February 21, 2024 • 44 mins
A young man on his way home from a football game finds himself confronted with a choice. Take the short path and walk through a situation that gets out of control fast or take the long path and avoid the situation completely. He makes the right choice- only fate has other ideas. The situation and him collide and he is left fighting for his life- having done nothing wrong. Someone chose to involve him, and to take his life.
Summary
In this episode, Cherry and Morgan discuss the unsolved case of Sammy Sidum, an 18-year-old who was fatally stabbed in 2018. Sammy was described as popular, ambitious, and caring, with a passion for law and helping others. The attack occurred after Sammy witnessed an altercation between rival gangs and tried to avoid it. Despite multiple arrests, no one has been convicted for Sammy's murder. The hosts highlight the impact on Sammy's family and the need for witnesses to come forward. They also discuss the broader issue of gang violence and the grooming of young individuals. In this conversation, Morgan and Cherry discuss a bizarre incident where suspects escaped from a Porta Potty. They explore the gross and humorous aspects of the situation, highlighting the challenges faced by the police officers involved. The hosts also provide information on how to contact them for case suggestions.
Takeaways
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Catching Up
02:05 Introducing the Case of Sammy Sidum
04:02 Sammy Sidum's Background and Interests
07:46 Altercation and Attack
10:10 Witnesses and Investigation
16:19 Appeals and Lack of Progress
23:45 Impact on Sammy's Family
25:38 Gang Activity and Grooming
29:13 Connection to CJ Davis's Case
36:15 Appeal for Information and Legacy
39:44 Discussion and Closing Remarks
42:38 The Porta Potty Escape
43:11 A Crappy Situation
44:14 Contacting the Hosts
44:40 Case Suggestions
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/crimepedia--5894684/support.
Summary
In this episode, Cherry and Morgan discuss the unsolved case of Sammy Sidum, an 18-year-old who was fatally stabbed in 2018. Sammy was described as popular, ambitious, and caring, with a passion for law and helping others. The attack occurred after Sammy witnessed an altercation between rival gangs and tried to avoid it. Despite multiple arrests, no one has been convicted for Sammy's murder. The hosts highlight the impact on Sammy's family and the need for witnesses to come forward. They also discuss the broader issue of gang violence and the grooming of young individuals. In this conversation, Morgan and Cherry discuss a bizarre incident where suspects escaped from a Porta Potty. They explore the gross and humorous aspects of the situation, highlighting the challenges faced by the police officers involved. The hosts also provide information on how to contact them for case suggestions.
Takeaways
- The case of Sammy Sidum highlights the devastating impact of gang violence and the need for witnesses to come forward to bring justice to the victim's family.
- Grooming young individuals into gangs and the allure of belonging and protection can lead to tragic consequences.
- The lack of progress in solving Sammy's case underscores the challenges faced by law enforcement in tackling gang-related crimes.
- The legacy of Sammy Sidum lives on through the Sammy Sidum Award, which supports a student at Queen Mary University. Escaping from a Porta Potty is a highly unusual and gross way to evade the police.
- The suspects in this case were caught in a very embarrassing and uncomfortable situation.
- The lack of regular cleaning of Porta Potties can lead to unsanitary conditions.
- Listeners can contact the hosts on Instagram for case suggestions.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Catching Up
02:05 Introducing the Case of Sammy Sidum
04:02 Sammy Sidum's Background and Interests
07:46 Altercation and Attack
10:10 Witnesses and Investigation
16:19 Appeals and Lack of Progress
23:45 Impact on Sammy's Family
25:38 Gang Activity and Grooming
29:13 Connection to CJ Davis's Case
36:15 Appeal for Information and Legacy
39:44 Discussion and Closing Remarks
42:38 The Porta Potty Escape
43:11 A Crappy Situation
44:14 Contacting the Hosts
44:40 Case Suggestions
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/crimepedia--5894684/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:38):
Welcome to crime Pedia. How areyou. We hope you're well. It's
Cherry and Morgan back with you foranother episode. So, as you know,
we've not been with you every weekfor a while whilst I'm away working,
so we're here with you every otherweek and this week is my turn
to give you a case to listento. So here with me as always
is my bff. It is Morgan. Hey, Cherry, I've missed you.
(01:02):
I've missed you. It seems feelslike it's been ages. I know,
so used to doing doing this everyweek and it's yeah, it's strange
now it's every two weeks for awhile, not forever. Let me just
tell you guys that it's not forever. It's just until I finished, which
will be at the end of likeMay time, so we'll go back to
normal then, right, So howare you being really good? Thank you?
