Richmond and Barnes Deanery are proud to support Operation Forgiveness – an early intervention knife-crime initiative, delivered by local churches to local schools. For many years, we have been considering our response, as Christians, as Churches, as a Deanery, to the problem of youth violence, in particular knife crime (see below for more of the story).

In May 2023, we were introduced to Jason O’Shea, who leads Operation by Southwark Diocese’s Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation. Jason leads the Operation Forgiveness team that consists of his wife Tayo O’Shea and mother-in-law Sarah Olumegbon. In 2010, Tayo’s youngest brother Zac was stabbed by a gang and murdered. Jason, Tayo and Sarah visit schools to share the traumatic story and how through faith in Christ both Sarah and Tayo were able to forgive the five boys responsible. Their hope is that children who attend the course would never consider carrying a knife let alone use one.

Richmond and Barnes Deanery Lay Chair, Paula Brackenridge, recently accompanied Jason, Tayo and Sarah on a school visit in South London.

She writes:
“We visited a Year 5 well-behaved and lively class at a non-faith school in South London. The day started with the children watching a video of Zac – the ordinary, cheeky, lovable boy seen through family film clips – which then cut to emotional scenes from his funeral and the grief left behind. This contrast impacted the children greatly and they were told it was ok to cry and feel upset. Sarah and Tayo then spoke about Zac and his dreams for the future, they spoke about the day before the was killed, the day he was killed and the trial. They spoke about the ripple effects on his family, his friends, neighbours, witnesses, teachers, the police, healthcare workers, the killers and their friends and families too.

“The children then had some quiet time to process this and to think about their feelings, which they wrote on post-it notes – sad, upset, angry, worried, scared, not understanding, hollow… The children were told that it was good to feel these things but they mustn’t bottle them up, instead talk to a trusted adult, especially if they felt scared.

“The children were asked in confidence if they had been affected or knew someone that has been affected by knife crime – over half the class put a hand up. This is a problem that needs to be talked about and tackled early. The negative ripples from Zac’s death need to be turned into positive ripples. The children were asked how could they create positive ripples. Some of their responses were: smile at people, help people, be polite, be a good person, show people you value them, raise awareness about things you care about, learn from your mistakes…

“The children and teacher had many questions: How do we prevent knife crime? Why do we turn to knife crime? What if a peer is pressuring you into crime? These would be tackled after a welcome break and they would also be themes that the teacher would revisit throughout the year.

“The children returned from break to see Tayo engrossed in drawing a picture of a cat. When the children are settled, Jason pretends to be angry and rips up the drawing, leading to emotions of sadness, anger and injustice which in turn demonstrates empathy to the children. The children are told that, as Christians, Jason, Tayo and Sarah believe that all life is valuable.

“The children were then asked “when is it ok to carry a knife on the street?” Aside from a very few plausible but convoluted reasons, they mostly concluded never, although self defence was cited by some. They were told that carrying a knife is dangerous and illegal, instead we need to create safe environments where we don’t feel the need to carry weapons for self defence.

“Tayo and Sarah continued Zac’s story. Sarah struggled to hate the five boys accused of murder even though she was facing them at the trial every day and they were laughing and joking. After Zac was killed, Sarah prayed and felt at peace and so she knew she had to forgive Zac’s murders. Tayo’s journey took longer. She hated the killers and thought that God wouldn’t expect her to forgive something so terrible. However, she found that her anger and hate affected her ability to love and care for her family. She knew that the only way forward was to forgive.

“The children were told that forgiving someone doesn’t mean telling them that what they’ve done is ok but about letting go of the anger and that they have all the power. Balloons were used to demonstrate the build up of feelings to the point of bursting and forgiveness was letting the balloon go. The children were then given quiet space to think about someone in their life they needed to forgive.

“The children split into small discussion groups and first talked about what made the most impact from Zac’s story. They then imagined themselves in government and thought about what policies they would put in place to prevent knife crime. Feeding back to the whole class, policies that included tougher penalties, early intervention and preventative work and rehabilitation of offenders were proposed.

“The day would normally continue after lunch with creative artwork, making posters to stop knife crime, but the class had another commitment. Throughout the morning, the children showed great maturity and understanding and were clearly impacted by Zac’s story, the moving testimonies of Tayo and Sarah and the power they had to change things by never carrying a knife themselves and turning feelings of fear, anger sadness and hate into forgiveness.

“As the school was not a faith school, Jason, Tayo and Sarah were not able to share the Gospel as much as they would like. However, they were still able to to tell the class that it was their Christian faith that led them to forgive and to believe they will see Zac again. This was respected and understood.

“To reach more children, Operation Forgiveness is expanding by engaging local churches to find volunteers to delivery the message in schools. We were also joined by one such Operation Forgiveness volunteer who observed the visit and now feels well equipped to deliver the message with her own team.

