EXCLUSIVE: ‘No Child Is Born Asking for a Knife So What’s Gone Wrong That Forces Them To Carry Machetes in London?’

“Knife crime is rising — and no one wants to talk about why children are carrying weapons.”

These were the hard hitting words of Sue Hedges, a Havering bereaved mother who has spent the last eight years fighting for change, recognition, and justice after her son Ricky Hayden was murdered in 2016. Sue, like so many others, lives each day with unimaginable grief — not just from losing a child, but from knowing that those in power have failed to listen.

“I had to watch the doctors turn off his life support machine and we had to say goodbye — how can you do that?” she says. Her pain is raw, still sharp nearly a decade later. But Sue hasn’t stopped. Alongside her daughter April, she runs the Ricky Hayden Memorial, keeping Ricky’s name alive through community action, education, and tireless campaigning.

Sue is not alone. She stands shoulder to shoulder with others like anti-knife crime advocate Courtney Barrett of Binning Knives Saves Lives and Harold Hill’s own Peguy Kato, who also lost her son to knife crime. Together, these campaigners have taken to the streets of London, to City Hall, to Downing Street. They have shouted, pleaded, protested, and marched. And still, they say, nothing gets done.

“We have been to City Hall and met the Mayor of London — he promised and did not deliver. We have stood outside Number 10. People are not interested in knife crime. If they say they are tackling it, it’s nonsense,” Sue tells us.

The numbers speak for themselves. Knife crime in London has risen by nearly 60%, yet campaigners like Sue and Courtney feel they are hitting a brick wall. “We are at the point that we are actually tired and fed up of saying the same things all the time. They say they are doing work to tackle knife crime, clearly they are not if the figures show an increase of nearly 60% in knife crime in London. Look at our streets now. Children openly carrying weapons. Children on buses, trains taking out machetes from their jeans. Why are children carrying such weapons? That’s the question they should be asking.”

Sue’s frustration is not just rooted in statistics, but in the daily reality of what our communities are facing. The normalisation of weapons among young people, the fear that lives in schools and homes, and the silence from those in leadership.

“No child grows up asking for a knife. What has happened to our society in London for it to reach this point?” she asks.

Her response has been to act — not just to talk. Sue donates life-saving Daniel Baird bleed kits across London. These are not symbolic gestures. They work. One such kit, which Sue had donated to New City College in Hornchurch, was used to save a teenager’s life after he was stabbed on the way to school.

“They are life savers, and with the way our youth are today, they are needed. Sadly, these youths need help and the help they get is a drop in the ocean. They are being let down by many,” Sue says.

She is clear that this isn’t just a policing issue. The fight against knife crime needs a united front — from the government, schools, councils, communities, and beyond. “The responsibility does not fall only on the police’s shoulders. It needs to be addressed by all,” she says.

Luckily, in Havering, a more joined-up approach is taking shape. Sue praises the collaboration between campaigners, local police, and Havering Council’s enforcement team. But she remains critical of the broader picture.

“No one wants to address knife crime. We are so tired of meeting people and them doing nothing whatsoever. Children are let down, communities are ruined, and families broken as they have to do what we did — bury a son or daughter”

There is no sense of justice in her voice, only fatigue and sorrow. “Our children are being murdered and there is no deterrent, but the usual slap on the wrist. Yet the weapons they carry get bigger and bigger.”

Sue Hedges is a voice from the frontline — a mother, a fighter, and a woman still waiting to be heard.

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