(01:23):
Yeah, really good. Everybody inEngland seems to be getting sick at
the minutes and it's like sick everywhere. Everyone's ill and poorly and catching things.
So I'm trying to just stay awayfrom people at the moment. I
was sick of last week, soyeah, it was not fine. The
same over the pond. Then it'sexactly the same. You're all sick over
there too. I think it's goingto be good, But the good weather
(01:46):
comes and everything starts. You know, everything's starting to spring now, the
bulbs are coming up, and it'sall starting to get a little bit warmer.
So let's hope that brighter days arecoming and we're going to We're going
to be a lot better. I'ma lot less sick, I hope,
So I hope. So yeah,Well, today's case is it's very different.
So if you're a regular listener tothis show, you will know that
(02:08):
I always do old cases. It'san old timey cases, as Morgan likes
to call them. I like togo back and do the cases that everyone's
forgotten about. And this is verydifferent. This is a very recent case.
And I was looking through some filesand I came across an appeal by
(02:29):
the victim's father, and when Isat and watched it, it just stirred
something inside me that made me feelresponsible and made me want to do something
to help the family. So thisis a case from twenty eighteen. It's
still unsolved, and this is thecase of Sammy Sidham, a young man
(03:15):
on his way home from a footballgame, finds himself confronted with a choice.
Take the short path and walk througha situation that could get out of
control very fast, or take thelong path and avoid the situation completely.
He makes the right choice, onlyfate has other ideas. The situation and
him collide, and he's left fightingfor his life. Having done nothing wrong.
(03:39):
Someone chose to involve him, andsomeone chose to take his life.
This is cripedia, and this isthe cowardly murder of Sammy Sidham. Okay
Morgan, So, Sammy Sidham wasan eighteen year old lad who and I
say lad because I know at eighteenis really class as a man. But
(04:00):
he has the cutest face, veryyoung, cheeky face. He lived with
his father, Samir, and hisgrandmother in Forest Gate in East London.
He is described by as many peopleas you can ask as popular, ambitious,
really caring, the kind of guythat would do anything to help his
family. He had been interested inlaw since a really really young age.
(04:25):
He's like the age of twelve andit made me smile so much when I
listened to his dad describe why.His dad says that he was really good
at arguing and that he wanted touse the skill of arguing to help other
people. And I thought that wasa brilliant a brilliant reason to get into
something like law, because you haveto be really good at that. But
(04:46):
if you looked at him, hedoesn't look like the type of the type
of guy that's there would be anarguer. He looks very placid, It
looks very happy. He was studyinglaw, a law and history degree actually
at the Queen Mary University in London, and at the age of twelve he
was chosen by the Newham Council tofront a campaign to encourage parents to register
(05:10):
their children for primary and secondary schoolright for their admissions into school. So
his picture actually appeared on billboards allover the London borough of Newham when he
was twelve, so he had thatbig billboards with his face on it.
He absolutely loved playing football when hewas young. He used to play at
Wanstd Flats, which is mad becausewants Did Flats is actually where some of
(05:33):
my family live, so I knowexactly where it is that he used to
play when he was a kid inforest Gate. It's near forest Gate.
Sammy loved online gaming. He lovedhe was like an administrator of all these
different gaming communities. He used toorganize football tournaments. He loved cycling and
(05:54):
he used to cycle around wants didflats as well. When he was younger.
He used to love traveling, veryinterested in learning about other cultures and
other societies. He used to reada lot. He had a passion for
history and he would always take timeto learn about the history of places that
he visited. And this is likenot the kind of thing a normal eighteen
year old does. He and hisdad used to play football together and Sammy
(06:18):
soon became a big fan of westHam football team. My dad supports west
Ham. Funnily enough, he wasa season ticket holder and he used to
watch as many of the west Hamgames as he could. So here in
England, west Ham were also knownas the Hammers. Very very very unique.
