Families to march against knife crime through streets of Glasgow
Starting at 1pm, the Parents Against Knives march will be joined by the family of Kory McCrimmon, who died after an attack involving a bladed weapon on May 31 2024.
His family said the 16-year-old's life 'will not be in vain' as they urged others to join the march.
The 16-year-old died after he was found seriously injured in Greenfield Park in the east end of Glasgow.
A 14-year-old was last month sentenced to five years detention after admitting culpable homicide.
Amen Teklay, 15 was found with fatal injuries on Clarendon Street, Glasgow, at around 10.30pm on Wednesday March 5 (Police Scotland/PA)
The march comes in the wake of the deaths of teenagers Amen Teklay and Kayden Moy in separate incidents in recent weeks.
In a statement issued through Victim Support Scotland, Kory's family previously said: 'Kory McCrimmon's young life was a brushstroke in time but we his family wish for his death to make a difference: Kory's life will not be in vain.
'Our aim here is to continue highlighting the increase in deaths and danger by knife and violent crime. Our sons and daughters are more than statistics, they deserve better.
'Kory's parents are very clear: if we can prevent at least one more family going through this life-shattering agony, we have gone a long way in our mission, but let's go further.
'We walk in Kory's name but we stand for all those lives lost or maimed to knife violence: too much, too many. No more.
'Come join our walk and lend your hearts and voices to making our streets, our young people and our lives safer.'
Two boys aged 14 and 16 have appeared in court charged with murder following the death of 15-year-old Amen in the Maryhill area of Glasgow on March 5.
Kayden, 16, was found seriously injured on Irvine beach in North Ayrshire after police were called to the area at about 6.45pm on May 17.
A 14-year-old boy and two 17-year-old boys have appeared in court charged with murder following his death.
The Parents Against Knives march will set off from Rangers' Ibrox stadium and those taking part will walk to Celtic Park in the east end of the city.
Kayden Moy died following reports of a disturbance at a beach in Ayrshire (Police Scotland/PA)
Kate Wallace, chief executive of Victim Support Scotland, said: 'Too many lives are being devastated by knife crime in Scotland.
'Behind every statistic, hundreds of lives are irreversibly impacted with tragic consequences for everyone involved; family, friends, siblings, school mates, and the wider communities in which we all live.
'We support the Parents Against Knives walk, organised entirely by the McCrimmon family in memory of their son Kory, which will undoubtedly help draw attention to this growing crisis.
'These are complex and sensitive situations which require a multi-agency response from the Scottish Government, victim support organisations, police, social work, youth work and others to work together to tackle knife crime and the devastation it causes. People across Scotland deserve to feel safe in their own communities.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Record
an hour ago
- Daily Record
I feel strongly about Bomber in Rangers vs SFA fallout and I can explain it all to Cavenagh in jig time
I have paid for the weddings of two daughters off the back of spontaneous, emotional comment. Forty years worth of payment for listening to, and attempting a reply to, exasperated radio callers who want to get something off their chest in a bronchitic blast. It would therefore be hypocritical in the extreme if I were to approve of someone being punished for indulging in that particular practice. Someone like John Brown, for example. Prior to Rangers' lengthy and indignant response to being fined £3000 by the SFA on Thursday, I had found it hard to work up any level of concern, far less righteous indignation, over the Bomber versus the compliance officer. The truth is I loved the story because it appealed to every cynical, sarcastic bone in my sceptical body. Bomber said the decision to disallow a goal for Rangers against Hibs at Easter Road on May 17 was 'corrupt.' In their initial defence of their in-house television channel's co-commentator, Rangers said in a statement that the words used came under the heading of 'spontaneous emotional' comment. My funny bone was tickled at that point because Scottish football has more conspiracy theorists per capita than any other country in the world. I know. I've spoken to most of them over the last four decades. And if you don't believe there's a conspiracy against their team then it stands to reason you must be part of the conspiracy yourself. Whatever reason is in the context of our game. Every fan in the country thinks the game is bent – particularly those who support Celtic and Rangers. That's why, on radio, there is what's known as a seven-second delay button. This mechanism 'loses' a caller in the event of the spontaneous and the emotional turning into the effing and blinding, which causes offence. Or requires the reading out of a disclaimer to legally distance the radio station from any comment that might ultimately be the cause of litigation. Rangers' post-fine statement on Thursday, that the outburst regarding alleged corruption wasn't an official club comment, is