The parents of a 14-year-old murdered by a teenage machete thug have told how they find solace in his empty bedroom.
On Tuesday Marques Walker was sentenced to a minimum 19 years for killing Jermaine Cools. Just 16 at the time, Walker was on bail for having a zombie knife.
Jermaine’s dad Julius, 49, said the family home is now like a “cemetery” but he gets comfort from lying on his son’s bed next to a life-size picture of his smiling boy.
Julius, who owns a Caribbean takeaway, said: “It helps me. Every morning I would go in and check on Jermaine. Now, sometimes before I leave the house for work, I just go and lie down next to him.”
Jermaine’s mum, Lorraine Dudek, added: “You can almost feel like he’s there. In your mind you know he’s not but it can bring some peace. We didn’t have a perfect life but we had a happy home because of Jermaine. He was full of energy.
“Now it’s just quiet, there’s no laughter, there’s no music, there’s no one running around. Now it’s just pain and misery, just existing.”
Julius continues: “We are just waiting for our time to die. I have nothing left to live for.”
Mixed with the pain is anger which rises when the couple tell how Walker was free to kill despite having been caught three times in two years with terrifying knives.
The drug dealer, a member of the S-Town gang in Croydon, South London, was 14 when teachers discovered a 10in Rambo-style blade in his school bag.
A year later police in Welwyn Garden City, Herts, found him with a serrated dagger during a drugs probe. And in October 2021 he was discovered with a 20in zombie knife on a bus near the murder scene in Croydon.
He was on bail for possessing it when he murdered Jermaine on November 18, 2021.
Lorraine, from Croydon, said: “There was meant to be a situation where if you were caught twice with a knife it was immediate jail. Now that didn’t happen with Walker. Had it happened he wouldn’t have killed my son.
“How long have parents been talking about this? I know people who have done so much raising awareness about knife crime but nothing’s changed, it’s just increased.”
In CCTV shown at the sentencing, Jermaine was seen being knocked down during a brawl. Walker pulled a machete from his jacket and stabbed him seven times as his older brother struggled with another attacker.
The day after Julius and Lorraine watched Walker being jailed, Gulinder Singh was in the same Old Bailey courtroom to see her boy’s killers sentenced.
Like Jermaine, unarmed Rishmeet Singh, 16, was repeatedly stabbed with a machete by a teenage attacker who had already been caught with a knife.
He had fled from Afghanistan after the Taliban killed his father, only to meet his death in Southall, West London, in the same month as Jermaine. Vanushan Balakrishnan and Ilyas Suleiman, now both 18, who used the machete and a Rambo knife to stab Rishmeet 15 times, were given minimum terms of 24 and 21 years.
Balakrishnan had been caught with a Rambo knife eleven months earlier.
Lorraine said her son’s killer had become close to Balakrishnan while they were on remand at Feltham Young Offenders Institution in West London.
Both had written rap lyrics boasting about their crimes and both were convicted of beating a fellow inmate so badly he was left brain damaged.
She added: “You have two individuals in court on consecutive days being sentenced for similar crimes who grew close in jail and committed a further crime. Balakrishnan had been given a youth referral to raise awareness of the dangers of carrying a knife.
“What does this tell you? What impact did this referral have? Nothing.”
The Mirror, which is campaigning for more resources to fight knife crime, last week reported that gangs use machetes and zombie knives on average every hour. This is six times more than eight years ago.
Lorraine said: “I’ve seen videos of boys bragging they were involved in Jermaine’s murder saying they got a knife delivered in 15 minutes two days after they’ve been stopped for possessing one.
“It’s not like they’re walking into B&Q and buying them. They are buying them, like drugs, illegally. How do you stop that? I think the only way is being harder with them when they’re caught. If they are happy to walk with a knife then they should be made to face some harsh penalties.”
Lorraine, a retail assistant, looks out the window, past Jermain’s PlayStation and a shrine of his ashes and photos. She is focusing on the steps where her youngest said goodbye for the last time.
“We were laughing and joking and then I had to go to work. It was strange because he came to the door with me and then came outside.
“I told him to go inside and said I will see you later and he said I will see you later and those were our last words.
“Now if I leave the house I can’t say those words. I just say bye because I never got to see my son later like I should have done. He should have come home that night but it didn’t happen.”