But they are yeah, they calledthe Hammers and they play in like
a Clara and blue and yeah,brilliant. Now he was, like I
(06:43):
said to you, it was reallycheeky faced he looked. I think when
I see pictures of him, helooks a lot younger than eighteen. I
don't think he even looks eighteen.I would be given him, I would
make him give me his idea ifI was serving him alcohol somewhere. He
had like this lovely thick black hairthat kind of framed his and it's really
his friends and family only have goodthings to say about him. Everybody that
(07:05):
talks about him talks very fondly ofhim. Now. On the sixteenth of
April in twenty eighteen, Sammy hadbeen to watch west Ham play Stoke City
at home in Stratford and East London, and at the last minute of the
last few minutes of the game,west Ham had scored to draw to draw
equal with Stoke, so Sammy wasreally happy. Left the game in high
(07:27):
spirits. It was a good,good evening. He and a friend took
a bus home together and Sammy gotoff at Romford Road, which is on
the Romford Road and Woodgrange Road junction. It's approximately half a mile i'd say
from his home, so not veryfar at all. Now, approximately half
past ten. Police believe that therewas some kind of altercation between two rival
(07:50):
gangs in Avenue Road under the bridge. There's a bridge there and this was
on Sammy's way home, so hecould walk through walk through their walk through
the Avenue Road to get to hishome on Chesnut Avenue. Now, they
believe that when Sammy started to walkin towards it, he saw the altercation
(08:11):
was happening, and then instead ofjust walking straight through it, he took
the long way round and walked allthe way round to get to his house.
Now, listen to the kind ofthings that his dad says. He's
not the sort of person that wouldget himself involved in any kind of trouble.
He had no no gang affiliation,He had no criminal activity in his
(08:33):
life. He was a straight,straight a student and you know, didn't
mix with with people like that.Now, police believe that there were two
cars in Avenue Road. Okay,one they believe to be a silver audi
A three. They're not one hundredpercent sure on that they know it's either
silver or gray, but they believeit from the shape and from the CCTV
(08:54):
that they've got that it is tobe an Alda three. The other vehicle
was a black Mini. Now,these two were in the street and some
kind of fight was going on betweenthe occupants of these two cars. Now,
Sammy made his way along Serbert Roadand turned left into Kramer Road.
He then turned left again into CapelRoad before crossing over into Chesnut Avenue,
(09:16):
which is where he lived. Now, as he reached the top of Chestnut
Avenue, it was just before elevenpm. The silver car, believed to
be this Audi that was in thisaltercation, was driving away from the scene.
Driving away from the altercation scene.Now, witnesses say, and this
is witnessed by various people, theysay that the car stopped. Three men
(09:41):
jumped out of the car and chasedSammy down Chestnut Avenue yards away from his
house. Okay. Now, thedriver of the silver car stayed in the
car, so in total, it'sbelieve that there were four occupants in that
Aldi. The driver stayed in thecar, the other three jumped out and
chased Sammy. Now they chased Sammyright the way down Chestnut Avenue almost to
(10:03):
his house. Okay, it wasyards just literally like ten meters if that
from his house. The three mensurrounded him and they stabbed him multiple times
in the back. The car thendrove off at speed. Now Sammy had
Sammy had been stabbed in the backmultiple times as well as in the groin.
After being stabbed, he cried out. People could hear him cry and
(10:26):
please help me, I've been stabbed. Neighbors were said to have then gone
out to try and stop the bleedingand phoned emergency services. One of the
people that witnessed was on scene.That witnessed it said that he was mumbling
incoherently and it was horrific and verytraumatic. Sammy's father was waiting for him
at home and says that he sawblue flashing lights outside the house, so
(10:50):
he went out to see what washappening. Saw the police and the ambulance
workers. The paramedics were their performingCPR on someone on the ground, but
at that time, and he hadno idea that it was Sammy that they
were performing the CPR on. Sohe said that he had a feeling something
was really wrong, so he wentwalked towards the paramedics and as he got
(11:13):
to the paramedics and looked down,he then saw that it was his son
that they were performing CPR on.Now sadly, Sammy died forty five minutes
later in hospital with his dad byinside. And I just when I watched
the I watched the interview with Sammy'sdad and I just thought, my god,
(11:35):
imagine that you're at home you cansee something's going on outside the front
of your house, so you gooutside, not expecting it to be anything
to do with you, and yougo out with that kind of dread feeling
in your stomach that something bad hashappened. But then something drew him to
walk over to the paramedics, andas soon as you did, then realize
(11:56):
that actually it is something to dowith you, and that that's your son
on the floor and you have noidea what's happened. You have no You're
hearing people saying that he's been stabbed. There's a lot of blood, and
it just must be so confusing andyou just must be stunned all at the
same time, you know, especiallyas your kid has got no gang affiliation,
(12:22):
you know, no gang affiliation,no trouble. Yeah. I find
it's interesting because you sent me likea little like a little map of his
walk home, right, so downSiebert to that was it Cranmer to chest
Chestnut? Yeah, And just lookingat it, you can see how he
(12:43):
must have saw the the fight thatwere going on, and he was avoiding
it by going down on the streetbecause normally because that Avenue road where that
fight or was going on, leavewriting the chest exactly, so he would
have had to would have but hegoes down he Yeah, he would have
walked farther away to avoid it.And the other thing that's really sad about
(13:05):
this is like looking at like wherewhere he got off, is if he
would have gone another way completely,he would have completely avoided it. Yeah,
it just so happens they drove thatway and happened to just meet him
at the top of his road.Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if he
would have I don't know the nameof the street, but there's the main
(13:28):
street which actually goes in the Chestnuts. So if you would have just instead
of walking down that Stebert Road,if you would have just continued up just
a little further to Chestnut Avenue,he would have made it. Good chance
he would have made it home.It's horrible, isn't it. It is?
