1
This film contains scenes which
some viewers may find upsetting
LOUD OVERHEAD TRAIN PASSES
GUNSHO NEWSREADER: The small Scottish town
of Dunblane is in mourning tonight
after 16 young children and their
teacher were shot dead
at the primary school.
They were gathering for gym lesson
at 9.30 this morning
when a gunman burst in
and began firing.
All the children
were aged five or six.
In the wake of Dunblane
and Hungerford,
it is clear that only the strictest
firearms laws can provide
maximum safety.
I'm just getting treated like
a god, and that's how it was.
I go to the nightclub,
I don't pay to go to nowhere.
I will protect you.
Even God can't stop me.
I don't know why
he pulled that trigger.
There was no need to do any of this.
We live in a world that,
essentially, chooses to have
a blind eye about the things
that take place in our society.
Dean - you're going
to be the gunman.
Darryl - you're going
to be the victim.
Back in 2004, England played
a football game against France
in the European Championships.
And England were 1-0 ahead,
I think it was Frank Lampard
that scored a header
from a free kick.
At 90 minutes,
England were winning 1-0.
When the final whistle blew,
we'd lost 2-1.
France had not only equalised,
but they'd scored the winning goal
in about four minutes.
I went home, went to bed.
Woke up the next morning,
and I immediately realised
that I'd not only gone to bed
thinking about the football,
or the last four minutes,
dreamt about it,
and woke up thinking about it.
And it was the first night
in quite a few years
that I hadn't gone to bed thinking,
dreaming, waking up about a murder.
The first gun-enabled injury
that I dealt with
would have been in the
middle of 2000,
where a lad got shot in the leg,
which was clearly
a punishment shooting.
Several years later,
I actually dealt with his murder
in West Bromwich.
That was unusual to have met
angry dad in 2000 because his son's
been shot in the leg to an even
angrier man several years later,
where the same son
has been shot dead.
I remember his dad saying to me,
"If you don't get it right,
I will sue you."
And equally, I had one father
say to me once,
"I know who killed my son."
But he said, "I can't tell you."
And he said, "I'm not being awkward
"and I don't want to be
uncooperative, but I cannot tell
"you who killed my son.
"You're going to have
to work that one out.
"I won't lie to you,
"but I'm not the person
that's going to tell you."
So, the turning point
for me was a murder.
When we sent away the cartridge
casings, they came back
and told us about other incidents
where that firearm
had been discharged.
I'd read every statement,
every report, every message.
And, eventually, we got to a point
where we identified a series
of ten guns.
That's when we really started
to unpick the pattern and realise
that those guns were
being recirculated.
One gun stood out.
It was used significantly
more than any other.
And that was Gun No. 6.
LAUGHTER
Hello, Merry Christmas!
What a wonderful sight first
thing in the morning.
Craig was born in 1979.
He never woke up in
the night for a feed,
it was amazing.
Whereas his brother made up for it.
They were lovely boys,
beautiful boys - still are.
CHEERING
ALL: Merry Christmas!
MAN ON VIDEOTAPE:
Certainly picked up a bit
since we've been here already.
We've only been here a couple of
months.
Well, three months, I think it is.
This is obviously the Post Office.
We used to open about
seven o'clock in the morning,
so it'd give me about a quarter
of an hour to do all the papers
and stuff like that.
And um... God, I can't...
The papers was hundreds
of bloody things.
I said to him, "I've got to nip
upstairs and sort bits
"and pieces out."
To this day, I bitterly regret
the fact that I didn't look
out the window.
Cos I would have seen them
getting out of the car.
They came in.
One of them had a
big old sledgehammer.
The other one had a gun,
which I didn't really believe
was a real one.
There was a young girl in there.
She saw them come in and
she absolutely screamed
the place down.
I think Craig had heard
it cos his bedroom
was above the shop.
So, we both ran along the hallway.
I think it was the shortest one.
He said, "Open the Post Office,
open the safe..."
and God knows what else.
I said, "You might get in there,"
I think I said, "but you can't get
"in the safe because
it's on the time switch."
So, we eventually got down the
stairs and Craig was behind me -
and bless him, he only
had his boxer shorts on.
