‘Parents can help end knife horror’

May 8 2008 by Dan Warburton, The Journal

THE mother of a teenager killed in a frenzied knife attack has urged other parents to be vigilant against knife crime and the booze culture.

It is 12 months since 15-year-old Shane Jackson, from Hallow Drive, Throckley, Newcastle, was stabbed 55 times with a kitchen knife as he slept in his bedroom.

Billy Dunwoodie, 16, from nearby Mayfield Avenue, was high on wine and cannabis when he committed the murder in the top-floor flat, and said he could barely remember the attack.

As the anniversary of Shane’s death nears on May 15, his mother Debbie, 40, is begging other parents to be alert to the dangers that arise when youngsters arm themselves with knives following sessions bingeing on alcohol and drugs.

She wept at her flat in Tillmouth Park Road, Throckley, Newcastle, as she said: “Kids should never, ever, take drugs because it sends them crazy and loopy and they don’t know what they are doing.

“I just don’t want other people to go through what I have been through. My son didn’t deserve what happened and I shouldn’t be without him.

“There are those kids who are wandering the streets with bottles and carrying knives.

“And where do they get drugs from? I want other parents to keep a look out.”

At Newcastle Crown Court earlier this year Dunwoodie was sentenced to be detained indefinitely for killing the former Walbottle Campus student, and told that he will serve at least 12 years before he can be considered for release.

But Shane’s brother Wayne, 22, a labourer, who lives just streets away from the scene of the killing, has still not come to terms with the tragedy.

His girlfriend Lyndsay, 25, is still comforting him.

And Mrs Jackson said that her son’s death had ripped a hole through the heart of her family.

She said: “He was loving and so caring. He went everywhere with me, if I needed to go to the shops, he would come with me.

“And now he is not here I know that when I’m out people are looking and saying, ‘she’s alone’, because he was always there.

“It’s affected my relationship with my other son Wayne.

“He couldn’t get over the fact he had lost his brother and I couldn’t get over the fact that I had lost my son. It’s worse than ever with the anniversary, I can’t cope with it.”