PRESS RELEASE : Knife Crime – Faron Paul’s story [September 2024]

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 13 September 2024.

Faron Paul is an anti-knife crime campaigner who has survived two knife attacks. On 9 September 2024, he attended the first annual Knife Crime Summit at Downing Street.

My motto is “if I can prevent one young person losing their life then it’s all worth it to me.”

I’ve been stabbed a total of 18 times on two separate occasions. One attack left me in a coma and I suffered severe nerve damage that required years of rehabilitation.

I had to rebuild my life physically, mentally and emotionally.

FazAmnesty, my organisation that helps young people hand in their knives with no questions asked, began with my mentoring work as well as doing online awareness videos on social media. Then one day a group of boys brought knives to my niece’s party and demanded entry.

I went down to the party and managed to take three knives from the boys in question.

It was then that I realised I had to find a way to make this an ongoing practice. Day by day, year by year FazAmnesty grew, and ever since then I’ve become inundated with requests for weapons collections and other services.

I remember one day in 2018 I got a phone call from a private number and it was Idris Elba’s PA. She told me that Idris was starting a campaign called ‘Don’t Stop Your Future’ and he wanted me to be a part of it.

24 hours later I was in Enfield with Idris conducting a weapons collection and ever since then we’ve kept up this close connection, working on various projects together.

This week’s roundtable feels like a positive move in the right direction in the fight against knife crime. It felt like there was a positive energy in the room with all the people involved.

I feel the policies put forward are helping to target key areas that need to be addressed if we want to reduce the impacts of knife crime. So, I’m happy to see these discussions formulating and witnessing so many organisations from different parts of society coming together to put actions in place.

The highlight for me was the fact that this event and the new coalition being introduced has happened within a really short time of the government being in power.

It almost feels like the work that I’ve done through FazAmnesty has got me to a position where I can be part of conversations such as these and it makes me feel proud of the work I’ve done.

I am both appreciative of, and humbled by, the government and the Elba Hope Foundation. They’ve given me the opportunity to share my work and make me part of the process, enabling me to work more effectively and help more young people.