Extra patrols on estate where teens stabbed

A council leader has said she is "concerned" by knife crime on the estate where she grew up and that extra patrols have been deployed to tackle it.

A boy, 15, has been charged with attempted murder after a 14-year-old boy was stabbed on Brunel Road, Oldbury, on the Lion Farm estate on 4 January.

Another teenager, Jahziah Coke, 13, died on the estate last August after being stabbed in his home.

Sandwell Council leader Kerrie Carmichael said: "I actually live opposite now and I'm aware that there are problems around the area, which really saddens me."

"I went to school there, it means a lot to me."

The Labour leader told BBC Radio WM council officers had started twice-weekly anti-social behaviour (ASB) patrols there to bolster existing activity.

"We've put hotspot ASB people in place," she said. "A person who will visit at different times of the day, different times of the week to see if they see anything different to our normal ASB team."

After the stabbing last month, council officials met with police and voluntary workers to consider how to make the estate safer.

"We've realised there's actually a lack of communication and people don't know how to report ASB anymore or who to talk to with the police," she said.

The council intends to put details of the correct reporting procedures in its next newsletter to residents.

"The last thing I want to do as a leader is for people to feel unsafe in a certain area," she said. "We're chipping away at it."

The leader added they could have "done with more police" when the most recent stabbing happened.

"We got the police resource we needed, but it would have been better for us, better for the council, better for the ASB team if we had more people on the ground," she said.

She explained a motion was "likely" to be put to the next council meeting regarding replacing "lost officers".

"We could always do with more, couldn't we?"

Two teenage boys appeared in court last September charged with Jahziah Coke's murder. Their trial is due to start at Wolverhampton Crown Court in March.

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