Well, DC, I'm Mark RidleyMorrible, who is a Detective Chief
(13:50):
Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, spoketo Crime Watch, which is a TV
program that we have here that justfeatures lots of different crimes. We've talked
about it before in different different showsthat we different episodes that we've done,
and they actually did a reconstruction ofthis and you can see it. It's
on YouTube. If you put itinto YouTube, you can watch the whole
(14:11):
thing. I think it's about tenminutes long, and they go over everything
and they have a reconstruction of whatthey believe happened. Now, the police
say that they don't believe that Sammyhad any kind of connection to either of
these gangs that were fighting, andthat he was just in the wrong place
at the wrong time. They've gotCCTV of the silver vehicle, so you
can actually watch it, and Iurge you to watch it because you can
(14:31):
actually see the car, you cansee what's going on. The murder weapon
itself has actually never been found,so the police believe this to be a
long, thin, bladed knife.Now police are appealing for a witness that
came forward right at the beginning ofthis investigation. Now, this person came
forward anonymously and gave some very specificinformation on Sammy's death, aparently through different
(15:01):
sources. I've read that this personor person's have called a few times to
give information. And this person orpeople or obviously well, you know,
they're well in the know of whathappened because the information that they've given has
been very specific to Sammy's death.So they are urging that witness to come
forward again because they need to speakto that person again. So if you
(15:26):
know who that person is or you'rethat person, please just give them a
call, just give them some moreinformation. Sammy's dad also did an appeal
to the person and this is whathe said, so un quote in this
he said, my son's killers arestill walking the streets free of conviction or
charge. I need you to providethe evidence to convict them. You know
(15:48):
who you are, and you havea choice, a choice to be someone
that hides in the dark or abrave person who sets the record straight.
If you know the killers, youalready know that they killed a perfectly innocent
person for no reason whatsoever. Hehas done nothing to anyone. He was
never involved in anything and had nothingto do with his killers. The only
(16:10):
person that would stop them from doingthe same to you is you. And
I thought that was really powerful,because these people have chased someone they don't
know down a street, three ofthem, and they've stabbed him multiple times
in the back. That is themost cowardly act that you can do,
(16:33):
especially that three of you have setupon one young lad first off. Secondly,
the fact that you've used weapons andyou've not given that kid a chance
to defend himself. Cowardly. It'sjust the whole thing. Cowardly, cowardly,
cowardly. And if that was somebodythat I knew, I would be
embarrassed to know you, and Iwould be shopping you to the police as
(16:57):
soon as I could, because ifthat's the sort of thing you can do
to somebody, you don't know whatthe you know, what are the chances
you could do that to somebody thatyou do know. They seem to have
no morals, yeah, at all. And what I don't understand too,
is I mean this saw stand fromtwo gangs. Yes, going at it
(17:21):
right, but then it doesn't soundlike the other gang is really providing much
information at all, Like, no, you should know who the hell you
were fighting and who it was.Yeah, and the fact that Sammy is
nothing to do with your gang,so you they should be really pissed off
because this other gang have killed thislad, thinking that he is part of
(17:45):
the other gang is a case oflike if that's what is a case of
mistaken identity, If that's how I'mreading this right, If that's the case
that other gang. They just killedsomebody they think is part of your gang.
So why aren't you dobbing them in? Why aren't you you know,
you don't give a shit about theirtheir gang. You don't care. They've
just killed somebody they thought was partof you. So why aren't they going
(18:08):
to the police. Why aren't theygiving names up? Because that could have
been that could have been one ofyour friends, that could have been one
of your family. And so that'sokay, it's all right to just do
that. Let them kill somebody likethat. I don't understand how that's right.
