The sister of murdered teenager Alan Cartwright today told of her family’s battle to contain their feelings of “anger and hate” towards his killers.
Cherry Ives, 22, said her family had been left devastated by the “senseless” killing of schoolboy Alan in a bungled bicycle robbery in February, when his mother Michelle Watson, 39, was eight months pregnant.
She said: “He was looking forward to meeting his new baby sister as well and he never got the chance. It’s absolutely awful.”
Alan, 15, was riding along Caledonian Road in Islington with two friends when he was stabbed in the chest by Joshua Williams, 18.
He peddled on for a few hundred yards before collapsing outside a swimming pool and bleeding to death.
Williams was jailed for 21 years after being convicted of murder at the Old Bailey last week.
On Monday, Shaquille Roberts, 19, from Tottenham, was sentenced to 30 months behind bars and a 17-year-old youth — who cannot be named because of their age — was locked up for 28 months after both admitted robbery.
Miss Ives broke her silence on the sentence handed down to Williams in an interview with BBC Five Live.
She said: “You have to keep your head held high as a family and keep yourself together and be there for each other. It’s the only thing we can do to keep my brother’s name alive.
“He [Williams] is just going to live a very unhappy life now for the rest of his life.
“I mean there’s anger and hate of course, you don’t let that out. I’m not going to let that out.
“None of my family, or me, are those kind of people.”
Miss Ives said she believed her brother’s death was “preventable” and reiterated calls for more stop and searches and tougher punishments for carrying knives.
Her father, also Alan, 44, has called for mandatory 10-year jail terms for anyone found carrying a knife.
Williams, from Islington, was on police bail at the time of the killing after being found with a four-inch lock blade.
Miss Ives said: “I do believe there should be more stop and searches.
“I know it has gone down but statistics show that knife crime has gone up since the stop and searches have gone down. It can be prevented.”
“That’s frustrating about the whole two-strikes process. If you’re caught with a knife, regardless of reason, excuses or whatever, you should have a sentence.
“You should be sentenced for it because potentially my brother could have been alive.”
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe yesterday said police were stepping up stop and search to tackle knife crime.
He said: “We are increasing stop-search. Our gang work is doing far more. That’s not to say that every victim is in a gang, but many of the offenders are.
“The Government has helped as well. There is now a mandatory prison sentence for people who carry a knife. That worked with firearms, we see less firearms incidents now.”
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