Nottingham youngsters getting stab wounds stitched up by vets to avoid police

Teenagers are turning to vets to get their stabbing wounds stitched up, a local leader has told Nottinghamshire Live, as new figures show the scale of the problem in the county. There has been a spate of shocking incidents recently involving knives, with police vowing to do whatever they can to tackle the issue.

Marcellus Baz, founder and CEO of Switch Up, a youth organisation designed to deter young people away from crime and violence, says some youngsters are taking extreme measures to avoid the police. He said: "I've known people to get stitched up by vets, I've known people to try and deal with their wounds at home, because they know that if they go into hospitals, the police get involved and they don't want that."

A Freedom of Information request by Nottinghamshire Live to Nottinghamshire Police revealed that, between January 2021 and December 2023, a significantly higher number of young people were arrested for or charged with knife crime offences. A total of 420 people aged under 18 were arrested, while 210 of them were charged.

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This is much lower than the rates observed among older age groups, however, Mr Baz says the "shocking" figures do not represent the full story of knife crime in the area. The reasons why youths are carrying knives are varied and intervention from local communities and the government is needed now, warns Mr Baz.

He explains: "People are carrying knives due to some root causes, their actions are just symptoms. Knives don't kill people, people kill people. We need to look at why people are getting into a frame of mind where they're picking up knives and hurting people.

"I've been carrying knives and I've seen people go to prison for it, I've seen people get murdered, so I understand where these young people are coming from." Mr Baz founded Switch Up because, after his heart stopped following a stabbing in 2004, his eyes were opened to the devastation the violence had on his community.

He says that the statistics need to be taken "very seriously" and work needs to be done to deter youngsters from this kind of lifestyle. The root causes range between poverty, austerity, lack of opportunity, a "broken" education system, lack of youth services, "depleted" mental health services, a "strained" NHS, and the cost of living crisis.

"We've still not recovered from the pandemic when there was a lot of abuse and a lot of struggles and poverty going on. Now we're going into further council cuts which young people and their families are being affected by," says Mr Baz. He adds that all these strains can facilitate young people to be groomed and exploited into criminality and toxic behaviours "that lead to young people wanting to hurt themselves or hurt others before you know it".

Getting involved in crime can prove to be a hurdle when it comes to trying to "get back into the system" as youths "get stuck in this cycle of crime and violence" from a very young age. Mr Baz said criminal gangs are targeting young people to transport drugs across the UK as the charges aren't as severe for under 18s, but also because "school kids in their uniforms are less likely to be searched".

Carrying a knife comes, he says, because of peer pressure and trends among young people. However, Mr Baz warns that, although the majority of youths do this for protection, the knives can quickly be used against them, resulting in tragic consequences.

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The shocking rates of knife crime among Nottinghamshire's youngest citizens can be reduced by having frontline services that speak the youths' language, like Switch Up. Mr Baz says: "I understand my community and I think we need more organisations like that on the front line and issues like austerity, poverty, and cost of living crisis need to be tackled to give people an opportunity to bring home a decent salary so that they can spend more time with their children.

"What we're seeing is that the gaps that young people are falling through are widening, making it harder to catch them, so more support and resources are needed." Mr Baz says that the demand for help is huge and it comes particularly from parents who found knives in their children's possession, with a few young people also coming forward for help out of "a situation they feel they can't get out of".

Switch Up currently has a waiting list of over 30 people due to a lack of funding and resources caused by cuts "indirectly impacting our communities and our young people". Nottinghamshire Police says that the overall knife crime reduced by 2 per cent across the county, when comparing the year ending March 2024 to the year ending March 2023.

Superintendent Kathryn Craner, of Nottinghamshire Police, said: "We are absolutely committed as a force to doing whatever we can to limit weapon-enabled crime, and engaging with young people at an early stage to make them aware of the dangers and consequences of carrying a knife is key to helping us do this. So much preventative work goes on all year-round between Nottinghamshire Police and our partners to stop people picking up knives, with much of this focusing on engaging with young people.

"As an example, we recently helped introduce new knife crime guidance and educational resources to be taught in primary and secondary schools, in a bid to educate more children and teenagers on this topic. This is on top of the regular visits carried out by the force’s schools and early intervention officers to schools and colleges, and engagement sessions run by our youth outreach teams in the community.

"Educating people about the dangers of carrying a knife remains incredibly important to bringing down knife crime rates. On top of this, we also have a dedicated knife team who carry out daily patrols of different areas to close in on and stop potential knife carriers, with this proactive work helping take dangerous weapons off the streets.

"We have seen a reduction in knife crime offending over the last 12 months in Nottinghamshire but we’re certainly not complacent and will continue to team up with our partners to do whatever we can to prevent these offences from taking place in our communities."