I lost my son to knife crime and want more from Keir Starmer than words
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It was December 2021 when our lives changed forever. Typically this month was always a happy one for our family. My son Oliver would celebrate his birthday then before we knew it Christmas was here. For 31 days our home would be full of endless love and laughter. But not that year.
![[Kristy Freckleton: My son died in a knife attack]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_234773462-35cc.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
On the evening of December 10, Oliver, then 19, mentioned he was going to meet up with friends. Normally, I would have been straight onto him with all the questions about who would be there and where he was going. It didn’t matter that he was now living in a flat with his partner and their newborn baby – as a mum I always wanted to know he was safe.
![[Kristy Freckleton: My son died in a knife attack]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_234773460-c4fa-e1735829246610.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
But on this particular evening I said nothing, I didn’t want to nag him. Now I wonder, if I had, would things be different. In the early hours of the next morning – which was actually the day before his 20th birthday – my phone rang. When I answered, his partner screamed three words down the phone that no mother should ever have to hear.
![[Kristy Freckleton: My son died in a knife attack]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_234773456-93d9-e1735829198220.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
‘Oliver’s been shot!’ she shrieked. Between sobs, she told me how Oliver had ended up at a party with friends and had been attacked, all the while I was racing around the house trying to work out how I could get to him as fast as possible. I’d not long had major surgery so couldn’t drive and my husband, Rob, had Covid and was still in isolation. Eventually I called a friend who lived nearby and she drove me and my other son, Charlie, to the scene.
![[Kristy Freckleton: My son died in a knife attack]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/SEI_234773461-c22e-e1735829265656.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