And he tapped me on the shoulder
and he pulled me back.
He leant over and picked
up the cricket bat.
GUNSHO Craig - he was shot.
And he said...
He said, "They got me."
I heard the cricket
bat plop on the floor,
I went round and picked it up.
The middle one, he grabbed hold
of the gunman and pulled him
round the corner.
And he shot me in the leg!
GUNSHO Well, it bloody hurt.
It hit my bone, my knee.
They obviously wanted
to do me more harm,
so they grabbed all
these metal shelves,
threw those onto me,
and then they proceeded to jump
up and down on the shelves,
which I was obviously
stuck underneath.
And they did that quite a few times.
I knew my boy was injured, so I...
..I pulled back...
HE CLEARS THROA I pulled back behind the shelves,
you know, went back on my bum.
I had one leg, really.
Pushed myself along...
Uh...
I went around the corner.
HE CLEARS THROA And I saw my boy, laying on the...
HE COUGHS
..laying on the floor...
..in a great big pool of blood.
And, uh...
..well, I went over...
..I touched him.
I knew he was dead.
Hello, Merry Christmas!
What a wonderful sight first thing
in the morning.
Is it painful seeing
pictures of him?
Yeah. It is, yeah, for me.
I often think, "Why would somebody
think it's perfectly normal
"to pick up a gun?"
And that question needs
to be answered somewhere.
When a gun fires a bullet,
it leaves unique markings
on the casing.
It's like a fingerprint,
it's unique to the gun.
And what the investigation found -
that the gun that was used
in the murder at the Post Office
had previously been used
in ten other shootings.
So, the history of Gun No. 6
starts on the streets of Birmingham
at about three o'clock
in the morning,
when shots are fired.
MUFFLED MUSIC AND SHOUTING
TWO GUNSHOTS
From about 2000 onwards,
we had started seeing an escalation
in gun-enabled homicides.
Charlene Ellis and
Letisha Shakespeare were killed
as they stood outside a party
in the Aston area of Birmingham
by a hail of bullets
from a passing car.
And we've got a community that
won't talk to us,
because they're frightened.
So, when we look at the first
shooting,
we've got no known witnesses.
There is no scientific material,
other than the bullet casings.
There is no CCTV.
There is no telephone evidence.
And more importantly,
nobody is coming forward to say,
"In the early hours of this morning,
somebody tried to shoot me."
The only person who actually knows
what happened and why
is the person who pulled
the trigger.
Having a gun upon you, it affects
all your reactions to things.
It affects all your normal...
You think you're behaving pretty
normal, but none of it is,
because everything's
a heightened state.
Like, if I walk into a room
and there's a gun,
for example, like that, I kind of
have to walk out.
Cos we're going to start bonding.
Once I've pulled away
from all of that,
it's when I realised
that the gun was speaking to me,
I could actually hear it speak.
"Yes, baby, come here, hold me!
Squeeze me."
It becomes the attractive option.
Yeah.
Meant to be.
My name's Leroy Smith
and I'm originally from South London
and I served 20 years out
of a 25-year sentence
for shooting two police officers
in South London.
My real motivation behind taking
part in this is because I do a lot
of work with young people in youth
centres and schools and colleges.
My name's Darryl,
I'm a rehabilitated ex-offender,
spent many years in jail
and now I work with kids
and vulnerable adults.
I was arrested with 500 bullets,
and it's most probably the best
thing that ever happened to me,
because if them bullets
would have got back
to Manchester, 500 bullets,
there would have definitely
been deaths.
It's adrenaline, isn't it?
I've been charged with
numerous violent offences,
namely conspiracy to murder,
attempted murder,
possession of firearms
with intent to endanger life,
possession of ammunition.
What was it like to be charged
with attempted murder?
Just another day at the office.
OK, so, this is the second shooting.
It was a gang walking
through a parade of shops,
one of the guys had a gun,
they walked around this parade
of shops, asked about a rival gang,
got in a car, chased after another
car and there was shots fired
while they were sort
of chasing each other.
So, Dean, I'm going to pick you
to be the shooter today.
