"I Stabbed Three People In One Night" Caller Tells Maajid

13 April 2017, 12:02

Maajid Nawaz was discussing what is driving the rise in knife crime in London when one listener phoned in with a shocking personal story.

Steve from Wembley shared his experience as someone who not only carried a knife, but used it.

“There was one instance where I stabbed three people in one evening.”

Steve explained that when he was 17 he went to a club with some friends where they got into an argument with another group.

One of the people they were arguing with pulled a knife on Steve and held it to his stomach.

“I told him ‘if you don’t stab me now I’m going to take that knife of you and come back and stab you.’”

Steve then went away and got his knife.

“I burst in. I stabbed a fella.

“One of his friends came towards me. I cut his face.

“Another one who tried to stop us from leaving got stabbed in the shoulder.”

Steve didn’t reveal what happened after this incident, but did say he went to prison a few years later for another crime.

Since then he has turned his life around. He’s now a 40-year-old father of four with his own business.

The Met revealed today that knife crime was up 24% in the last 12-months. They partially attribute the rise to budget cuts.

From his experiences Steve believes the motivating factor for knife crime is the culture. Partly the street culture, where carrying weapons is normalised, but also the wider culture, which he says excludes people like him.

“It creates this separate culture, where if I’m not going to be able to join in and be treated for who I am, what I’ll do is do other things instead.

“Then they start down that slippery path where they might get involved with drugs or might get involved with theft.”