debatable. If I say Scottish football is corrupt on radio then I'm sure any punishment suffered would be delivered to my employers. But this is where the whole business is out of proportion to my way of thinking. People in the Bomber's position – or mine for that matter – are not, according to the SFA, supposed to imply bias or incompetence on the part of match officials. But the SFA's own Key Match Incident panel found that the decision to disallow Rangers' goal in Edinburgh was incorrect. And they have previously stood down VAR Alan Muir for mistakes made during games. Does that mean there is incompetence on the part of match officials, but you're not supposed to say so? It is at this point we are all disappearing up our own jurisprudence. Brown is a former Rangers player and lifelong follower of the club who got carried away in the heat of the moment. Big deal. We could all have got over it without psychological scarring. At the same time, the compliance officer must surely have more to do with his time than get involved in trivia of this description. Now we're into the realms of Rangers saying there is 'selective enforcement' of the rules and 'regulatory oversights', which damage the SFA's credibility. Whataboutery by any other name. Andrew Cavenagh might question, on behalf of 49ers Enterprises, what the cheque for £3000 is all about. But I wouldn't take too long to explain it all regarding 'he said that and they said this'. He's likely to tell whoever is informing him on the background that he's got far more important things to do with his time. Meanwhile, Rangers and the SFA could use their time more profitably if they assisted the Scottish government with their crackdown on crowd violence and the use of pyrotechnics. What Bomber said was never going to endanger anyone's life. Unlike the pyro plonkers.
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
The Bayoh inquiry is at a crossroads – the Crown Office must decide
On May 3, 2015 in Kirkcaldy, Sheku Bayoh was restrained on the ground by six police officers. He died. In November 2019, Humza Yousaf announced a full judicial inquiry into the circumstances of Bayoh's death, including an investigation into what role, if any, race played in these events and their aftermath. Lord Bracadale was appointed to lead the inquiry by the Scottish Government, with Angela Grahame KC as its main lawyer. Core participants were identified, including the Bayoh family, Police Scotland, the Crown Office, and the individual police officers involved in the incident giving rise to Bayoh's death. Remarkably, the Equality and Human Rights Commission declined to get involved in the most significant official investigation into race and policing in Scotland in decades. To date, the inquiry has heard almost 125 days of evidence and legal argument over the better part of six years. Until Lord Bracadale recalled the participants to the oral hearing at Capital House this month, we thought the evidential parts of the Bayoh inquiry were basically over and awaited Bracadale's formal conclusions. READ MORE: Presiding Officer to step down at Holyrood election Now, his investigation may be fatally compromised before a single conclusion has been published. Last week, lawyers for the Scottish Police Federation lodged a formal recusal application, arguing that the inquiry was tainted by apparent bias and that officers under investigation by it had 'lost confidence' in the independence of the chair. It isn't unheard of for public inquiries to shed their chair before reaching conclusions and if this happens early enough in their progress, it need not fatally compromise their work. Because inquiry chairs tend to have grey hairs, human frailty being what it is can also have an impact, as age and illness catch up with very long-running inquiry processes. Lady Poole did a bunk from the Scottish Covid inquiry for reasons still unexplained, leaving Lord Brailsford to step in. Child abuse inquiries across the UK have burned through a number of chairs during their long and painfully slow progress. But if Bracadale steps down in response to this pressure, it is difficult to see how the inquiry could meaningfully recover. The Bayoh family's solicitor Aamer Anwar has described the move as an '11th hour,' 'desperate and pathetic attempt to sabotage the inquiry' by 'the Federation and those hanging on to their coat tails'. But the legal arguments involved are serious and if Bracadale decides not to recuse himself, we can expect further litigation in judicial review at the Court of Session. One of the tricky things here is the nature of public inquiries. Public inquiries aren't courts – though given the plantations of lawyers who have sat through the Bayoh inquiry hearings, you could be forgiven for mistaking them for one. Unlike courts, core participants aren't free to choose what evidence they'd like to lead. The lawyers in the room can apply to the chair to ask questions of witnesses, but they don't have the absolute right to cross-examine as they or their clients might like. The process is inquisitorial, and counsel for the inquiry takes the lead. But like all public decision-makers, there's an overriding requirement for public inquiries to adopt a fair procedure. What fairness requires depends on the circumstances, but one aspect of