CAR ENGINE REVS
TYRES SCREECH
FOUR GUNSHOTS
CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS
From my experience, I would think...
..it's like the hunting mind-set.
I can only assume something happened
to the other individuals
and this was sort of like...
A retaliation plea.
A retaliation plea.
When you're living
that type of lifestyle,
police is the least of your worries,
you're not particularly thinking
about the police, cos the idea is
that you're OK with the consequences
of your actions.
And if the other side's real, like,
it is not going to go
to the police, because no-one's
going to inform or call any police.
So, it's internal.
I couldn't really go out
unless I had my gun
because after I went
out without my gun,
I'd be caught slippin'
and they'd come and get me.
It's just a case of having my
protection around me.
If my immediate family
or my friends weren't around me,
this gun was loyal.
It was always there
for me when I needed it.
And made me money, made me...
Made people respect me.
Outside, it was like,
you had to be strong.
Like, the weak didn't make it,
I saw how the weak get treated,
you know, I've seen people get
pissed on
and all different types of things.
The people that seemed
to have the better lives
was the most violent ones,
or the ones that...
So these are the things that...
The doctrine I was seeing
from when I was younger,
I was like, "OK, so, basically,
I've just got to be more violent
"than him, then,
"along the line
somewhere, to have a better life."
CAR LOCK BEEPS
TWO GUNSHOTS
SIRENS WAIL
You know, back in the day,
the police used to just kind of,
like, leave it. Kind of like
leave it -
they didn't investigate everything,
do you know what I mean?
And witnesses wouldn't make
statements or go to court,
and if they did they'd do a deal
with the other gang to drop charges
and so on.
Tit-for-tat, in that way as well.
The wall of silence,
it's the code on the street -
if you get shot, you don't tell
the police who shot you.
You don't make a statement,
you just retaliate,
or get somebody else to retaliate.
Or just leave it, you know?
I was shot on three
different occasions,
I never made a statement
against anybody who shot me.
The third shooting is clearly a case
of attempted murder,
a man is shot five or six
times in the back,
in the arm, in the hands.
He says mistaken identity.
Do we believe him?
No, we don't.
The house where he was,
what have they done?
They've tried to hide
the evidence by washing
down the blood with bleach.
You know, there is an attempt
to cover up, even though somebody
should have died as a result
of this shooting, and the person
who should have died,
he won't even cooperate with us.
We have very little
information to go on.
We've got bullet casings,
that's really it.
But what we do know is that each
shooting is linked to
the same 9mm automatic handgun.
Gun No. 6 is quite a rare gun.
This one here is similar to it.
So, this is the CZ75 pistol,
made in Czechoslovakia,
from 1975 onwards
to the present day.
All solid steel construction,
very well-made, very accurate.
It's very unusual to find a weapon
like this in criminal hands,
simply because of the difficulties
involved in getting hold of them.
This is a typical 9mm round.
The magazine will hold
a large number of these.
The magazine fits into
the base of the weapon,
which then allows the slide to pick
it up on the forward stroke...
..pushing it into the chamber.
Simultaneously cocking the hammer,
ready for it to be fired.
When the round goes off, it recoils,
drives the mechanism back
and the whole operation
continues and repeats.
GUN FIRES INAUDIBLY
9mm Parabellum as a calibre
was designed primarily
for military use.
It's a penetrating round,
above all else,
which are designed to increase
the rate at which the energy
is dumped into the target,
causing an increased rate
of tissue damage.
But, effectively, pistol bullets
all work by haemorrhagic effect.
It's a question of rupturing
as much body tissue,
preferably critical body tissue,
as possible.
A weapon like this on the streets
is a worrying thing to us.
So, this is the fourth shooting
and it's a car that drives
up to a club and they
should enter the club.
One of the guys gets
shot in his leg.
The guy, in fact, went home first
before he called the ambulance.
So, it's another one
of these cases where we don't
really have any kind of information.
The gun became part
of my life very young,
obviously, because we were selling
narcotics and it was a form
of protection against people
that might want to try
and do me harm.
It didn't start out
as a gang thing first,
it was a group of friends.
And then we started
to become money-motivated.