Crazy. I recently completed I recentlydid I did a course on gangs
(18:33):
by the Linton Consultancy, a guycalled Martin Linton, who is a detective
in the Metropolitan Police and he hasa consultancy company, and I did a
gang's course and I was so surprisedhow invested these kids are in their gang,
and how how much they believe inthis gang life, and how much
(19:00):
they put into this, the trustand the and the like. What what
they'll do for each other in thisin this gang. It's it's frightening,
It's really frightening. When I lookat it, and I I'm sitting there
going, this is ridiculous. Youare going to take someone's life for walking
(19:21):
down the wrong side of a street. Now to me as an adult,
as a forty something year old woman, I'm looking at this going, you
are nuts. You are absolutely nuts. You would kill somebody because they've walked
in your postcode. That is ridiculous. Yeah, when you hear he lives
(19:41):
and they But when you listen towhen you listen to these kids, when
you listen to how they talk aboutit, and how passionate they are about
it, and how they believe thatthat person walking in their postcode is so
wrong, it's it's frightening. It'sfrightening that kids as young as twelve and
(20:03):
thirteen are picking up weapons and arewilling to kill each other over something that
that's small, you know, andit is I find that I find that
so frightening, and I really feellike we have is we have to do
(20:26):
something about that. C. J. Davis. That is the case that
that's the case, that's the casethat this links to. This does I
said to you before we started,this links to a case that's really close
to my heart. And I'll tellyou how it links to Cjy's case in
a minute, because there is athere there is a link to CJ's case.
Now in this investigation, so far, ten people aged from fifteen to
(20:49):
twenty two, have been arrested inconnection with this murder. Okay, they've
all been released, so ten,so I'm going to tell you right.
A twenty two year old man wasarrested on the twenty third of April twenty
eighteen on suspicion of murder. Hewas released under investigation. A twenty one
year old man was arrested on thefourth of May twenty eighteen on suspicion of
(21:10):
murder, and he was released underinvestigation. Then we had on the tenth
of May twenty eighteen, a twentytwo year old man arrested on suspicion of
murder. Released under investigation. Okay, we had a fifteen year old.
He was arrested on the tenth ofMay. He was released under investigation.
Twenty two year old on the thirteenthof July, released under investigation. Then
(21:32):
we had a twenty two year old, a twenty one year old, and
a twenty two year old all arrestedon suspicion of murder. And released under
investigation. Then we had a seventeenyear old arrested on the third of May
twenty eighteen on suspicion of murder,released with no further action to be taken,
(21:52):
so he was completely wiped out.Then we had the final one that
we've had so far was a thirtyfive year old man arrested the fourth of
male suspicion of murder. He wasreleased with no further action to be taken.
So there's only two out of theten that have been released with no
further action to be taken. Therest of them have all been released under
(22:12):
investigation. Okay, so this isLondon. We know. One thing we
know about London is that there's CCTVcameras everywhere. I mean, we have
to know whose car it was,yeah, I mean yeah, I would
imagine, so so you can assumewho the driver is. But the problem
(22:34):
is, you know they assume partright, So you go after the driver
the car, the owner of thecar, like who is in the car
with you? Yeah, but youknow what you're gonna get, don't you.
You're gonna get no comment, nocomment, no comment, no comment,
right, And the problem with thisis is that that in London.
Yes there is. There is CCTVeverywhere, but this is a normal street.
(22:59):
This isn't like in the middle ofthe high street, this isn't in
the This is a normal like anormal residential road. This isn't like in
a really really busy part of London. So there may be that. I
mean, there obviously is CCTV becausewe've got CCTV footage of the car,
but there isn't any cct CCTV footageof them out and running. I don't
(23:23):
think, not that I could seeanyway. Now, since twenty eighteen,
there haven't been any significant leads inthis case, and Sammy's family they're left
in this kind of strange limbo.It's how I can sort of understand it,
in the fact that they know thepeople responsible for Sammy's death are still
out in the community. They couldpossibly walk past his house every day.
