A devasted mum grieving the loss of her son has called for tougher laws to be introduced after her child was brutally murdered. Lorraine Fraser still remembers every detail of the day her child, Tyrone Clarke, was taken from her.
The mum-of-two remembers, just as she was settling her daughter down to watch the Tweenies, receiving a call saying her teenage son had been stabbed near to the pub where she worked in Leeds. “I remember screaming and just grabbing her and getting in the car,” she said.
“When I got down there, people were running and pointing. I just followed them and saw my own son lying in blood. It felt like all my insides just fell away from me. I'll never forget the wail that came out of me," the Mirror reports.
Tyrone was 16 when he was attacked and stabbed by a gang of around 20 people, many of whom were of a similar young age. Four people were convicted over Tyrone’s murder, but most of his attackers have never faced charges.
Islamur Rahman, Anjum Amin, Kamer Akram and Liaquat Ali were jailed for life in 2005 for the crime. The latter was just 17 when they were convicted.
A fifth suspect, Qasim Majid, was later named by West Yorkshire Police as a suspect and left the UK for Pakistan in the days after the murder. Lorraine discovered he obtained a passport through the country's British embassy after authorities failed to put his suspect status on a database.
Lorraine, now 58, spoke to The Mirror as she marks nearly 20 years since her son’s murder on April 22, 2004. In the two decades since, she has watched in abject horror as countless other British teenagers are lost to knife violence, either through death or prison.
“I’ve cried every day since Tyrone was killed. Those people destroyed me as a mother, and that’s how it is for every parent who has lost their child to violence.”
In the week Lorraine opened up about her anguish, 18-year-old Jamie Meah was stabbed to death just a stone’s throw from the scene of Tyrone’s murder. “Our young people are getting buried, yet the Government seems to be fast asleep,” said the retired social care worker.
“That generation is growing up now in a world where being stabbed to death is normal. Let me ask you, what about this is normal?”
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Lorraine has met, over the years, with the likes of former Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss tougher punishments for people who carry knives. In 2007, her legal team pushed to overturn 300-year-old joint enterprise laws meaning defendants in serious crimes like murder can be convicted on the basis they were present at the time.
Despite her successes, Lorraine heartbreakingly admits to feeling like she has “failed” her son’s memory with every young person she reads about who has been taken by knife crime. In the year ending March 2022, there were 282 murders involving a knife or bladed weapon recorded in England and Wales – the highest figure since 1946 – according to the Office of National Statistics.
“Nothing has been learned in two decades,” Lorraine added. “I’ve met that many politicians I’ve lost count.
"They all say the same things and look at me with sympathy. There’s going to be no young people left at this rate to become doctors, lawyers, lorry drivers.
“Violent criminals need big, big time. I want to see tough, tough, tough measures. Let’s face it, they’ve tried everything and it isn’t working. Just look where we are. For anyone who's going through this - it’s a pain in our hearts that will never go,” she added. I will die with a broken heart.”
A West Yorkshire Police spokesperson confirmed the investigation into others involved in Tyrone's murder remained open, with no further arrests made.