Class A drugs was on the scene
throughout the years.
There was tit-for-tat shootings,
and it went on for 30 years.
You're going to have to try to get
out of the way of more shots.
So, if you're coming out the door,
you're going to have to try
and crawl back inside.
Yeah, I've got it, I've got it.
My girlfriend got
shot when I got shot.
Really? Yeah.
Or not my girlfriend,
we were going on a first date
and it went with a bang!
What happened?
I got shot 20-odd times and she got
shot and I threw her on the floor
and lay on top of her. She got
shot in her hand and her chest.
But, to be honest,
if I was in my right mind and knew
what I was doing,
I would have laid on the floor
and pulled her on top of me.
But you didn't, though, did you? No.
Your instinct was to save her,
so you must be happy about that?
Nah, because we didn't
go on another date.
Are you surprised?
Yeah, I'm a good-looking lad!
LOUD THUMPING MUSIC PLAYS
DISTANT LAUGHTER AND TALKING
THREE GUNSHOTS
This is just the beginning
of something new.
That's why it never ends,
just keeps going round and round.
This is another story now.
Where I'd like to start...
..is to think about your life
before a gun...
..came into your life.
So, I'm going to take
you back to childhood.
How old are we?
12. 12.
What was that chair supposed to be?
Hm? That's the person
who wasn't there for you.
Oh, that's Dad.
It's my dad. Your dad. Yeah. OK.
What about you, Darryl, Dean?
You're brothers. Things were
difficult for you, weren't they?
Difficult for me, obviously,
Dean's a lot younger than me.
And my dad used to beat my mum
up when he was drunk.
And it come to the stage where
one day, my mum had enough
and my mum went and got a kitchen
knife and stabbed him a few times.
So that's...
I was going on the estate
kind of like to try and escape
the screams and things like that.
But for me to say that made
me the person I am,
I'd be wrong because I knew
right from wrong, so...
Yeah.
..I chose to do what I did.
At the age of eight,
I came to England,
I was living with
a friend of my mum.
I believed at the time
that I was going to eventually move
in with my mum, which never
happened, and...
..yeah, so I was kind
of left to stay with this person.
And where was your dad?
He had another family.
With other children.
And for some reason, I'm not sure
exactly why, he had...
I wasn't part of that unit.
And it's a decision
that, obviously, he made.
I grew up feeling like I never
had a mum or a dad.
I was...I was desperate.
Like, I needed love.
I didn't care about being dead
or alive because I just thought,
"Well, my parents don't care,
so if I died tomorrow,
"nobody would care."
So, it wouldn't matter.
All right, bruv?
THREE GUNSHOTS
The older ones take you under their
wing, you feel...
You feel like you're part of that.
You think, "Yeah, I must be more...
"..respected than the rest of them,
the rest of my guys,
"cos they've took me on. They must
see me as the serious one,"
or what not,
do you know what I mean?
Yeah, that's probably, like...
So, yeah...
So it made you feel special to be
with someone like that... Course!
..who had a gun?
Course, cos, like I said, you're
a child, you're impressionable.
LOUD CHATTER
FIVE GUNSHOTS
I was homeless about 13, 14.
I actually got kicked out.
I was like, "OK, everybody forgot
about me,
"they threw me away,
thinking I'm not...
"Watch, I'm going to show you lot."
And it was...
And it was just wrapped up with,
"I want to make loads of money
and make something of myself."
But it was always about making
something of myself.
I just didn't know how to do it.
And where did the gun fit into that?
After I got shot.
After I got shot it was like,
and you see your friends die
at the same age as you,
it was like, "Oh, nah,
that's not going to happen again."
FOUR GUNSHOTS
GUNSHO It was a thankless task,
chasing shadows.
And by that, I mean responding
to incidents after they've happened.
Gun 6 is very unpredictable.
We're dealing with immature,
vulnerable, chaotic young men.
It was inevitable that, eventually,
somebody was going
to lose their life.
All the people what are likely
to be candidates to be gunmen,
they are underprivileged people,
people what are on the wrong track,
not through any real reason
of their own.
Just cos society
is stacked that way.