(23:45):
I mean, imagine what that's like, go into the local shop and not
knowing if that person in front ofyou in the supermarket queue is the person
that killed your son. That's somethingthey have to live with every day,
is that they could be paying fora newspaper in the corner shop and the
person that's behind them in the queuecould be the person that killed their son,
and there's nothing they can do aboutit. This is something that they
(24:07):
are waking up to every single day. And I don't I don't believe that
there is no one with loose lipsenough to give names in on this,
because there's a group of people thatknow. There's more than one group of
people. There are groups of peoplethat know exactly They know that it was
(24:33):
an act. They know that itwasn't It wasn't. It wasn't for a
reason. They know that it wasa case of mistaken identity because everybody knows
that. Now as soon as theyfound out who it was that died,
those people that killed him are goingto know that it wasn't who they thought
it was because they don't know SammySamy's got nothing to do with any of
this. So they now know thatthey have killed an innocent person. And
(24:59):
I don't care. If you arethe hardest person in the world, when
you're on your own and there's nonone of that bravado around you and there's
none of those people they're egging youon, I'm sure that in the back
of that person's mind they know they'vekilled an innocent person, and that that
person did absolutely nothing wrong and they'redead because of because of them. I
(25:19):
don't believe that there's not a timethat they don't think about it. I've
listened to enough offender offender profiles andenough interviews with offenders to know that when
they're on their own, they dothink about it. And if they say
they don't, they're lying because theydo. And you've got to think about
(25:41):
that. If that was your dad, that's your dad there, you know,
absolutely torn to bits because his son'sdead all because you. You mistook
him for somebody else and you tookhis life away. Right now, I
did research, okay on the gangsthat are reported to operate in the forest
(26:03):
Gate area of London. There werea few that came up. Now seventh
is a street gang that's based onthe wood Granger State in forest Gate.
I remember I mentioned Woodgrange earlier.Now their rivals are listed as the ACG
and Custom House. And you knowwhat, I don't care if I get
these wrong. So if you're listeningto this and you're part of these,
I don't care if I've mispronounced thename of your gang. This is what
(26:25):
this is how it is. Theyapparently have allies listed as North Side Newham
and CGE Now. In July twentysixteen, a fight occurred in Stratford Park
that resulted in a person being fatallystabbed. His killer was found to have
been from Beckton and as a resultof the killing, more violence would escalate
(26:47):
between the Seventh and ACG. NowACG is a gang from Beckton. There
was a fight between the two gangsin twenty seventeen in Westfield, Stratford City
where another eighteen year old was stabbed. So I mean notice a pattern here
three stabins involving this Seventh Right.It was also noticed that the violence could
(27:07):
have been a result of the Seventhgetting a supply of cocaine, heroin and
marijuana through an Albanian gang, allowingthem to send younger members to the home
counties to do county lines to establishnew markets right now. In April twenty
seventeen, armed Grinner Jar was stabbedto death in Canning Town. Now.
Grinner's death was noted as having increasedtensions between the gangs in the North and
(27:32):
the South of Newham. This resultedin several shootings and stabins in twenty seventeen.
Now, in September of twenty seventeen, Cory CJ. Davis, who
I don't like this. I don'tlike that this is written like this.
But in the report that I read, he is listedly as an affiliate of
the Seventh. Now we know weknow ourselves because we covered CJ. Davis's
(27:57):
case, and I know his mumvery well, and she is not the
sort of person that will give youany bullshit about her son. She will
tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about her son.
She's not one of those parents thatwill only tell you that her son was
a good boy and that her sonnever did anything wrong. She will tell
(28:17):
you the truth. Now, CJ. If you haven't heard our episode on
it, CJ was a fourteen yearold boy who was shot and killed in
a drive by shooting. Now,he the gang had tried to groom him
to get him into gang life withthem, gang activity, to sell drugs,
(28:40):
to deliver drugs, and he wasreally scared and lots of different things
happened, and he was shot atin a in a local park. Okay.
Now, it's alleged that the governmentthat killed him was affiliated with the
Becton Boys, which is the ACGwho are located in South Newham. Now,
in addition to this, it wasfound that this young Diz they have
(29:03):
the weirdest names, but this youngdis part of this gang, and this
Twin S and Twin H are allaffiliated with the Becton Boys. Now,
these guys were all arrested in connectionwith CJ's murder and they were all released
due to the lack of evidence.And this seems to be a like a
continuing thing. They all seem tobe arrested in connection, you know,
(29:27):
or arrested, arrested on suspicion ofmurder and then released under investigation and then
released because there's not enough evidence.When I spoke to I spoke to a
guy that runs gang gang courses forkids that are wanting to get out of
gangs. He is a former gangmember himself, and he explained to me
(29:49):
how being groomed into a gang works. And it's mad to me listening to
it. It's totally mad to me. But I can see how young kids
are pulled into this gang lifestyle,and I can see how they are they
are pulled into this life where theyare making bad decisions because it's the It
(30:11):
looks like a good way of lifeto them. They feel like they belong,
they feel like this gang has gottheir back. They feel like they're
part of something, and it's reallysad that they wouldn't normally get they're getting.