fairness deals with bias – actual or apparent. Some biases are easy to identify. If one of the core participants is best friends with the inquiry chair, we have a problem. If the judge in charge is on the board of trustees of one of the organisations involved in the scrutiny, the fair-minded observer might have their doubts about their independence. Legally, the question is 'whether the fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, would conclude that there was a real possibility that the tribunal was biased' in the circumstances. The case for Bracadale's recusal is based on a range of critical observations about how Bracadale and his lawyers have handled the investigation, but focus primarily on five private meetings they held with the Bayoh family and their legal representatives without any of the other core participants being present, aware of the meetings or given comprehensive information about what precisely was discussed. 'Mindful of how long the inquiry has lasted and the attendant effort and time that has been invested,' Scotland's prosecuting authorities have also concluded 'with great regret' that the inquiry appears biased in favour of Bayoh's surviving relatives. While repeatedly stressing 'there is no basis for assuming anything other than good intentions on the part of the Chair,' the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) told the judge they share the Police Federation's disquiet and have submitted supporting arguments, arguing that the inquiry has been actually biased in its language and approach to the evidence. Explaining these meetings, the inquiry has stressed 'the engagement of the families with the inquiry is crucial to the effectiveness of the inquiry in fulfilling its terms of reference. If the inquiry failed to obtain and retain the confidence of the families its effectiveness would be prejudiced'. READ MORE: Labour blasted as 'deeply authoritarian' over plans to proscribe Palestine Action 'Over the years from 2015, the families lost confidence in the various state institutions with which they had dealings – Police Scotland, the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner, and the Crown Office. There was a real prospect that they would not engage at all with the inquiry process or at some point would cease to engage with it,' they said. For these aspirations, Bracadale is also criticised by the Crown Office, who maintains 'the fair-minded observer would question whether that was consistent with a stated intention to proceed in a way that was entirely impartial and independent of any person'. But their argument stretches a long way beyond this. They suggest, for example, that the inquiry's approach to witnesses has tended to focus on evidence that met aspects of counsel's 'case theory' which 'usually appeared to align with the position of the family.' Cherry-picking, essentially, with a mind made up, determined to extract answers from witnesses that fit the theory rather than reflect a perhaps more muddled and messy reality. This suggestion stretches a good way beyond suggestions of apparent bias. Reflecting on how some witnesses were examined, COPFS also complained that this 'case theory was at times pursued with notable vigour, creating the impression that the purpose was to validate rather than test the theory'. The prosecuting authorities – themselves the subject of criticism in evidence before the inquiry, remember – don't set out what precisely they understand the inquiry's 'case theory' to be – so the innuendo reading of these complaints is all we're left with. At least the Police Federation are more uncompromisingly direct about the legal consequences of their recusal application. They insist that comments from Bracadale – including suggestions he was 'profoundly moved' by Bayoh's sister's description of the impact of her brother's death on their family – 'suggest or create the appearance' that the inquiry has 'pre-judged, or evinced a closed mind to, material issues' at stake, including the relative blameworthiness of the dead man. Objection was also taken to a human impact video which opened the inquiry, with Roddy Dunlop KC suggesting that 'arranging and paying for a video tribute to the life of one core participant when it was known that other core participants did not accept the description of Mr Bayoh as the 'victim' is again problematic – all the more so when the chair had indicated in advance (privately) that this would 'be a very strong start to the hearings''. Although the Crown Office stresses they aren't questioning the motives or intentions of the chair, their submission argues the inquiry's approach to the questioning of witnesses was actually biased and biased in favour of Bayoh's family – a remarkable allegation meriting much more critical comment than it has received. If the Solicitor General is right, then as a matter of law, Bracadale must resign. If they are confident in their legal analysis, the Crown Office should say so. At the hearing last week, Scotland's prosecutors limply argued it was a 'matter for the inquiry' how to respond to their full-frontal attack on how the inquiry has discharged its duties investing this death in custody. Given the startling breadth of the Crown Office's attack on its work, this isn't legal politesse but pure cowardice.
