Ronan's mother speaks of heartbreak as 12-year-old stabbed to death
The mother of a teenager murdered yards from his home has spoken of her heartbreak at hearing another young life had been lost to knife crime.
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Pooja Kanda, whose 16-year-old son Ronan was stabbed to death yards from his home in Wolverhampton, spoke of her sadness at news that a 12-year-old boy had been murdered in Birmingham.
The body of Leo Ross was found near Scribers Lane in Hall Green at 3.40pm on Tuesday - at the same time as knife crime in the West Midlands was being debated in parliament. A 14-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of murder.
Mrs Pooja said: "I'm heartbroken, I just don't know when all this is going to stop.
"I just wish I could do something to stop it all."
She said the fact that the child was so young made it particularly disturbing.
"Twelve years old, what age is that?" she said.
"It's no age all. It's so heartbreaking to hear that another family will be crying today, they will be going on the same journey that I have been on for the past two-and-a-half years."
Ronan was attacked by two boys in a case of mistaken identity as he left a friend's house on June 29, 2022.
Prabjeet Veadhesa and Sukhman Shergill mistook Ronan for his friend, who owed Veadhesa money, and attacked him from behind in Mount Road, yards from Ronan's home. They fled after discovering they had attacked the wrong boy.
Mrs Kanda, who now visits schools warning youngsters about the dangers of knife crime, said she now felt afraid when she went out the house.
"I don't feel safe any more, it's hard to feel safe in these areas."
Mrs Kanda said the ban on 'zombie knives', and the proposed ban on so-called ninja swords and crackdown on online knife sales was a step in the right direction, but there was still a lot more that needed to be done to make the streets safer.
"We need to work with policing, with schooling and the education system, with councils and social services, we need to continue with the different agencies," she said.
In July 2023, Veadhesa, who was 17, was jailed for a minimum of 18 years, while Shergill, also 17, was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in prison.