And, therefore, they would
have a gang
or be in a gang cos it makes
more sense.
Because they're getting some fake
love, but at least it's something.
It's fake, but it's more love
than anyone else is giving them.
I look back now and I struggle
to connect with myself then.
Like, in terms of how lost I was.
As a grown adult,
I'm still affected by it,
I'm still, like...
I still get... I can't help myself
getting angry, when I talk about it.
That's how it is, innit? So...
We live in a world that,
essentially, chooses to...
..have a blind eye about the things
that take place in our society.
Essentially, the only time
that we think about these issues,
we think about it as close to home,
is when it's on your front doorstep.
And we have to be
realistic about that.
Oftentimes, when we hear
about gun or knife crime,
or any type of violence
within our community,
a lot of people kind
of put it to one corner.
Because it doesn't affect them.
But, essentially, it does.
Because violence is something
that impacts all communities.
We don't look at the trauma.
So, for a young man that may
be growing up in a community
that hears and sees
violence every single day,
that's bound to have a detrimental
impact in the way that they see
things and the way
that they see the world.
Growing up in a society,
I was always told be mindful
of the police. At night-time,
be mindful of the police.
Because they'll strangle you
and they'll kill you.
And I always thought,
"That's a bit extreme."
But these were things that I used
to read about
and I used to hear about
from the family.
Let's think about paranoia.
A young man that looks like me,
that has attacked you.
I've robbed you, I've took
everything out of your household,
you're living with that particular
trauma in your household now,
thinking, "You know what?
"Everybody that looks like this
black man, yeah, are the same."
Because you've had no other
information
that shows you anything different.
So, do you think that if you was
to see someone that looks like me
again that you're going
to be functioning
in exactly the same way?
Possibly not.
And that's the way
that the brain works.
So, when we're talking about young
people that are involved in violence
and gun crime, we have to start
looking at it
a little bit different.
We can't negate poverty,
we can't negate lack of opportunity.
Because if we don't engage
the problem, and we just lock them
up and we just disassociate
ourselves with those individuals,
it might come to your doorstep.
FIVE GUNSHOTS
Back then, everybody
wanted to be the man.
Nobody wanted to show weakness.
Nobody wanted to admit
that there was mental health
issues creeping in.
It's just bad behaviour
from start to finish
and it turns you into a nasty,
horrible person.
Because you're always right
and no-one can always be right.
And people love you because
they're scared of you.
That's not love.
You understand?
JINNIE: So, what I'd like to do now,
I'd like you to think
about a memory.
Like a sort of scene
or a moment that still sticks
with you before you actually
picked up the gun.
So, if we made this scene, if we
were to take a still photograph
of this scene,
there would be your friend...
Yeah. ..dead. Yeah.
Do you mind lying on the floor?
I hope it's clean.
So do I!
I don't know that I've got any...
Front or back? Head that way.
Yeah. Now... OK.
Back, legs like that.
Who else is in this scene, Darryl?
There's...
..shop assistants.
It was in a bakery.
OK, so this is in a bakery. Yeah.
He's on the bakery floor. Yeah.
And there's some horrified
shop assistants?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah?
All right. And...
DARRYL CRIES
It's OK.
What's going on for you?
We've all seen our friends killed.
You've seen your friends killed?
Yeah. So it's not...
You remember it? Huh? OK.
She's very quiet.
But she notices everything.
It's like, even when she was little,
I could change a photo in a frame
and I had one, it was a tiny
little picture frame,
which I'd swapped her photo in.
And her dad brought her back
and she noticed straight away.
No-one else did.
That's Ishfaq and that's Aneesah.
She was about 17 months here.
16, 17 months.
I just love that photo.
I can remember him
dropping me and Aneesah off.
I come up the stairs.
Looked out the window and whereas,
before, he'd just speed off.
And he wasn't... He was sat there.
And I can remember coming
in and my home phone was ringing.
And it was my friend, Melanie,
on the phone.
And I actually said to her,
"He's looked at us like he's never
going to see us again."
I just had this horrible feeling.
And she was, like,
"Oh, don't be stupid."
And then I thought nothing of it,
phoning him up in the evening.
