GB News has spoken to the mother of a teenager murdered in a stabbing attack as knife crime surges by 54 per cent compared to a decade ago.
In September of 2021, 16-year-old Rhamero West had just had his first day of college. He had asked his mum if he could go out with friends afterwards, to which she agreed. Little did she know that she would never see him alive again.
Sitting in Kelly Brown’s living room, it is evident that her son – whom she lost almost five years ago now – is still a huge part of her life. His picture decorates the room, and a shrine to him in the corner glows with a faint blue light.
She also wears a necklace with his picture. It is clear she wants to do everything she can to remember him, no matter what.
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GB News asked Kelly what she remembers most about Rhamero. She looks wistfully into the distance and says she “misses his presence”; that you “can hear a pin drop in the house” now that he has gone.
She also described him as a “loving boy” who “loved family time”.
The interview then moved onto the difficult subject of the day Rhamero died. Kelly told GB News that she sent him off to college for his first day, and that she then went to work.
He kept in contact throughout the day, and later in the afternoon, he asked if he could go out with some friends when he’d finished lessons for the day. Kelly agreed.
Rhamero West was just 16 when he died
|SUPPLIED/GB NEWS
She recalled that, later, she was at her sister’s house when she received a call from the mother of one of Rhamero’s friends, who told her that her son had been stabbed.
She said that, at that stage, she was convinced that everything was going to be fine, but still, she and her sister rushed to the site of the incident.
When she arrived, she was told that Rhamero had been taken to hospital, but not which one.
So, she and her sister headed to a hospital in Trafford - close to where the incident had happened - and she told Rhamero’s dad to head to Manchester Royal Infirmary, to cover all bases and to make sure that at least someone was with him.
When she arrived, Kelly realised he was not at the hospital she had gone to, and began making her way to Manchester Royal.
However, she also told GB News that she was “literally two seconds away” from pulling up when she received the worst phone call a mother could ever get. Her son was gone.
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The Harmony Youth Project works with young people to try and help get them back on the right path
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She recalled seeing him in the hospital, recalling that “he just looked like he was sleeping.”
But rather than being able to hug her dead son, Kelly was told that the body was a “crime scene.”
Instead, she was only allowed to “sit next to him and stroke his eyebrow.”
Rhamero was murdered at the hands of three individuals who are now serving a total of 61 years in prison between them.
When we asked Kelly if she felt this was long enough, she said: “No. I say it all the time – it’s us parents serving the life sentence.
“There’s no time on anyone taking your child’s life in such a brutal way.
“We’re the ones serving it daily.”
Kelly now runs an organisation in honour of her son’s legacy, named Mero’s World Foundation.
It is their mission to tackle knife crime, and for Kelly, she feels that “if I can just save one life”, that all of the work they do is worth it.
One initiative they’ve been trialling recently is a mobile prison cell
|GB NEWS
This is just one of many examples of charities and organisations around the UK that have been set up by people who have suffered as a result of knife violence.
In the year ending September 2025, the Office for National Statistics reported that knife crime was down by nine per cent.
However, there were still more than 50,000 incidents, putting the figure at 54 per cent higher than it was a decade ago.
A new National Knife Crime Centre is opening in London today, but for many people like Kelly, they feel this is perhaps too little, too late, and have now taken matters into their own hands.
Similarly, in Bolton, the Harmony Youth Project works with young people to try and help get them back on the right path.
One initiative they’ve been trialling recently is a mobile prison cell, which when piloted last year in Yorkshire, saw great success.
Founder, Charlie Barrett, explains that this is not about “intimidation”, it’s all about “education.”
He said: “A lot of people will say this is ‘a bit of a gimmick, it’s only one van, what’s it going to do?’ – well I want those people to stop saying it doesn’t work and start saying ‘I’ll tell you what will work.’
“And until they do that, we’ll keep trying to come up with initiatives to save young people’s lives.”