I will admit to owning a knife because I am scared of gangs," one youngster told researchers.

Gang culture

The report identified a number of factors as to why gangs continued to hold sway in communities.

Poor parenting skills, a lack of leisure and outside activities, deprivation, family breakdown and the absence of a father figure were all factors in the strength of the gang culture, the report said.

A lack of aspiration among youngsters growing up in deprived areas also had an impact on the choices they made.

And the financial gains associated with a gang culture were also thought to contribute to the ongoing presence and influence of gangs on young people.

"You are part of something if you belong to a gang," one young person told researchers.

"If you are in a gang you have back up in case you get into trouble," said another.

The report said schools alone could not tackle the complexities of gang culture.

'Common problem'

General secretary of the NASUWT, Chris Keates, said: "It is clear that gang problems need to be acknowledged by schools to enable them to be tackled head on.

"There is a real danger that some schools will be tempted to conceal or fail to address such problems for fear the reputation of the school will suffer.

"This is a common problem in relation to many behaviour issues and has to be tackled by government. Schools need to feel confident in dealing with these issues."

But the Department for Children, Schools and Families denied there was a major problem with gangs and a knife culture in schools.

A spokesman for the department said: "The vast majority of schools are very safe places and incidents with knives are incredibly rare.

"We do not see any need for pupils to be wearing stab-proof vests."

The Gang Rape Of A Girl Aged 14 Who Insulted A Hackney Gang Leader By 15 Boys

A judge ordered yesterday that seven teenagers who gang raped a 14-year-old girl in a brutal "punishment" attack should be identified in a bid to deter other young men from similar crimes.

Judge Wendy Joseph QC warned the defendants, some of whom were as young as 13 at the time of the incident, that they faced jail sentences for the attack in Hackney, east London, as the court heard that the victim been driven to attempt to kill herself.

She was singled out because she had insulted the leader of a local gang, the Kingzhold Boys, the prosecutor, Nicola Merrick, said. She was dragged by her hair between a succession of tower block stairwells and landings in an ordeal that lasted around an hour and a half.

She was taunted, hit, threatened and orally raped by an ever-growing crowd of teenagers summoned to the scenes by mobile phone. By the time they reached the final scene, 15 boys were present. Some of the attacks were filmed on phones and shown to others later that night.

Merrick asked for the order which usually bans the identification of juvenile defendants to be lifted. "Those young people who become members of gangs, should know the outcome of this trial, that they will not mete out punishments as a gang with impunity and not ultimately retain their anonymity." The judge lifted the order after hearing the crown argue that the community and public should know what had happened. "Naming and shaming is something this procedure is not designed for," Joseph said. "That's different from deterring others."

She left the order in place in relation to two others who were also convicted of rape because they were part of the gang, but did not actually assault the girl.

The seven who can be named are: O'Neil Denton, 16, the leader of the gang; Weiled Ibraham, 17; Yusuf Raymond, 16, and Jayden Ryan, 16, who were all convicted of rape, kidnap and false imprisonment, and Alexander Vanderpuije, 15; Jack Bartle, 16; and Cleon Brown, 15, all convicted of rape and false imprisonment. Denton, Ibraham and Raymond had all pleaded guilty.

The two who cannot be named are now aged 14 and 16. They will all be sentenced on Monday.

Reading from a victim impact statement, Merrick told the court the victim said her life had been turned upside down. She now lived in a police safe house out of the area and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

The girl said in the statement: "I feel like a prisoner, having to look over my shoulder everywhere I go. I used to find the unexpected fun. Now the unexpected is frightening and not exciting like it used to be."

She also blamed herself for not doing more to resist the attacks by screaming and fighting back, but was frozen with fear, the court heard.

'Being raped by a gang is normal – it's about craving to be accepted'

A female former gang member has exposed the growing levels of sexual violence against young women who join them, saying that many are willing to risk being raped in return for the status of membership.

Isha Nembhard, who was part of an 80-strong gang in Peckham, south London, said some girls readily accepted that they would be sexually abused when associating with male gangs.

The 20-year-old said that the problem had reached a point where being raped was becoming "normalised" among many young women. "Girls who are getting treated very badly know what they are getting into. They sleep with a boy and the boy asks if she will sleep with all his friends.

"It's about low self-esteem and a craving for attention. Even if they know it's wrong, they will do anything to get acceptance," she said.

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"A lot of girls are sort of prostituting themselves to have sexual relationships within a gang and get treated in a bad way. For example, she might know about what happens to girls in the gang but still sleeps with all of them just for the status."

Nembhard, who was a teenage drug dealer, said that even those who are abused and called "pieces of shit" by gang members maintained sexual relationships with them because they felt "that they couldn't do better".

Social networking sites like Facebook had, she added, helped to encourage promiscuity among young women. "You've got young girls exposing themselves on there, making it normal, and so others follow suit."

Meanwhile, a senior Scotland Yard officer has voiced concern that the problem of young women being sexually abused by male gangs had grown sufficiently large to be classified as a "mainstream issue".

The Metropolitan Police detective in charge of protecting vulnerable young women from falling into gang culture, Detective Chief Inspector Petrina Cribb, said that, although police were targeting girls as young as 12 to warn them of the risks associated with male gangs, she believed that educating youngsters of the dangers should begin even earlier, at primary school.

Cribb also admitted concern about the levels of ignorance among young women about sexual abuse, saying that many did not understand that being forced to give oral sex was rape. Cribb, who manages the Met's Heart programme, which educates young people about the risks associated with joining gangs, added: "A lot of young people do not know what is the law, particularly with regard to being coerced into oral sex, which is rape, but some think it is just playing around.

"Young girls find that they may have no choice – a young girl who is surrounded by a group of boys might feel it's normal to go along with it."

Former girl gang members say that despite being aware of the risks many girls with low self-esteem are willing to risk being raped by entire gangs to increase their "status".

The Heart programme, which involves police, local authorities and charities, aims to teach women about relationship issues, rather than the traditional emphasis on sex education. Already 180 girls identified as at risk have begun one-on-one tutorials for the rest of the year, with another 725 workshop places available to teach girls what is unacceptable in a relationship.

The scheme has so far been introduced in three London boroughs – Lewisham, Newham and Waltham Forest – but Cribb said she felt "very strongly" that every school should be delivering a form of relationship education to empower young women. "We are trying to explain that girls actually have a choice and that consent is key to a sexual relationship," she said.

Gifford Sutherland of community group Foundation 4 Life, which uses reformed former gang members to educate vulnerable youngsters, said sexual abuse was not the only risk that gangs posed to girls. "Not only are girlfriends manipulated by young men for sex, but they become associates, hiding firearms, carrying drugs, and sometimes these young girls find that they have no choice.