And it was a cold night.
So, I told him to wrap up
and everything.
And that was the last time
I spoke to him.
MUFFLED LOUD MUSIC PLAYS
INDISTINCT CHATTER
THREE GUNSHOTS
Do you know whether or not
you've just killed? No. No.
We've just shot him. We don't know.
Like, wound him.
Until we looked at the teletext
or the news the next day.
Or we hear it from word of mouth.
On the street.
Do you not send someone
back to find out? Why? Hell, no!
What's the point?
You can't...
This is what I believe, yeah?
These things...
..these things talk to you.
You cannot have this
in your possession,
even a normal person, just being
aware of the power it has,
go somewhere and be rational
with any kind of reasoning.
It's impossible.
So, if you're coming
off a council estate and...
From a background where you feel
like you're weak and then you pick
up one of these. No, to you...
He just said no, but what you've
heard is,
"You're worthless, you mean nothing,
you're not important."
And it's a stage.
You know what I mean? You get...
Like, when you're on the streets,
you're on a stage.
So, everybody's watching along,
so that kind of incident there,
one thing like that,
the audience is like,
"Oh, he's not actually the real
deal."
That just brings other things up.
So, weakness, it's not...
Under no circumstances,
in that world, would you allow
yourself to be perceived
as being a weak person.
BABY CRIES
I woke up to get Aneesah a bottle
and he wasn't there.
And I thought, "Oh, OK."
And then within five minutes,
my phone was ringing
and that was when his dad phoned me
to tell me what had happened.
It was the fact that
he wouldn't see Aneesah grow up.
Because all the things he wanted
to do, her first day
at school, taking her.
You know. It's hard.
Because I can remember him saying
he wanted to pick her up.
He was going to get this BMW,
so the kids could see her getting
in this posh car and everything.
It's all gone.
All because of one bullet.
She obviously has no memory
of anything, being 18 months.
I think she's quite sentimental
when it comes to her dad.
Like, we'll talk about stuff, but...
ANEESAH CRIES
..that side of it...
..I think it's because she doesn't
understand anything.
And, plus, when he died,
obviously...
"It's Ishfaq's daughter"
and everyone was grabbing her.
She didn't understand
what was going on
and she went a bit within herself.
She doesn't say much.
But she gets emotional over it.
And she misses having a dad.
You know, because they've both
missed out, really.
NEWSREADER: 30 years each
for the gang of six who shot dead
a nightclub doorman.
He was killed simply
because he refused them entry.
The investigation into the murder
of Ishfaq Ahmed was a tremendous
piece of policing work it involves
detectives from the then murder
investigation unit,
working with the local police
and the local community,
to bring six notorious criminals
from the Johnson Crew to justice.
However, we didn't recover Gun 6.
# In my life seen trouble
# Hustle on the double
# Silence on the trigger
like my pit got a muzzle
# I only love this paper,
bad boy stay... #
Hello?
Where are you?
Man wanted one of them, you know?
I'm going to link...now.
All right, see you.
We're trapped in the hood, innit?
Just how you live, innit?
Everyone's in a race,
watching each other.
It's a competition.
It's like you've got opponents.
So, when you've got people
what are trying to beat you
and things, you've just got
to watch your back,
because people get jealous
out here, innit?
That's what people do
when they can't win, really.
Jealousy.
And you just want to get out
and leave this behind?
Yeah, everyone does.
If people told you that
they don't want to do that,
then they'll be lying. I'll tell you
that now.
Everyone wants to live the better
life.
But I'm stuck here, for now, innit?
I'm still living, though.
Oh, that's me, there.
My dad was a happy person.
Liked fashion, liked to dress well.
As soon as he smiled,
it's like he gleamed up the whole
of the room - it's like it was
a light, his smile was.
Five years old, my dad
started taking me to football.
Got into a team and that.
Started taking it more serious
when my dad died.
I don't know, just stopped playing,
innit?
As you get older,
you realise that the dreams
that you want to have ain't
always going to come true, really.
It's sad, but what
happens happens, innit?
That's the tag? Yeah.
Obviously, it was better
than jail, innit? Obviously.