“We pray that the amazing work Operation Forgiveness does continues to reach ever more more children and that the Lord will guide them to a future free from fear of knife crime.”

Background to the Deanery Knife Crime Appeal

At the Diocesan Synod in March 2019 Reigate Deanery proposed a motion calling for Churches to take action against knife crime. What support the Church can offer to reduce knife crime?

• Offering support to the victims and perpetrators and their families and friends.
• Supporting our schools to reduce exclusion through the roles of church youth workers and other ministers.
• Providing alternatives such as knife bins and safe places for children from the end of school until parents and guardians return home.
• Offering positive male role models, to help young men who’ve had no father figure, understand how to deal with anger.

This motion is now being taken forward to General Synod and Revd Canon Dr Rosemarie Mallett has been talking about these proposals in the national news.

We also discussed these issues at the June 2019 Synod and are working out how we can use our deanery structure to protect our young people from violence. One possible response is to raise money for a knife bin to be placed where it’s most needed. Can we open our doors to our young people? Or is there something else we can do?

We are raising these questions in our indvidual Churches and will report back and discuss further at the next Deanery Synod in October.

We decided as a deanery that we would like to fund a Knife Bin via Word 4 Weapons to be placed somewhere in the Diocese where it would be most needed. £10,000 is needed to fund a bin for five years as follows:

• £4,000 manufacture, delivery, 1st year maintenance
• £1,535 subsequent annual maintenance

It works out as £5.70 for each person on the electoral rolls of Richmond & Barnes, around £750 per church or less than £2.50 per church each week for five years.

At the October 2019 Synod it was reported that there had been a good initial response to the appeal so far. 

At the January 2020 Synod, it was reported that we are now confident our target will be reached. Parishes have responded in different ways – some have promised money from the PCC (some with a one-off donation and some spreading over a number of years), some are holding their own appeal.

The next stage is exploring where the bin should be placed and we will report back to the Deanery Synod once we are clearer on the location, following discussion with Word4Weapons and the Diocese’s social justice team. Word4Weapons are keen that the bins should be placed within Church premises.

Recent comments from Word4Weapons highlight the difference a knife bin makes and how crucial the location is. In a three-month period one bin had collected 40 knives and one bin had collected 300 knives. A very powerful illustration of need.

At the February 2021 Synod, it was reported that we have sufficient support for the Knife Bin Appeal. Progress on finding a suitable location for the bin stopped due to changes of personnel in Southwark and Word 4 Weapons. There was now new head of the Southwark Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation and we have been in touch with her to move the appeal forward.

At the July 2021 Synod, it was reported that we have been in touch with Nicola Thomas, head of the Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation at Southwark Diocese (JPIC) and have had discussions with the Archdeacons and Metropolitan Police about where would be best to place the bin. The bin is movable so the location can be changed. The Metropolitan Police have given us maps showing existing and suitable locations for a knife bin. We are sharing these maps with the Archdeacons who will approach their parishes to find out which churches would welcome a knife bin in their churchyard.

At the October 2021 Synod, it was reported that two churches had been identified as suitable places to locate the bin. This is now with the PCCs of those parishes, and it is hoped that a location may be finalized by the time of the next meeting. It was also noted that although knife in London was down, fatalities continue to rise.

At the January 2022 Synod, it was reported that we had found a church in South London as a suitable location for our knife bin. Both the vicar and the PCC are receptive to the idea of having a knife bin. The church is open most days and there is community outreach, including youth work, in the crypt, so there would be people available to talk to anyone who wanted to. We had already visited the church to have a look at the area and were going to meet with the vicar soon. We have been looking at Word4Weapons, which has previously been used by the Diocese to provide the bin. We may also consider another company KnifeSafe, which was recommended by the Met.

We found the vicar to be very enthusiastic and the church identified was keen to progress installing a knife bin. We kept in touch as the vicar tried to find an individual to lead a group which would investigate and solve the practicalities surrounding installation. We were keen to wait as we knew that for this project to succeed, robust local ownership is essential. After a year of waiting we were no further forward we went back to JPIC and asked for help again in finding another suitable location for the knife bin.

On further consultation with JPIC, we concluded that unless the drive for the knife bin comes from within the church community, it is
quite a hard thing to place a bin with a church. In May 2023, we started to look for an alternative project tackling youth violence to support. JPIC had recently been joined in by Jason O’Shea working one day a week specifically on tackling serious youth violence. He has personal experience and leads a preventative initiative called Operation Forgiveness which works with children in primary schools.

At the October 2023 Synod, Jason spoke to Synod members about his work with Operation Forgiveness. At the February 2024 Synod, it was agreed that Deanery funds previously pledged for the installation and running of a knife bin should be given to Operation Forgiveness. Individual churches that had pledged funds were consulted and indicated their wishes. A total donation of £3,750 from the Deanery was made to Operation Forgiveness.