'He's not yours anymore': Watch parents of knife crime victims discuss their trauma in our new documentary, Grief
"There's a battle going on on our streets, it's war in the UK, and we're losing our sons. We've got to stop it."
They're the words of Mark Brindley, who has spoken to the Express & Star as part of our new documentary, Grief, which focuses on the agony felt by the victims of knife crime.
The Express & Star has spoken to the grieving parents of two young men who were both stabbed to death while walking home in the Black Country.
Mark's son, James, was stabbed through the heart whilst walking home from a party on June 23, 2017. The 26-year-old was in an Aldridge park when he was subjected to a 35-second random act of violence by 17-year-old Aaron Kahrod.
Five years later, almost to the day, on June 29, 2022, 16-year-old Ronan Kanda was killed in eerily similar circumstances.
The teenager, who had just finished his GCSEs, was also walking home - this time in the Lanesfield area of Wolverhampton - when Prabjeet Veadhesa and Sukhman Shergill, aged 17 and 16, targeted him in a tragic case of mistaken identity.
Like James, Ronan was stabbed in the heart.
Since then, Mark Brindley and Ronan's mother, Pooja Kanda, have courageously campaigned to try and prevent further repeats of these senseless crimes, and have now spoken to the Express & Star in Grief.
James and Mark Brindley
Mark Brindley recalled how he and his wife were fast asleep and "oblivious" until James' sister Charlotte burst into their bedroom "screaming that James had been stabbed".
Describing a "sea of blue lights" on Aldridge High Street, Mark abandoned his car and ran towards the scene where they "could see a huddle of paramedics and witnessed James having open heart surgery".
"James was walking along the road, talking to his girlfriend on the phone, and he was attacked," Mark said. "The girlfriend heard nothing, we don't think James was aware of anybody or anything, and we think it was a complete and utter surprise."
Mark spoke of an '18-month downwards spiral' after James' death, in which he didn't open mail or respond to any emails in a "descent into despair".
After 18 months a letter from an organisation that runs a care home for children arrived. It discussed some of the same issues the Brindleys had been wrestling with, and eventually led to a collaboration between the family and the organisation.