Obviously, I'm still angry,
because it stops me from hustling,
working, innit, obviously.
The police are only there to make
you have less money.
I'm not angry because what's meant
to be is meant to be.
Everyone has a different
lifestyle, innit?
My lifestyle's obviously
different to others,
so what's meant to be
what's meant to be,
but they can't keep me
on it forever.
So, obviously, you know...
You won't see me show it,
but the emotions are still there.
I think about that every day,
don't get me wrong.
You think about your dad every day?
Yeah, of course. Of course.
Of course I think
about this every day.
Because, if not, my life
would be different.
Am I right or wrong?
You get me? So, really, yeah...
OK, so, this is the second murder,
Andrew Huntley.
And what we know is that he was
killed here under this bridge.
Dean, you're going
to be the shooter.
David, you're going
to be the victim.
What we know is that they ended
up underneath this bridge
with Andrew on his knees,
pleading for his life,
before he was killed.
And so we're going to recreate
that element of it.
Yeah, this...
This could be a revenge attack.
Or...he's in my crack house or my
trap house, he's making more money
than me and I'm hating on him.
One or the other.
There's definitely
a reason behind it.
Have you ever taken revenge?
Have I ever taken revenge?
I've taken revenge, yeah.
Someone taking the piss or somebody
not giving you what I want.
When I've got a gun, I've got the
power to take what I want.
And I take what I want.
Have you ever wanted
to kill someone?
Yeah, I've wanted to.
Wanted to kill loads of people,
but I've not.
Obviously, when my friends
and that have been killed,
I wanted to go out and kill
whoever's killed my friend.
And if I can't get him,
I'll get the closest thing to him
which will be his mandem,
his friends.
The last resort will be going to his
house and getting a loved one
or somebody close to him.
If I can't get to him,
I'm going to get to somebody
who is close to him.
And that will bring him out.
And get him that way.
RUNNING FOOTFALLS
LOUD OVERHEAD TRAIN PASSES
GUNSHO GUNSHO My dad got shot over some drugs
or something like that.
So they said.
They will never know
and we will never literally know
what it's for, only the murderer
will know and my dad
what will really know
why it was for.
Obviously, I wanted
revenge and retaliation,
like any other person would have.
But, obviously, what happens
in life happens, fam.
That's how God makes it, innit?
He doesn't look like
a murderer, does he?
No. No.
But what does look like a murderer?
I was 19 when I first met Anselm.
It wasn't love at first sight.
It was...
I fancied Anselm.
Anselm was 18, quiet, shy,
quite reserved and unsure.
Because I didn't really
have the guidance of my parents,
I was always trying to make my own
mind up on things
and looking for little signs.
And the signs were,
"OK, he's not violent,"
so that's good, you know?
He cares about his mum,
so that's good.
I was just happy to have
this person in my life.
He moved in with me very,
very quickly and then a few months
later, that's when I found
out I was pregnant.
During that pregnancy,
Anselm had been arrested and charged
with a burglary.
And was sent to prison
for a very, very short time.
It was just a few weeks.
And I remember him coming
out of prison with more knowledge
of crime than he had going in.
And I just thought that was crazy.
As soon as Joshua appeared
into the world, I remember thinking
he is the double of Anselm.
And it was a happy time.
Very quickly, though,
it was changing,
and it did change, you know.
When Josh was a few months old,
he got arrested again for burglary.
And I said to him, "Listen,
this isn't really what I want
"from a relationship - I need you."
But Anselm's need to lead
that life was far greater,
at that point, than it was to,
you know, be with myself.
So, he made the choice
to continue,
and so I left him.
And the relationship was over.
And then it escalated.
The first I knew to what degree it
had escalated was when he got
arrested and charged
with an armed robbery
when Josh was about five years old.
And it was quite a lengthy sentence.
And that's when...
..I found out what he'd done.
But it took probably about two years
into the sentence that I found out
it was armed robbery.
I was told it was a warehouse theft.
So, even at that point,
I didn't realise the road
he was going down was so serious.
GUNSHO GUNSHO He protected us,
but we couldn't do the same for him.
That is the difficult bit, yeah.