Yeah, yeah, they're getting shoes, they're getting clothes, you know.
Yeah, they're getting notoriety, they'regetting you know, they're getting a
reputation. They're feeling like they're big. They get younger kids to come in
(30:34):
and then all of a sudden,they're not the youngest anymore, and they've
got a bit of hierarchy in thisgang. The problem is that the kids
don't see is that people higher upin this gang give no shits about them.
They don't give a toss whether thiskid lives or dies on the street.
As long as the drugs get soldand they get the money, they
don't care. They'll find another youth. Of course, you're replaceable. Yeah,
(31:02):
if you're killed, there's yeah,there can be someone else. There's
someone else to just step in andtake your take your place. And that's
that. And it's really sad.I think it's really really sad when you
look into like these gangs and I'vewatched I've watched a documentary and there was
this kid. They all talk andthey all had their hoodsup so you couldn't
actual see their faces, and theyhad like scarfs over their noses that all
(31:22):
you could see with their eyes.And they were talking to these kids,
and they were the kids were explainingto them like how it works and how
and how their initiations go, wherethey've got to go. And some gangs
will be that you have to goand stab someone to be part of their
gang. You have to prove yourworth. And I was just sitting there
like watching this documentary in my head, in my hands, just thinking,
(31:44):
I don't believe that this is real. I don't believe that these kids believe
this way of life is the wayto go. It's so sad. Do
you remember the guy that we metQuentin? Do you remember the guy we
met crime com? He was theguy that did the poet. I would
urge you to look up Quentin aswell on Instagram, on Facebook. He
(32:06):
is a guy doing amazing work.He's another guy that works with offenders.
He works with kids in gangs.He was in a gang himself again,
he was stabbed and he'll tell youall about it. He's a fantastic man
with absolutely brilliant He's a grown upnow, you know, he's grown up.
(32:27):
He's come out of the gangs nowand he talks. He can talk
to kids on that level. Hecan talk to them because he's been there
and he's done it. And thereare parents that are just absolutely pulling their
hair out because their kids are partof these gangs that are I mean,
it's really serious. It's really serious. They're killing each other over drugs,
over postcodes, over just being inthe wrong place at the wrong time.
(32:52):
This is lie. This is somebody'slife. This is not just two kids
having a fight in the street.This is really really serious, and it's
getting worse. You look at thestabbings in London. Now, it used
to be somebody was, oh mygod, there was a stabbing in London,
Oh my god, this is terrible. This is awful. Now it's
(33:13):
barely even on the news anymore becauseit's not news anymore. You know,
thirteen and fourteen year old kids beingshot being killed in London is not it's
not shocking anymore because everyone's used toit happening, because it happens so often.
How have we let that happen.Yeah, it's really sad to think
(33:37):
that like twelve thirteen year old kidsare carrying knives, and not only that
they're carrying them, they're willing touse them. It's horrific. It's absolutely
horrific. And I just can't imagine. I can't imagine the torment and the
pain that Sammy's dad goes through everyday. And the other thing is is
(33:58):
the fact that it's not that easyjust to pick up a house and leave.
He lives right where his son wasmurdered. Every day he has to
see that place. Every time hewalks out his front door. It's there,
you know. That's just it.That's torturous. It's just awful.
And for what for what? What? You know? Why why did Sammy
(34:19):
die? It's just it's it's horrific. There are there is, I mean,
there's something lovely that's come out ofthis. Queen Mary University have set
up the Sammy Hidden Sidham Award,which will support a student at the university
for three years, and his familyare really pleased that he will have this
lasting legacy at the university and inhis name a student will be helped,
(34:44):
which is what he really wanted todo was help people. So that's a
lovely thing to come out of this. And anyone that's witnessed Sammy's Samy's murder,
or knows any information at all,even if it's just names, like,
do the right thing. There isa there's a twenty thousand pounds reward
for any information that leads to aconviction. But don't do it for the
(35:07):
money. Do it for his family. Do it to stop this from happening
to other people. That could beyour son, your daughter, your sister,
your friend, your you know,it could be anybody that you know
that this could happen to. Sammywas an innocent boy that had nothing to
do with drugs, He had nothingto do with gangs, and his life
(35:30):
was just taken just just like that. So any information, if you've got
any information at all, then there'sa number that you can call. It's
two eight three four five three sevenone five. So it's two eight three
four five three seven one five.Your information will be dealt with by experienced
(35:52):
officers. They know how hard itis to make that call. But just
think about that, just for twominutes. Just think about it if that
was your brother or your family,or your friend who did nothing wrong.
