PRESS RELEASE : Yemi Hughes’s story – Knife Crime Summit [September 2024]

The press release issued by 10 Downing Street on 9 September 2024.

Yemi’s son Andre was fatally stabbed in 2016. Today she attended the first annual Knife Crime Summit at Downing Street.

When your child falls down and grazes their knee, and they’re crying for you, you pick them up. You wash it off, you bandage it, and you kiss it better for them.

But when Andre was stabbed, it was the first time that I couldn’t do anything.

They wouldn’t let me near him, or see him, but everyone told me that he was calling for his mum.

It was 2016 when I got a phone call from one of Andre’s friend’s mums, telling me someone had been stabbed. I had only just dropped him off at their house, but I could tell straight away that something was wrong by the tone of her voice. I kept asking her who it was as I got my shoes on.

“They don’t know, but they’re saying it’s Andre.”

I begged her to go and look. She didn’t want to, but I needed to know. Then she let out a scream that I’ll never forget. It went right through my body.

I didn’t say anymore, I jumped in the car and drove to the house. It was a hot summer’s day and there were people everywhere, sitting on the grass. I saw the air ambulance and the cordoned off roads and ran down the length of the street to see the paramedics and police gathered. I didn’t know what to do, so we just waited.

He didn’t die there, he died at the hospital.

We’d been waiting so long for news when staff finally came and asked us what injuries he’d sustained that evening. All I could say was: “Is he dead? Is he gone?”

When they said yes, the bottom dropped off my entire world.

I knew I couldn’t crumble; I had to stay strong because I had to support my family – my mum and other children, but it was a real battle every day to hold everything together and keep going.

Before his death, I didn’t fully realise the impact Andre had on his community. I always knew he was a protector – he loved his friends and family. But there was an outpouring of grief from those around him; people saying he stood up for them at school or protected them from being bullied. That was his nature.

Andre was funny. Everybody loved him; he was the first boy in a family of girls, and he stole my mum’s heart. He didn’t take things too seriously. He was academic and learned quickly. He loved sport, music, and football. I feel very proud of him.

I think that when you lose a child, everybody contacts you. There’s this period where everyone wants to know what’s going on, and particularly because Andre’s trial was very publicised, lots of people wanted to talk to me.

I fell into various projects, including planning a nationwide march against youth violence with a friend of mine, who had also lost a loved one. That was how I got started. I began going to different meetings and working with the police, but it got to a stage where it started to take over my life.

I had lost Andre, and it was like I had no life anymore, because I used to feel guilty. I felt guilty for smiling, for going out, for enjoying something – just living. I decided to write a book. I’m not much of a writer; it was just an outpouring of a mother’s grief.

It helped me jump from the place I was into the next place and think: do you know what? Andre would want me to start living again. He would want me to focus on his brothers and carry on doing the work I was doing, but in my way.

I’m a secondary school teacher, so after I wrote my book, I left mainstream school to work in a Pupil Referral Unit. I wanted to support those children who were at risk of exclusion; the ones who need that help to have that second chance. So even though I’m no longer out campaigning and banging on doors, I am doing the work on the ground trying to make a difference everyday.

When I heard about Idris Elba’s ‘Don’t Stop Your Future’ campaign, I had made a point of passing on the baton and not doing it anymore, but I thought: This is Idris Elba – he has a huge profile, which will keep everybody focused – young people are my passion, I’ll do one more.

I think it’s good to talk, and I believe that we need to take some of the individual things raised in today’s round table and consider how they might look, especially from an educational perspective.

We need to focus on what previsions we are putting in place for youths and have a joined-up approach, to make sure we’re intervening early on. We need to make sure we’re not  criminalising, but having clear guidelines for first offenders.

I read serious case reviews every time I see that a young person has lost their life to knife crime and it’s the same story repeatedly, so we know what the issues are.

I think it’s good for the people who are living through this, day in and day out, to come together and give their ideas and their thoughts; because it cannot be led by one person. We need the strength of the Government, but without the voice of the people, we can’t expect them to get this right.

We need the voices of those who have experienced this, those who have been involved as victims or perpetrators, and come out the other side, to tell the stories of what has gone wrong for them, so we can work out how to make this better.