Daily Record
3 hours ago
- Daily Record
Bereaved Scot who lost partner to drunk driver backs calls for lower blood alcohol limit
Charles Pease, whose partner Theresa was killed in a horror crash in Mull in 2015, said the move could save lives. A man who lost his partner to a drunk driver has backed a campaign to reduce the legal blood alcohol limit for motorists. Charles Pease, whose partner Theresa Wade, 29, was killed in a horror crash in Mull in 2015, said the move could save lives. It comes after Theresa's killer, Thomas Wainwright, this week allegedly went on the run while on parole. He was jailed for 12 years after smashing his hired Maserati supercar into the van of island vet Theresa while he was boozed up. He falsely blamed her until it emerged in court he had downed five ciders and two whiskies on an eight-hour binge before getting behind the wheel. Road safety charity Brake has launched a campaign to slash the legal blood alcohol limit to 20mg per 100ml of blood – meaning as little as half a pint could put a driver over the limit. Charles, 69, said: 'I support it. It will take people off the roads that would otherwise be placing others in potential jeopardy. "It has been almost 10 years since I lost Theresa and she continues to be very much on my mind. "She would, I'm sure, have definitely advocated for a reduction in the limit.' In 2014 Scotland cut the limit from 80mg per 100ml of blood to 50mg – one to two pints for an average person. In England and Wales, the limit is still 80mg. Drink and drug driving rates in Scotland remain high. Official data showed over 5500 offences last year – the highest since 2021. Charles said the life of his 'generous, kind and loving' partner had been snuffed out by 'one foolish person'. He said: 'Ultimately I would like to see zero tolerance of drink driving. It's shameful anyone still drinks and drives.' Wainwright, jailed in 2017, had served half his sentence when he was granted early release in 2023. He is now wanted for violating his parole licence. Charles said: 'I'm absolutely appalled. It's a sad reflection on the Scottish judicial system and the sooner he's taken back into custody, the better. Him being at large will put others at risk.' Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. The Scottish Prison Service said: 'An offender unlawfully at large will be returned to prison when apprehended.' Brake wants a UK-wide 20mg blood alcohol limit to eradicate drink-driving. Research shows motorists having just one or two drinks are six times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash. The charity's website states: "Every year, more than 200 people die in drink-driving incidents on UK roads… 'Some people think driving after one or two drinks is safe, but drinking any alcohol can affect our driving and increase our risk of a crash.' The British Medical Association also last year backed a 20mg limit for new and commercial drivers. A Scottish Government spokesman said: 'Our thoughts are with those who have lost a loved one to drink driving. "Any injury or death as a result of drink driving is one too many and our message to those drivers who continue to ignore the law and drive above the alcohol limit is clear - drink driving is illegal and can ruin lives. 'Legislation to lower the drink drive limit to lowest in the UK was backed unanimously by the Scottish Parliament over a decade ago and was based on independent scientific evidence of when impairment begins to increase significantly, bringing Scotland into line with the majority of other European countries.'
