Grim tales of how gangs lure vulnerable youngsters into lives of violence

“I knew it was from the Devil, but I’m in it just to make money,” says the 17-year-old, with a weary resignation. JJ is one of three teenagers from the West Midlands whose depressing life is the focus of a television programme about knife culture in the region.

Channel 4’s Untold: Trapped in a Gang, which features stories from the archives of the Express & Star, listens to the stories from three young people about how they were lured into gang life, and the difficulties of getting out of it. Sergeant Toney Webb from West Midlands Police gangs unit, says such violence has become ever more prevalent. “The amount of young children that you see turning up at hospital with gunshot injuries or knife wounds or get arrested carrying machetes or zombie knives it’s just ridiculous,” he says.

JJ, 17, says his first brush with criminality came at the age of 12, when a close friend became involved in a ‘little issue’. He brought a knife into school, which he used to threaten a fellow pupil, and was expelled from school. He was sent to a pupil referral unit – a centre for youngsters who have been excluded from school – bringing him into contact with youngsters from more violent backgrounds.

“I would just see people getting stabbed up, people my age.” Away from the unit, he joined a gang, and immediately became involved in the drug trade. Just a month in we were making a couple of thousand within a week,” he says.

“I wouldn’t say no to something, whatever they wanted me to do,” he says.

“All of us started carrying weapons just to protect myself, and to score a point as well, I always wanted to do something back as well, that was always in my heart.”

By the time he was 15, gang life was starting to turn sour for JJ. First, he was now above the age of criminal responsibility, and found himself regularly being arrested. And he also found himself on the receiving end of serious violence after being lured into a trap by some gang members he didn’t get on with.

“I get to the station and I see five people, all about 17-18, I see bottles in hand, and I’m ‘OK, just let me just go, let me just walk, nothing’s going to happen, I’m good, I’m good’.

“I just got bottled in the head and everything, straight away they all swung at me. They tried to poke me with the bottle. The first time it didn’t smash, the second time it hit me it smashed, and they tried to poke me with a bottle.”

After one arrest, JJ was referred to St Giles Trust, a charity which works to turn young people away from crime. The programme shows him meeting case worker Peter Walker at Birmingham Cathedral, having apparently turned his back on crime having become a Christian. But he soon returns to drug dealing after starting a relationship with a girl.

“I wanted to do so much to try and impress her,” he says. “I was selling drugs – weed – then we went into cocaine cuz that’s the only thing that’s going to go pricey and make money.”

“I just wanted it for pleasure, I wanted to feel proud of myself, to get that feeling in me.

“When I’m not making money I will be so depressed because I grew up making money.

“I’m always asking myself why am I like this, I learn so many lessons, I’m not falling back.”

Neelam Kauser of the St Giles Trust is responsible for 12 young girls who have become involved in gang life. She can empathise with many of the youngsters, having been through similar experiences herself.

“Gangs groom and exploit young people for their own criminal gains. The way they will do it is try to establish what their vulnerabilities are. For a young person, the vulnerability is to have a sense of belonging, they want protection, that gang will make sure they fill that void.”

In the programme she tries to help El – not her real name – a 15-year-old girl on the fringes of gang life, who has had anger problems since experiencing domestic violence at home at the age of six.

“My mum’s boyfriend was involved with bad stuff,” she says.

“I was the one trying to defend my mum, I was six but I felt so much older.

“I was punching the teachers, hitting the teachers, pushed them away so I could get to that certain girl and fight her even more.”

She tells how she enjoys fighting, and is blase about the dangers of getting stabbed.

“I just find it fun, sometimes I get into a fight because I get mad and I want to fight, sometimes I fight just for the involvement,” she says.

“My friends they have been stabbed quite severely but they still survived. So, I’m thinking if they survived, I can survive.”

Neelam tries to tackle her problems with aggression by enrolling her on a boxing course.

Kay ­– not his real name – is also 15, and he tells how a violent attack in a shopping centre has left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“I don’t know what it is with postcode gangs, they won’t stop until they have hurt you fully,” he says.

“I was in this big shopping centre place, I came out of McDonald’s after eating chicken, and this whole group of 20 lads came running at me.

“I got punched on my face, I dropped and then loads of people stamped on my head. My mates ran and I was there on myself.

“This one kid stopped and recorded me, loads of people posted my face all over the internet.

“I carried a knife at one point, I felt that it would protect me. Machetes, zombie knives, big knives and that.”

In the end it was family pressure that persuaded Kay to change his ways, but he found it difficult.

“I struggled to let it go, eventually I started looking at how my family was taking it,” he says.

“My mum said if I end up getting revenge, she don’t want me around the baby, that hurt me a bit as well. I had to let it all go, I had to leave.”

In the programme, Fazeena Hussain tells how her 20-year-old son Nassir Francis decided to leave gang life behind, but found that it wouldn’t leave him. Nassir was murdered as he went out for food, 10 days before he was to start a new job. The end of the programme shows both JJ and El having apparently left their bad ways behind them.