Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
217-219)
MS ANN
OAKES-ODGER
AND MR
IAN LEVY
20 JANUARY 2009
Q217 Chairman: Mrs Oakes-Odger, if I
can begin with you, we will come to Mr Levy in a second. You are
the mother of Westley, who was killed in Colchester on 12 September
2005 at the very young age of 27. He challenged a man who pushed
in front of him at an ATM queue, who later returned with his brother,
and Westley was stabbed in the neck and he died.
Mrs Oakes-Odger: That is correct.
Q218 Chairman: Two people were subsequently
found guilty of manslaughter and murder. After this horrific attack,
you set up your own anti-knife resource and you now work in partnership
with the police and other organisations. On behalf of the whole
committee, of course, we express our deep condolences at the loss
of your son at such a very, very young age and we commend you
on the work that you are doing. In the work that you are doing
with schools and school children, can you tell the committee anything
about the attitudes that lead young people to carry knives?
Mrs Oakes-Odger: I think the biggest
contributing factor to young people carrying knives is, firstly,
ignorance and, alongside that, fear. Throughout young people's
years coming through their school education, we know that young
people experience a certain amount of bullying and peer pressure,
and often those people that have experienced that bullying go
on sometimes to become bullies themselves. Personally, from the
work that I have been doing, I feel that those particular children
run a serious risk of being those that can become involved in
crime. They are potentially the ones that will be affected by
fear and carrying a knife, and we all know that within an altercation
a knife, potentially, is a serious killing weapon. During the
time of going into the schools and speaking mainly to 11 and 12
year olds (that is Year Seven, first year senior school) what
actually comes out of speaking to those young people is that they
have no real understanding of what death means. When a family
member dies they are usually older, they are usually grandparents
or aunties and uncles and when they die they do not see them any
more, but in terms of death that has no relevance to them as people.
At 11 and 12 years old they are never going to get old; older
people are almost another species and death is something that
happens to everyone else. Talking to those young people, I speak
to them about what happened to Westley. I show them Westley through
their growing up years so that they relate to Westley as being
someone within their age field and then the understanding comes
out of his story, what relevance that is to them going through
their school years; I speak to them about their discos, their
social events, where an innocent situation can evolve and, if
you have a knife, instead of a possible disagreement where bumps
and bruises are involved, with a knife in their pocket, potentially,
therein is a life-threatening situation which they then relate
to only in terms of missing fingers. I find that showing young
people pictures of injuries that they can relate to, such as fingers
hanging off, has more relevance to them. I would also concur with
the previous evidence that we have heard today that looking at
the issue as a health issue allows us to proceed down the road
of more prevention.
Chairman: Thank you.
Q219 Ms Buck: The evidence you have
given is very powerful. On the basis of your experience and also,
judging from the feedback you are getting from young people that
you have worked with, what is the right balance between the story
you tell them that allows them to engage with a young person who
has lost his life. The shock tactic approach, maybe the approach
that has taken young people into offending institutes and prisons
to actually talk to people who have been convicted? What is the
right balance? What gets through to people? Or is it actually
that we do have to have that continuum of all of those different
approaches?
Mrs Oakes-Odger: I think we need
all of those different approaches, but certainly, from my experience
of working, not just within Essex schools, within London schools,
Leeds, Manchester, as far up as Cleveland, we know that different
counties have different dialects that they speak about, but the
bottom line is young people all have a simplicity of what they
need. They need to feel safe, and the right balance when speaking
to young people is I relate with them about Westley's story as
a mum so that they can think about, "How would I feel if
my brother or sister was missing and my mother was hurting at
the loss of my brother or sister?"
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