Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 239)
TUESDAY 19 DECEMBER 2006
JASON LORD
COVER, HAYLEY
LITTEK, DEXTER
PADMORE, LEON
SIMMONDS, BIANCA
WAITE AND
JULIA WOLTON
Q220 Mrs Cryer: Did they give you
a warning?
Hayley: No.
Q221 Mrs Cryer: It just came at you
out of the blue, you were expelled?
Hayley: Yes.
Q222 Mrs Cryer: It is such a pity.
Did that happen to anyone else?
Bianca: Yes, with me in school
it did sort of happen like that. I did not have warnings. I was
kicked out for fighting but it was not a fight in the school.
I had previous fights in the school, but that was it. The trouble
I was really getting in trouble for was fighting outside of school
because it was putting on the school's reputation. The last time
I got kicked out my deputy head was there and they witnessed what
happened and saw that I acted in self-defence. Yet you know when
you have the appeal meetings after you get excluded, my deputy
head was supposed to be there but, for some reason, on this occasion
she was not allowed to be there, and she was obviously going to
speak up on my behalf, because obviously she knew exactly what
happened, and then after that I got excluded. But then, just like
Hayley was saying, it does make you feel lost, because my predicted
grades was As and Bs for GCSEs. When I went in they referred me
over to Centre afterwards, but I did not go to Centre afterwards,
but eventually I said, all right, I am going to go. When I went
to Centre they would not put me in for intermediate, they did
not do intermediate, they only did foundation. That alone is stereotyping,
because that means that everybody that gets kicked out of school
are under-achievers and you expect them to be working at a foundation
level. If you know, and you have got my records from school, that
I was working on the higher level and intermediate, how are you
going to put me onto foundation? That makes me think it is not
worth it. I know what I am capable of. It is not that there is
a choice, there is no choice. You have to be foundation; that
is all you can get. I know I am worth more than that. I am not
going to do it. So, obviously, I said I am not going to do it,
so that makes you feel lost, and if I was not a strong person,
as I am, I would have thought, "Forget it, I am staying on
roads." Then afterwards, obviously, I am at college, but
that again is more waste of time because you are going to college,
you have not got nothing on paper, so you have got to start from
the beginning, way from the beginning when you know you should
be starting at the top and you know what you are capable of. My
college were quite understanding, because they gave me trial places
and moved me up, but not all colleges do that, because my other
friends who are in the same situation as me have not got that
sort of advantage that I had, and I have seen them drop out halfway
because they are learning things they already know. It is just
basics and that just leaves you once again with no options. How
can you go to Centre and be told you cannot do nothing else but
foundation. Not everybody that gets kicked out of school is an
underachiever. That there is stereotyping.
Q223 Mrs Cryer: You are hoping to
go to university, are you not?
Bianca: Yes, I am going to university
next year.
Q224 Mrs Cryer: And Hayley you are
hoping to go to university?
Hayley: Yes.
Q225 Bob Russell: We have read and
heard in broad terms about home and school, but nowhere in the
reports can I find if anybody has been a member of a recognised
youth organisation at any time. Have any of you been members of
recognised youth organisations? Indeed, are the recognised youth
organisations there for young people to join?
Bianca: Well, there are things
like—. I am sorry, youth clubs I think are stupid because
they get so much money to run it, you see them driving beautiful
cars, yet they take you to Alton Towers about four times in the
summer holiday and that is end of—it is not nothing permanent,
do you get what I am saying—whereas you have the X-it programme
which Julia set up and that is more of an on-going process because
you can start that at a young age, you can start that at an old
age. They do not provide you with all the chips in the world,
they have a couple of residentials, but there is more of a meaning
to it. They make you see things in a different light than the
residentials and that, and afterwards, as well, you are not left
with nowhere to go. If you are suddenly thrown out and you was
not in school, you are getting help and you are setting up plans
and you have somebody beside you working towards your plans. If
you are older as well you could go on to another programme called
something like RAW, and after that as well they help you get employed,
and afterwards you set a plan and if you really want to do that
they will help you work towards that, but there are things like
it is hard to get funding for those sorts of programmes.
Q226 Bob Russell: There is nothing
before the X-it programme?
Bianca: Personally not that I
saw that actually made a big difference.
Q227 Mrs Dean: When there were problems
at school, did the school try to involve the parents in their
concerns or your concerns in any of your cases?
Dexter: My parents were not around.
I lived with my aunt. Obviously my aunt has her own life, she
has her own kids, so she does not have time. She has time for
me, but she has got her own priorities.
Q228 Mrs Dean: So you lived with
your aunt and she was busy. Are there any others where parents
were involved with the school? Was that because the school did
not contact the parents or because your parents were not keen
to get involved with the school?
Bianca: Most of the times when
I grew up with the school, I do not know, they did not raise it
up with my parents, but with the big issues when it did come for
the parents, when all that kicked up the last time, I was not
with my parents anyway, so it did not really make no difference.
