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Tuesday, December 02, 2008, 07:30
Derby Community Safety Partnership will plough £145,000 of public money into the city's Sunny Hill and Austin neighbourhoods to target 40 youngsters said to be at risk of becoming gang members.
It has enlisted the unpaid help of Paul Smith, former leader of Derby gang the Browning Circle Terrorists. He will help run a programme of activities, including boxing and football, for youngsters.
More than 30 paid staff and volunteers will also be brought in to work with them.
Andy Thomas, acting director of the partnership, said the plans were a response to the death of Kadeem, who was shot in the chest at Caxton Recreation Ground, in Sunny Hill, on Tuesday, November 11.
Mr Thomas said he believed that the 15-year-old's death had focused the minds of young people on how quickly violence could escalate. He said: "It must be the wake-up call to everyone – young people, their parents, local agencies and the wider community – that this is not what we want for our city."
The £145,000 has come from the partnership, the city council and Derbyshire police and will be spent over the next two years.
Mr Thomas said police information had led to 40 people, aged 14 to 18, being identified as being most at risk of getting involved in gang violence
He said they would be told about the football and boxing sessions, which will be free and held at venues to be decided, and urged to attend.
"We know the people we want to target and it is about offering them a way out because, if they carry on along the road they are going down, they will end up with anti-social behaviour orders or a criminal record.
"We are committed to ensuring that Kadeem's death is firstly not perceived by local people as an escalation of violence in the city and that this does not become an unthinkable reality."
Mr Thomas said officers from the partnership would visit parents of the 40 teenagers, talk to them about their children's behaviour and offer advice on how they could help them change.
He said the thinking behind working with former gang members was that youngsters had a respect for people like Mr Smith and would listen to them.
Mr Thomas said Mr Smith, along with youth workers and other gang members, could talk to the teenagers about education and career prospects.
Mr Smith, whose street-name is P Dog, said he and 10 other former gang members in Derby wanted to help.
He said: "These youngsters will never talk to the police so it is about us doing what we can to stop them getting involved in something that can really escalate.
"This is about giving something back to the community. We don't want another child dying."
Mr Thomas said youngsters who were not interested in getting involved in the sessions would still be monitored by police and, if they were found to commit a crime, would be dealt with by police.
He said: "We now all need to work together to rid neighbourhoods of those people who are determined to cause harm and to ensure that younger people do not follow in their footsteps."
Since Kadeem's death, police have been searching for the gun used to shoot him.
Michael Hamblett-Sewell, 19, of Marlborough Road, Allenton, and Callum Campbell, 18, of Osmaston Park Road, Derby, are charged with his murder.
Ashley Campbell, 23, of Osmaston Park Road, and a 48-year-old woman are charged with assisting an offender.
A 15-year-old boy, a 16-year-old youth, two 17-year-old youths and a 20-year-old man have also been arrested and released on bail.
KILLED: Kadeem Blackwood
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