A CHILDHOOD friend of stabbed schoolboy Fico Dougan has made a film about knife crime in the hope teenagers will start taking the problem seriously.
BRIT School Roshan Roberts-Crooks, 17, has made a video called Fico Dougan: Priceless Potential to demonstrate how prevalent youth violence is.
"You hear about things but you think it's just someone else's nightmare," she said.
"Then it happens to you and you lose a friend and you realise it can happen to anyone."
Seventeen-year-old Fico Dougan died in September last year after he was stabbed at a friend's house in Broad Green.
Set against newsreels from several incidents where teenagers have been stabbed in London, Kat Sound – a fellow pupil at BRIT School pupil – narrates a poem over the footage.
"What is the price of life, when people use knives instead of their minds?" she asks.
She goes on to say: "Knives have become the vital puzzle-piece of survival on the street."
Miss Roberts-Crooks said she felt very strongly about this and the feeling among the younger generation that they had plenty to be scared of.
"When my brother was a bit younger he was too scared to walk down certain streets," she said.
"If he saw a certain group of boys he would turn around and walk somewhere else.
"Kids shouldn't have to grow up feeling like that and I think it will affect you later in life.
"A lot of young people who have seen terrible things or know things that have happened to their friends don't have anyone to turn to talk about it."
In the three-minute film, as photos of Fico as a baby and toddler scroll cross the screen, the poem continues: "My shoulders feel heavy with the weight of his laugh. I can still hear it dancing in the back of my ears.
"He was priceless potential – humble, loving, kind and influential."
A trial date has been set for a 16-year-old accused of murdering Fico. The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has not entered a plea but his trial is due to take place at the Old Bailey from May 12.
