An ex-gang boss was "brought to tears" after watching Little Boy Blue which inspired him to turn his life around.
Sicarius McGrath groomed children into organised crime groups across the North West and "flooded the streets with guns" as he was once described as a "monumental risk to the public". But in 2017, his criminal lifestyle hit home after watching the programme in his cell on the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, the Manchester Evening News reports.
Little Boy Blue, shown in four episodes, tells the story of how Rhys Jones was shot dead when caught in the crossfire of two gun-wielding gangs in Liverpool - an event that shocked the city. The crime-series tracks the incident and the subsequent police investigation, ending with the scenes within Liverpool Crown Court.
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It explores the devastating impact the murder had on Rhys' parents, along with how the killing impacted the whole of Liverpool. The 41-year-old ex-crime boss has also spoken about how he has been moved to tears from the documentary as he said: "I felt partly responsible as I’d put hundreds of weapons on the streets. I straight away wrote to the charity his parents had set-up."
Sicarius McGrath was involved in gang violence from the mid-1990s until 2016, and was sent to prison several times, including in 2003 for his role in setting up an illegal gun factory. In 2016 he was sentenced to eight years for conspiracy to blackmail, controlling prostitution and possession of cocaine and a canister of CS gas found at his home on his arrest.
He said: "I had a passion from that point to change myself as a person and use my expertise to help others and reduce the amount of children becoming involved in knife crime, firearms, county lines, youth violence and anti social behaviour." Sicarius said it was a "proper skill" as he recruited kids into gangs as he used the same methods used on him when he was groomed by Al-Qaeda in prison.
He added: "We used to flood the streets with guns and drugs, I was really good at it. I remember the first time I shot someone in the leg in Liverpool I s*** myself, no one really wants to kill anyone else, but it happens when you're that deep in that world. And now kids are carrying knives, they’re scared of others doing so, so do so themselves."
Since his release from prison, Sicarius, who now lives in Middleton, has worked with charities across the UK and has been in contact with multiple agencies to set up his own group, OCG Solutions. He said he wants to use the same methods he used to get kids into gangs, to keep them out.
He told MEN: "You’ve got to be real with them and talk their language, if you try and be all clever with them they’ll not listen and just think you’re a d*******. Kind of manipulate them into keeping out of violence instead of getting into it.
"I’ve gone to youth clubs where there’s been some really violent kids and I’ve become a monster again to scare it out of them. It’s made me realise I can still be like that monster I was but use it to scare kids out of violence. I’ve gone and they don’t want anything to do with me but by the end I’ve got them on my side."
The ex-crime boss is also hoping to get videos from prisoners talking about their experiences and wants youths to talk to the parents of victims of gang violence as "you almost have to scare it out of them." He is now raising funds to help with activity projects and aims to work with parents.
He added: "I'm putting everything into this, I just know it'll work, and there's plenty of high up people interested to see if it does, because it's so much different to anything tried before. Too many young people have lost their lives to violence, and it's got much worse recently, something different needs to be done to stop it, and I'm I can do that."
