Hollywood star Idris Elba joins Keir Starmer to launch new coalition against knife crime to curb nationwide stabbings

Hollywood actor Idris Elba will join the Prime Minister in Downing Street to launch a new initiative to combat knife crime.

Elba, an anti-knife crime campaigner, will join Sir Keir Starmer on Monday morning to launch the coalition aimed at preventing young people from being drawn into violent gangs.

The coalition will bring together interest groups, families of people who have lost their lives to knife crime and young people affected by it, as well as Elba and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.

What is expected to be the first annual summit on knife crime will also involve technology companies, sporting organisations, the health sector and the police.

The coalition will work with experts to develop an understanding of the reasons why young people become involved in knife crime.

Hollywood star Elba and Sir Keir spoke to the families of knife crime victims in west London, including the mother of a young man killed by a single stab wound on June 25.

Previously, in June, Elba and Sir Keir spoke to the families of victims of knife crime in west London, including the mother of a young man killed by a single stab wound.

“We need to tackle the causes of knife crime, not just the symptoms,” said Elba.

He added: “The coalition is a positive step towards rehabilitating our communities from within.”

The Prime Minister is expected to explain how close he is to this task because of his legal career.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Sir Keir said: “As Director of Public Prosecutions, I have seen first-hand the devastating impact of knife crime on young people and their families. This is a national crisis that we will tackle head-on.”

“We will use this moment to come together as a country – politicians, families of victims, young people themselves, community leaders and technology companies – to halve knife crime and take back our streets.”

Ministers have already taken steps to ban so-called ninja swords and plan to tighten laws on the online sale of knives.

Commander Stephen Clayman, the national police chief for knife crime, has been appointed to lead a rapid investigation into how these weapons are being sold online and supplied to under-18s, and to close loopholes in the law.

He will report to the Minister of the Interior by the end of the year.

Ms Cooper said: “It is vital to get guns off our streets and ensure that violence has tough and clear consequences.”

“And we also need to prevent young people from going down that path – that means we need to offer young people more hope and more opportunities.”

Sunday's announcement is the first step in the Government's ten-year plan to tackle knife crime and will play a central role in its mission to make our streets safer.

It comes to Elba and Sir Keir spoke to the families of Messer crime Victims in the West London including the mother of a young man who was killed by a single stab wound.

Rev. Lorraine Jones told Sir Keir and actor and anti-knife crime campaigner Elba at a meeting in Hammersmith, west London, that she saw her son Dwayne Simpson killed with “a stab wound that went “straight through his heart.”

Addressing the assembly on Monday, Sir Keir said: “As Director of Public Prosecutions, I have seen first-hand the devastating impact of knife crime on young people and their families. This is a national crisis that we will tackle head-on.”

He said: “I've had difficult conversations like, 'Idris, you tell people to put their knives away, but what should I hold in my hand?'”

“And I feel like I don't know what to tell them because they're literally holding on to these things out of fear. But they have solutions,” he added.

Rev. Lorraine Jones told Sir Keir and actor and anti-knife crime campaigner Elba at a meeting in Hammersmith, west London, that she saw her son Dwayne Simpson killed with “a stab wound that went “straight through his heart.”

She said she had continued to live in Brixton, south London, since her son was murdered ten years ago because it was “like a battlefield from which I could not retreat”.

She said: “We want to sit at the table with you because we now have the answers. We have patrols, Idris, volunteers who patrol before and after school because we don't have enough police.”

“We don't have enough people in the community, we are desperate. And the worst thing is that we say it is becoming the norm. We don't want it to become the norm.

“It is not normal for us to bury our children or for five-year-olds to see corpses and shrines in our neighborhood.”

Elba later said in an Instagram video that it was a “very important” meeting with families of victims and campaign organizations to discuss “what we need to do as a country to fight this.” He said it was a non-political issue.

Sir Keir said it was “hard to hear the stories of the campaigners against knife crime”. He added: “And it should be hard to hear them and it is very important that they are heard from start to finish.”