Anti-knife campaigner Ken Hinds has called on "complicit" parents to take action against knife crime after two 12-year-old boys were found guilty of murder.
The two boys became the youngest convicted of the crime since James Bulger's killers were detained in 1993, following their murder of 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai in Wolverhampton in November.
West Midlands Police revealed that the knife used to killed Seesahai, a 16-inch machete, was found under the youth’s bed.
Speaking to GB News, Hinds admitted that youth knife crime is "nothing new", but called for "drastic action" from the government and parents.
Ken Hinds has called out 'complicit' parents of children who own knives as crime figures continue to soar
West Midlands Police / GB News
Reflecting on the murder of Seesahai, Hinds told GB News host Martin Daubney: "This will this be a warning to other parents to not just take the the word of your child, because your child has a home face and he has a street face.
"The home face will disarm you. The street face could get him into serious problems, and that could be brought back into the home."
Calling for parents to take direct action, Hinds advised parents to search the bedrooms of their children and criticised those who are "complicit".
Hinds explained: "My thing is simply this - you need to go into their bedroom and satisfy yourself that there's nothing there that they should not have.
19-year-old Shawn Seesahai was stabbed by two 12-year-old boys in Wolverhampton in November
PA
"And some parents are complicit, because they accept whatever the child brings in, if it's helping pay the electric or gas or putting some food on the table, some parents will just accept it and don't ask question. But they need to, because it escalates from there."
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When asked by Martin what the solution is to rising knife crime in youths and if serving prison time is "enough", Hinds claimed that "bootcamps" and "emotional intelligence" are the way forward.
Hinds fumed: "What kind of society are we that gives children so many rights, but doesn't give them or teach them responsibility or hold them to account when they don't do things right?"
He then suggested: "Jail may not work in many cases, but what I sometimes believe that needs to be done with a lot of these first time offenders, no matter how young they are, is a boot camp.
"Incarceration for six, eight weeks, where they're brought in the drill, they're given discipline, and most importantly, you also have to work on growing their emotional intelligence."
Ken Hinds called on parents to 'search the bedrooms' of their children if they are suspicious
GB News
Noting an image shared by West Midlands Police of one of the 12-year-old killers posing with a large machete down his trousers, Hinds warned that the rise of social media may "embolden" others to become involved in knife crime.
Hinds claimed: "A lot of these youngsters see pictures of the sort of knives and machetes and things that the police take off of people, and they're thinking I've got to step my game up, because look what's out there.
"This sort of thing emboldens these young people to really step their game up. Back in my day, we'd be walking around with a lock knife or a flick knife. That's going back 30 years ago.
"Now, something's gone very wrong if young people think that they can walk around with these implements without disregard to anybody."
