Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
338-339)
WITNESS 6, WITNESS
7 AND WITNESS
8
10 MARCH 2009
Q338 Ms Buck: Good morning. Thank you
for very much for coming. I am standing in this morning for an
hour for the Chairman, Mr Vaz, who is unable to be here for a
while. You are very welcome. Thank you very much for coming and
for giving evidence to us. You will know we have been conducting
an inquiry for some weeks now into aspects of knife crime. One
of the things we are particularly interested in, just as an opener,
perhaps, is a little bit of the sense of some of the differences
in different parts of the country and, obviously from your own
experience, Merseyside, what you feel about the situation as it
is at the moment, whether it is your view that there is more evidence
that young people are carrying weapons, more evidence that they
are using them. Sometimes people say to us and we hear that young
people are using weapons at an earlier age than was the case.
We just want an impression of the situation as you see it.
Witness 8: Well, where I am from
in Midland, I am from an estate called Ford and you do get children
from the ages of around seven, eight and nine carrying weapons
such as knives but it is not just knives that you have got to
be careful of, it is bricks and logs. You can find people from
the age of about seven onwards carrying knives and in not only
our estate but around Bootle and other areas. It is horrible.
Q339 Ms Buck: Can I just ask you
a supplementary to that. One of the stories that we are hearing
from other people is the extent to which there are older teenagers,
sometimes called elders, who deliberately choose younger people
to work for them.
Witness 8: Sorry, I did not understand
that.
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