Q229 Chairman: Can I follow up from
that question and put a question to you all which we have rather
skirted around a bit. In other sessions we have had like this
we have had witnesses from organisations, black community organisations
and faith organisations, and so on, who have all said that one
of the problems about young people and crime is the amount of
family breakdown, that lots of you in one way or another have
referred to people having to leave home or fathers not being there,
or something of that sort. In your experience, is trouble at home,
families breaking up, part of the reasons why young people get
involved in crime, or is it something that happens but is not
directly associated with people going off the rails?
Dexter: Everyone has got different
reasons. Some people might not even have dads, might not know
their dads from when they were younger.
Q230 Chairman: Do you think that
is a problem, growing up without a father?
Dexter: In some cases it is, but
I have seen people raised by their mum and they have been good,
so I would not say it is down to the father, it could be anything.
Leon: In some cases that is the
reason why people resort to crime, because if they are not getting
the love from home, they see it as the only love they can get
is from the streets basically. They are not getting it anywhere
else.
Q231 Chairman: I think you were making
the same point earlier, Hayley, when you were talking about why
people get involved in gangs and crews.
Hayley: Obviously, you are coming
from home, your parents, your family, that is where you start
off, where you end up, that was your foundation, so that will
follow you through life and impact on the decisions you make throughout
life. It is not always the main reason why, or the only reason
why, sometimes it is nothing to do with the way you was brought
up, you had a perfect upbringing, but something made an impact
on you further on in your life, but obviously you start off from
home.
Q232 Chairman: Jason?
Jason: I cannot really comment.
I have lived with my parents all my life so I would not know.
Q233 Chairman: You cannot make general
conclusions on this one?
Jason: No.
Q234 Mr Winnick: There is a view,
I do not know whether you would agree, perhaps you would let me
know, that there is a connection between the music some young
people listen to and the crimes which are committed. I suppose,
to some extent at least, it is a sort of reference to rap?
Bianca: No, sorry, no, no, I am
going to have to jump in there. There is no way everybody can
blame it on the rap. Obviously they talk about guns, whatever,
but children are not stupid, youth know that that is the easy
way out, they can rap. If they were following them and they went
and rapped too, they are not looking at that and saying they want
that. It is other people that are doing them things. I do not
think in no way you can blame the rap culture for that, because
people who are into rap know what the rap culture is really about
and know what these guys are really and really not doing. You
have got guys like 50 Cent that everybody wants to blame things
on, but if you ask anybody on this table, no-one will tell you
to look up to 50 Cent, if you ask anybody in Brixton no-one will
tell you, but yet you see in the media that we look up to these
people and we see that and want that and it really is nothing
to do with the music industry at all from my perspective, from
what I have seen, and in Brixton as well.
Q235 Mr Winnick: That is a very forthright
answer but it is somewhat different, if I may say so, from the
replies we have had from other witnesses, black people certainly
who have given evidence. The point I am making by way of a question
is that some of the music seems to glamorize pimps, drug dealers,
robbing banks and so on and so forth, and the question therefore
is: is not such music undesirable and a bad influence?
Hayley: I do not think it is.
Q236 Mr Winnick: And since I am a
bit older than you, perhaps you could speak up?
Hayley: Some people that listen
to rap, the image that you are talking about with all the pimps
and the glamour and what not, people do want it, and the things
that rappers rap about, as you said, is sometimes drug dealing
and robbing banks and whatever, and some people will believe that
is how they achieved what they have got and they will try to follow
them and do what they have done; but there is a lot of people,
the majority of people that listen to rap, a lot of things what
the rappers say or what they have been through, they can relate
to it because they are going through the same thing right now.
When people rap a lot of the time—50 Cent is just out to
make money. There is a lot of people, I can tell you, who are
out to make money and talk rubbish, but there is a lot of people
who have been through things. If you listen to people like DMX
and Tupac and people, the things that they are saying, it might
be horrible to listen to, you might think it is foul what they
are talking about, but that is what they have been through, the
same way that people do art work and people write poems, whatever.
This is how they express themselves. All that anger and hate that
you hear coming out in the music, imagine them keeping that within
themselves, inside themselves. I think it is good that they express
it and sometimes you have to sympathise with some of the rappers,
thinking what they have been through and the lives they have led,
and young people today can relate with some of the things that
they have been through.
Q237 Mr Winnick: So you do not mind
any of this sort of music. You think it is all right?
Hayley: I think it is perfectly
fine.
Q238 Mr Winnick: Leon and Dexter,
do you have any objections to this sort of music?
Leon: You might as well say, I
do not reckon music does anything to people's minds. If you are
saying it talks about bank robberies and that, you might as well
say TV is the same thing as well. There is lots of guns and violence
and anything on any TV channel now where kids can watch it at
any time. It does mess with people's brains and kind of makes
them think certain things, but obviously people have a mind of
their own, so obviously they choose what they want to do, if you
see what I am saying.
Q239 Mr Winnick: Dexter, the same
view?
Dexter: Basically the same. Everyone
has got their own mind. I do not think someone is going to follow
something that is said on a CD, someone says, "Off you go,
do that." I do not think they are going to do it and I do
not think they are going to get influenced right now, but some
people can relate to it because they have gone through it as well.
It is basically the same thing.
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