I just believe he stopped evil
that day.
Hm.
SHE SNIFFLES
ALISON: I remember really clearly my
mum phoned me,
to say Anselm had been arrested.
And I remember just...crying.
Because my priority,
at that point, was Josh.
And I remember thinking,
"Where is he?"
I need to get him because I don't
want the press
or for it to be on the news.
So I found Josh.
He was ice-skating.
And I brought him home. And I said,
"Your dad has been arrested."
And he said, "For what?"
You know, and he was quite...
You could see he was quite defensive
as if, like, "What?"
And then, when I said the words
murder,
Josh just demolished the front room.
He smashed everything up.
He was crying, he was angry.
And then...the nightmare began.
EMOTIONALLY: He was devastated.
His dad was "the scum of the earth",
as was quoted in the newspaper.
His dad was a murderer.
His dad had destroyed
a young man's life.
The police were stopping,
searching him, but saying things
like, "Where's your dad, Josh?"
So then he'd erupt.
You know, he went through a really
difficult time and he just kept
getting in trouble.
And then, eventually, you know,
you're talking when he was 15,
16, the clouds did clear and he...
..he was OK.
All that hard work and he could
stand there and his heart
and soul were pure.
And music was the thing
that he loved and enjoyed
and, very, very quickly,
he put his heart and soul into that.
Flying out to Europe.
Wrote an album.
The album went to number one.
And then...
..he got his money
from his first album.
Bought my mum flowers.
Was planning to go out
on the Saturday shopping
for his sister.
Left me here on the evening.
His last words to me were,
"I love you, Mum."
A hug, a kiss,
and, "I'll see you later."
And then, during the evening,
an incident happened and Josh
was stabbed once, in the heart.
And just over seven hours
later, passed away.
And...
..yep, that was that.
They contacted the prison
and they said that Anslem
would be told, he would be told
by a priest and by the governor.
I had to just kind of let that go.
I felt pain for Anslem.
I felt that real sorrow that Anslem
would be told he'd lost one
of the only positive things
in his life.
Like, I could have killed someone.
I could have easily killed someone.
I would have been a cop killer.
Basically, that's the truth.
And I'm lucky, I'm lucky
that I survived my sentence.
I'm lucky in a lot of ways. And...
You're lucky that the bullet
didn't kill him?
Yeah, yeah, I'm lucky
that the bullet didn't kill him.
When you pick up a gun,
the problem might be this small
but you see, like,
when you shoot a gun and cause
tragic events, what's left behind,
people have to deal with this big
ball that they never created.
And then one person probably dead
and one person's in jail doing life
and then there's families
and there's this big ball,
and they've all got
to manage it and hold it.
They never created that ball.
That part is unfair.
So, everyone loses in the end, then.
And it's just sad.
It don't get any easier,
that's a definite.
Really? No, it don't get easier.
Even with time? Not yet.
Well, it hasn't been
that long, really.
It's been... What's it been -
seven, eight years?
It takes a long time to get
over stuff, you know?
Things like that,
it never goes away.
Violence is always going on, really.
It's a violent world, innit?
All I've got to do is build
my legacy now, innit?
For my dad, and try
and make him proud, hear me?
I don't want to be locked up
for the rest of my life
and I don't want to be
in a box before my time.
I want the finer things to life,
like everybody else.
I've just got to do better
and know better, really.
Become a better person,
a better man, innit?
Like, when I look back
at the 16-year-old me,
I proper feel for him.
It sounds crazy.
It's almost like, I think I'll go
into prisons now and community
centres and talk because I see
it as the 16-year-old me
that makes me go and do
that because I know how much
he needed someone to speak to him.
And I suppose my only thing
that I want is just to be here
to see my kids grow.
That's my only thing.
Because I never thought,
I never thought I'd have children.
Never, ever thought about that
kind of lifestyle.
Thought I'd be dead a long time ago.
Yeah, I did think I'd have been
dead a long time ago, but...
So, yeah, I just want them
to make the right decision.
I'm grateful there are things
in life
that I actually care about now.
I'm grateful
that I actually feel loved...
..and I'm actually a happy person.