A mum who watched her son die from a stabbing and has since dedicated her life to helping her community warns knife crime is the worst it’s ever been – but retains hope there are solutions.
Pastor Lorraine Jones and her daughter Nequela Whittaker lost their son and brother Dwayne when he was just 20. He was stabbed in the heart trying to protect a friend in south London’s Angell Town estate in February 2014. The mum described racing to the scene of the stabbing, and seeing her mortally wounded boy, before kissing his forehead, and saying: “You’re not alone, I’m here with you. Do you know I love you?”
Since then she has devoted herself to working within her neighbourhood in Brixton, to try and give young people within mostly black communities a better chance in life. Similarly, Nequela went from being arrested by police for drug dealing, to working with them to make her community safer and now works tirelessly to tackle knife crime.
The mother and daughter spoke to The Mirror at a community centre Lorraine uses in Brixton, on the back of a tragic few weeks of knife crime in the UK. Just round the corner from the community centre, barely a handful of days prior, a young man was stabbed to death on the street.

Prior to that the country was left shocked by the brutal death of Elianne Andam, 15, who was stabbed to death on the way to school in Croydon. So far this year, 16 teenagers have been killed in the capital alone and both mother and daughter believe the government isn’t providing enough genuine support to those working to stem the rising tide of violence.
The community activists have grown sick and tired of the seemingly endless cycle of mourning victims and society discussing how awful the situation is – without people taking the solutions they offer seriously. They range from adopting public health first violence reduction schemes that have found success elsewhere, to focusing on strengthening household units, and rebuilding gutted educational and social service support systems.
The pair asked why the government hasn’t done more to help support them and their solutions. After decades of cuts, they have only been able to watch as other local services, and schools have seen budgets decimated, and even shutdown. In their place are left just groups like Lorraine’s community centre, and her gym Dwanyamics, that she opened up after her son was killed. But in spite of their life-saving work, they’ve still found themselves asking who’s going to help them.
Lorraine said: “I don’t want to tiptoe around – it is the worst it’s ever been. We’re looking at younger children getting affected by knife crime and youth violence. The youngest child that I had to support with their parents was 7 years old. The child brought a knife to school and told the other child that he’s in a gang and he’s going to stab him.”

Regardless of the youngster’s claims, she said very often knife crime wasn’t linked to gangs, and it was a case “beyond gang warfare” of individuals taking to the streets with knives in their hands. Despite how dire the situation seems, both Lorraine and Nequela stressed that they, and numerous other grassroots organisations had answers, and just needed greater funding, resources and support to implement them.
Lorraine said: “Why can’t our government take a ten minute journey into the estates where lives are being wrecked, and hear what we’re going through and what our solutions are. It’s never gotten to this point. It’s terrifying. It’s a state of emergency. To this day we’re seeing more and more services cut, youth services cut. My son died ten years ago, I was hoping I’d see an improvement, I’m seeing a great decline. What is that saying?”
She added: “If we’re going to sit young people down and really be honest, we should be able to say, son here you go do that instead. That will help the situation. But what is that? What are we giving them practically to help the situation, we can’t just give them words. We can’t just give them words. How’re we going to tell the young person don’t do this, don’t do that, and not give them anything in return which is tangible, which is a real solution and help. But how’re we going to do this with no finance?”
Nequela, who started her organisation Committed Empowered Originals Youth Service CIC at university, said: “In my eyes what I’d like to see is community outreach, we have so many pillars in the community that have services, but we need to have a pot of money for those organisations who are willing to do the grassroots work. I have a business, I’ve got an outreach and a second team, but within that team I’ve got to pay people but that money comes out of my own pockets, I’m working two to three jobs because everyone has to get paid.”

She added: “Youth work should be statutory, it needs to be a key part of schools. We need a curriculum that is teaching people about life, how to stay safe and away from factors [that push them to knife crime]. We need a better support system to help support parents. The parents most affected are the ones who’ve lost their children, their voices are the biggest, they’ve gone through it, they can help shape a lot of the framework to help create a diversionary programme to help support that framework. Then it breaks down to the young people, that’s my responsibility that’s the grassroots part, then we’ve got the government that’s pumping the money in from the bottom up, that’s the framework we need to start seeing.”
“You’ve taken away the youth services but you haven’t pumped nothing back into these 32 boroughs,” she said. Organisations like those run by Lorraine and Nequela remain vital in helping those worst affected by knife crime. Often the impacts of the crime spread far beyond the victim, and their loved ones, but also inflicting trauma on those who saw the horror attacks unfold. After some of the recent high profile stabbings, witnesses have broken down sobbing at their community centre, with nowhere else to turn.
Often dealing with the aftermath of such horrific attacks draws heartbreaking parallels with what Lorraine went through as a mum eight years ago. She recalled how, after a busy day, one of Dwayne’s friends rushed to the door to tell her the news any mum would dread to her – that her son had been stabbed.
Describing how she rushed to the scene, she said: “I saw his chest opened up and I’ve never even seen an open wound like that. I knew he wasn’t going to make it. When they lifted him up, his hand fell and it was just hanging, lifeless. When I saw that I knew he was gone.” Lorraine cradled him as she kissed his forehead and cheek – a horrific reality she has worked tirelessly to try and avoid other parents experiencing.
Earlier this week hundreds gathered in Croydon, including famous artist Stormzy, to attend a candlelight vigil to remember 15-year-old Elianna. Since then, another teenager was stabbed to death in Edmonton, north London and even more recently another teen was murdered in Brighton, with a second youngster arrested.


Among the others killed so far this year include Chima Osuji, 17, fatally stabbed after being chased in Chingford, east London, Tyler McDermott, 17, Wazabakana Elenda Jordan Kukabu, 18, Renell Charles, 16, Khaled Saleh, 17, Victor Lee, 17, Leonardo Reid, 15, Andre Salmon, 18, Rahaan Ahmed Amin, 16, Claudyo Jauad Lafayette, 17, Stefan Valentine Balaban, 19, Yusuf Mohamoud, 18, Anis Omar Zen, 19, and Max Moy Wheatley, 19.
Defendants of government efforts to stop knife crime and reduce violence within cities like London point to statistics like serious violent crime being down 46 per cent compared with 2010 and youth violence also being down. A Home Office spokesperson said: “Knife crime tears families apart and we are committed to addressing the root causes of this violence. We are investing heavily in a twin track approach to reducing violence, which combines early intervention and prevention with tough enforcement measures.
“Since 2019, we have invested over £170 million into the development of Violence Reduction Units in the 20 areas worst affected by serious violence. This is alongside a further £170 million we have provided to fund additional, targeted police patrols in the streets and neighbourhoods most affected. VRUs have reached over 215,000 vulnerable young people in their third year of funding alone, and in 2022 we announced that funding for Violence Reduction Units is guaranteed for a further three years.”