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Knife crime campaigner Faron Paul is showing a group of teenagers a huge scar on his neck, at the scene where 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin was killed with a sword as he left his house in east London this week.
“So what do you do if someone approaches you with a knife?” Mr Paul asks the young group after showing them his injury. One of them replies without hesitation: “I’m cutting, I’m out of there”.
The victim-turned-activist agrees, as he offers every teenager he runs into in Hainault the same advice: “Don’t let your pride let you die. Run and f***ing live to fight another day, yeah?”
Mr Paul knows what he is talking about – he says he has been stabbed 18 times in two separate attacks. Now he runs FazAmnesty, a weapon amnesty charity, taking unwanted knives, axes, guns and swords off young people and delivering them to police with no questions asked.
Describing the worst of his two incidents – when he confronted someone who had assaulted his girlfriend and was stabbed in the neck with a large kitchen knife – he says: “I could feel the trickle of blood but I couldn’t see anything. I was bleeding out.
“It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done – not running. Physically, mentally and emotionally I had to rebuild – my mental space and my physical body. The damage was past just being stabbed. I had damage to my nerves, I had brachial plexus injuries and I had 40 per cent blood loss.
“It took a while to get rid of anger and revenge and feeling sorry for myself. But I turned it into my fire, my infinite petrol tank. I want to get back at knife crime – the whole thing, not this one individual.
“But it is hard to let go of revenge. Often, I sit there and wonder. If I was to go back in time and stab the person who stabbed me 15 years ago, would I be here now helping people?”
Laying flowers at the scene where Daniel was slashed in the neck as he left his home to go to school, Mr Paul is mobbed by the pack of broadcast journalists assuming he is a relative or friend at first. But he speaks eloquently to as many reporters as he can to get the message out there on how he has collected more than 1,400 weapons off the streets in just five years.
At a new office he has established in Edmonton, north London he has accumulated a dizzying array of ninja stars, pistols and samurai swords in recent weeks.
The 38-year-old has attracted celebrity backers like Idris Elba who has joined him on knife hunts. The Luther actor says he has “so much respect” for Mr Paul who “puts himself on the line”.
In the days after the fatal sword attack, The Independent joined the campaigner on his latest weapon run to Hertfordshire.
Normally, Mr Paul gets messages on Instagram from mothers of young children who have found zombie knives stashed under their son’s beds, but this call is different.
He has been asked to collect a Gurkha knife from staff at housing provider Peabody Estates.
A vulnerable 35-year-old living on the outskirts of Watford had handed the knife, presented to his father for his service in the Second World War, to his support worker.
Initially kept as a memento, the son decided it had to be destroyed after he was threatened with the heirloom by local drug dealers ‘cuckooing’ his flat. The term is used when dealers take over a vulnerable person’s home to use as a base for criminal activity.
The man’s support worker phoned Hertfordshire police but she claims she was told they would not take it unless it was used directly in a crime. She says she did not know where else to turn, apart from Mr Paul.
“I phoned the police and they said they can’t collect any weapon ‘unless it has been used’,” she told The Independent. “I asked ‘does there need to be blood on it?’ Our client is terrified to have it around.
“We have it stashed in a safe cupboard in our office, where we keep our files. If this knife got into the wrong hands I can’t imagine what damage it could do. It will be a relief for all of us once it is out of the building. If I didn’t know Faron where would I go? What would be the next step?”
A Hertfordshire Constabulary spokesperson later apologised if any incorrect advice was given on the knife collection.
“We are committed to tackling knife crime,” she said. “The public are encouraged to safely dispose of large knives by taking them to their nearest police station or by preferably ringing the non-emergency number 101 to arrange collection. ‘Regular’ cutlery knives should be taken to recycling centres.”
Visiting the office to collect the knife, Mr Paul takes it out of an orange Sainsbury’s carrier bag as it glints with the etching of the man’s name on the blade.
“This being swung at someone’s head – it has no discretion how far it will go into somebody’s skull,” Mr Paul says, throwing the sheath on the floor.
And then we are off to the closest police station in the quiet, market town of Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire.
Mr Paul rings the doorbell of the quaint cottage-like police station. A community support officer steps out, looking a bit quizzical.
The campaigner explains his background, the charity he set up and how the knife got here. He opens up his back seat so the officer can take the blade out of the orange bag and inspect it.
Surprised, the officer takes his details and admits she has not had many interactions like this before. “It’s amazing what people have in their homes, isn’t it?” she says as she turns the blade over. They exchange details with a potential partnership on the cards for future collections.
On more typical collections, Mr Paul drives to dark car parks in the back of London estates. He says he thoroughly vets any tips and chooses the locations for his own safety, before arriving in that heavy stab-proof jacket.
He says the worst thing is when he does not get there in time and someone disappears before dropping off the weapon, or they are arrested with the very knife they wanted to hand in.
“I’ve had mums ring me saying, ‘I’ve taken my son’s knives for the second time and now he is kicking in the door trying to smash up the house to get them’,” he explains.
This has accelerated plans to franchise FazAmnesty and apply for more funding so he can train others and theoretically be in more than two places at once.
“The hardest thing of all is when a kid who is not even involved ends up dying,” he says. “As a society we should not be OK with that.”
The most dangerous weapon he handled was when he drove to Somerset to collect a live shotgun with 28 rounds after the caller’s half-brother was taken to prison and left it in the family home.
“The armed police were suspicious of me,” he says. “I had to arrange a very precise ETA and they wouldn’t even say hello to me when I gave it to them.”
In the wake of the latest killing, he condemns the shops where you can buy machetes over the counter, some offering cut-price deals ahead of a machete and zombie knife ban in September.
Mr Paul claims to have collected a zombie knife from a 14-year-old who used his father’s credit card to buy the weapon from an online retailer without showing an ID.
The teenager even arranged for it to be sent to a drop box so his family wouldn’t find out.
He recently shelved plans to run for Mayor of London due to a lack of funding, but hopes to give it another go in the future.
“I think if I can get that power, I can do a lot to help the community on knife crime,” he said. “But I know it’s not just about knife crime being mayor.
“I’m going to try and get a team together to try and be taken seriously. Hopefully, in the next four years, I can save money, save lives and by 2028 I will be the most relatable candidate for London.
“No one cares about ULEZ – that is not life or death. Actions speak louder than words. And the actions of the government are futile in stopping senseless murders.”
With the weapons drop complete, Mr Paul drops me at the train station all in time for the school run.
“It’s time I take my stab-proof vest off, I’ve got to de-badge and go pick up my daughter, take her home and then I’m free again,” he says. “You have to balance everything.
“I love it though. My motto is, if I can stop one mother living a lifetime of remembering the son she had to bury, it is all worth it to me.”
To donate to FazAmnesty click here.
Source: independent.co.uk
