A heartbroken widow whose husband was stabbed to death by a boy of 14 tonight called for tougher sentences to deter thugs from carrying knives.
Ian Kirwan, 53, was murdered after telling off the masked youth and his yob pals outside an Asda.
The killer was jailed for at least 14 years on Wednesday and so could be on the streets before he turns 30.
Ian’s widow Lyndsey Blythe, 43, said: “The laws and sentencing guidelines for knife crime do not reflect modern-day society.
“Longer sentences would make these people think about taking a knife out.”
But Lyndsey said she refused to feel hatred for the attackers of her “rock and soulmate” husband.
She told us: “I wanted to hate them right from the beginning but couldn’t. I could hear Ian’s voice and the way he saw the best in people.
“That’s probably why he said something to them. He would have been giving them a chance. He was a very moralistic, open-minded man who would be more concerned with doing the right thing.”
In a statement to the court, Lyndsey revealed she and Ian had been looking into adopting a child after unsuccessful IVF.
We can reveal that Ian’s killer, now 15, had already been excluded from school 31 times and once attacked a teacher.
A jury found him guilty of murder at Birmingham crown court. The others – aged 14, 15 and 16 – were convicted of violent disorder and received youth rehabilitation orders. The older boy had previously admitted having the knife.
Lyndsey, of Redditch, Worcs, who watched every day of the trial, said: “It would have been better if they had just had even two months in custody just so they realised the gravitas of the situation a bit more.
“At the time when it happened, I felt absolute hatred and disgust but I have grown indifferent.
“Every day I feel differently. They had a choice, Ian didn’t and neither do I. They have already had such a profound influence on our lives that I don’t want to consider them any more. I don’t feel anything.
“I need to draw a line under them now to move forward.
“I can’t just sit thinking about it or I might as well have died as well.
“I have to do right by Ian and sitting here festering and hating them is not going to do me any good – I just want them to make the most of the opportunities these sentences they have been given are offering, to make something of their lives.”
Ian, an artificial intelligence engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, was in an Asda toilet cubicle when the yobs banged on the door and shouted at him about urine on the floor.
When he saw them outside the supermarket on March 8 he told them off – and was stabbed through the heart with a 12-inch kitchen knife in a minute-long attack.
The four yobs, who cannot be identified because of their ages, had caught a train from Birmingham to Redditch intending to rob victims and deal drugs.
Their sentencing comes as latest figures reveal 4,181 over-16s faced court for repeated knife possession in the year to last September.
But four in 10 were spared jail – despite blade killings being at their highest ever level. Blade killings in Britain are now at the highest level since records began in 1946 – 282 in the year to March 2022.
Police recorded 48,390 knife crimes in the 12 months to September, up 11% on the previous year. Since 2017, repeat knife offenders over 16 should be locked up – but terms can be suspended.
Lyndsey added: “It’s not enough of a deterrent to give a suspended sentence or six months’ detention.
“Everyone talks about fighting knife crime but nothing is changing. Kids are so entitled and defiant these days, they don’t respect authority.
“They know they’re just going to get a telling-off rather than a long sentence or rehabilitation.
“If they’re in toxic family situations then they should be removed and the family should be rehabilitated.”
Lyndsey’s views were echoed by campaigner Lynne Baird, 65, whose son Daniel, 26, was stabbed to death in Birmingham in 2017.
She said: “Whatever has been tried until now clearly hasn’t worked.
“There are kids taking knives to school or roaming the streets with blades. Knife violence seems to be spiralling out of control and the Government needs to get a grip.”
