From stab victim to soldier – Tom’s story

Tom was only 13 when he was stabbed in an unprovoked attack at an under 18s club in Crawley. 

Hanging out with a few new friends Tom had only just met, the night was a pretty normal one. Loud pop music, neon lights and glow sticks filled the room where Tom and his friends would spend the next few hours dancing and joking with each other. 

“When it came time to leave, I was hanging around in the car park looking for my mate because I’d lost him inside,” Tom recalled.

This is where he encountered his attacker. The unknown man, slightly older than Tom, began shouting in a blind rage. Tom describes being confused at the man’s anger and not understanding fully what he was saying. “It was something about me dancing with his girlfriend in the club, which is ridiculous because I could barely talk to girls at 13.”

The attacker pulled out a Stanley knife but Tom was able to notice the lunge and stop the knife plunging dangerously deep into him. 

He was lucky enough to be fairly unscarred from his attack, but others aren’t so fortunate. Nearly 300 people in the UK were killed in knife crime in the year ending March 2018, one in four of these being men aged 18-24.

Toms experience has left him with a permanent air of caution when meeting new people. He explains how the audeal made him “scrutinise people’s motives and agendas more closely” and how “people have to earn [his] trust”.

In the immediate aftermath Tom’s trust for strangers plummeted and he found it difficult to go out, particularly places outside of his hometown. He describes the fear as a “niggling in the back of [his] head”  that if it happened to him once, it could happen again. 

The attack, however,  did leave a positive effect on Toms life, helping to give him a push towards his dream of joining the Army. “The idea that I could have a career in which I could serve and protect people and potentially stop them from having the same experience as me was really motivating.”

Knife crime has been on a steady rise since 2014/15. In the year 2018/19 there were a total of 44,000 recorded incidents in the UK. MPs warn that the average 40% cut on funding to youth services could be to blame for these high numbers. Claims have been made linking the lowest funded youth service areas to the highest increase in knife crime.

Cambridgeshire’s youth services suffered a massive cut from £3.5m to just £0.7m in 2018. In the same period, knife crimes rose from 220 in 2014 to 430 in 2018.

These figures, provided by the analysis of responses to Freedom of Information requests, show the direct link between youth service access and knife crime statistics. Places such as youth centres are a key factor for supporting teenagers to keep them out of trouble on the streets. 

Tom said finding immediate support wasn’t easy. He didn’t think to turn to the police after the incident and still hasn’t told his mum what happened. But he later found support in joining the Armed Forces.

He believes the support military-based organisations such as the cadets or military college can help give kids an escape from bad circumstances or gang culture. He states how they “teach core values to help better yourself” which ultimately keep the kids involved out of trouble and sets them on the right path.