People know who did that, andthe police need to know who did that
so that there's some kind of justicefor Sam and his family. This is
(36:17):
insane. Yeah, I was justreading this where it says about the Beckdam
Boys beck and Boys used a gangdid database might read by the Knew Him
Council in order to find potential targets. Yeah? What the Yeah, they
managed to get hold of a databaseof people in the Council of States and
(36:37):
they managed to get hold of thenames from the Council somehow, and then
they were able to target people theyknew exactly where they lived. That is
insane, it is. And andKeisha CJ's mum has been campaigning tirelessly to
try and get things changed because obviouslyCJ was from Newham and she was fighting
(37:01):
and meeting with council representatives and theydid nothing. They did nothing to help
her, and she was begging themthat something was going to happen to her
son if they didn't move him outof the area and move him out of
the school that he was in.But because they lived in that area,
he couldn't go to school in anotherborough because he didn't live in the borough.
(37:22):
It's honestly, it's awful. Butwhen kids are taking each other's lives,
we need to step in and dosomething because this can't this can't happen.
This can't be happening. No,absolutely not no. So if you
get the chance, if you've gotfive or ten minutes, just have a
(37:43):
look on YouTube. There is areconstruction and you can see Sammy's dad and
he looks like such a lovely man. You can see him, and his
grief is just you can feel it. It's horrendous. And he talks about
how him and his son were bestfriends, just father and son, they
were best friends, and that justit just made me feel sick because I
(38:05):
think it's so senseless. There's noneed. Murder is senseless anyway that you
can understand sometimes people losing their temperin rage and hurt in somebody in an
argument and a heated argument, it'skind of an understandable with this. They
didn't even know who he was,they didn't know who he was, right,
and three of them, you know, set on him and he did
(38:30):
nothing wrong. He was just walkinghome and that just broke my heart.
I just thought it was an awful, awful case, and we're not that
it wasn't that long ago. Thereis still time with this. This doesn't
need to become a cold case.There are still people who are probably still
in that gang right now that knowexactly who did it. They know oh
(38:51):
no, and they need to beheld accountable of what they've done. They've
taken someone's life. That's really reallybad, so frustrating. Yeah, so
that is this week's case for you. I wish, I wish I could
bring a I think I'm going tohave to get a case that's got a
(39:13):
resolution. I think my next caseI might do a case that's got a
resolution, because sometimes when you hearcases like this, you just want to
fix it, You just want tofix it for the family, and you
can't and it's it's really difficult.It's hard. So I think it would
be really good. Maybe maybe weshould do a case that's actually been solved
to prove that sometimes sometimes things dogo right and people do get people do
(39:37):
get justice for their family members.Well, thank you for tell us about
this one. Yeah, and Ihope really appreciate it. I hope that
someone somewhere hears and give us apolicy call. Okay, Cherry well with
that, how about we do alittle thing we like to call criminal.
(40:00):
Hey, criminal, use a dummy, So cherry, this is this is
a shitty way to get caught.Let's just say that. Okay. So
this was This was back in Novemberup in Wisconsin in a town called Glendale.
(40:22):
So, so back in November,Glendale police were chasing some suspects in
a stolen suv. Okay. Now, this suv ended up crashing into multiple
cars and then ended up going ontothe freeway and crashing into a guard rail.
(40:43):
Okay. So at that point,four people came out of the car
and began running. Two of themwould cross the freeway before running into the
nearby Lincoln Park golf course. Okay. So at the time, there was
a group of golfers who were onthe third hole and sold a crash and
(41:04):
that's when they saw the two ofthe suspects running onto the golf course.
Okay. So the suspects end uprunning towards a porta potty and they end
up going inside the porta potty.So in England we would call those a
porter loo. What he's talking about. I love that And if you know
(41:28):
anything about those, those are notthe nicest places to use the bathroom.
But if you have to go,you have to go. They smell really
bad, don't they. They smellreally bad. So obviously they knew something
was wrong. They knew they werebeing chased by police. So what did
the golfers decide to do. Theydecided to go over and push the porta
potty over, trapping the suspects inside. I don't want the fluid's gonna come
(41:52):
out of the toilet. Yeah,So when the golfer said that it was
extremely smelly and you could hear slashinginside us horrible God can you imagine,
right though? But gross exactly,So obviously they called the police so over
(42:14):
and they made sure that the suspectsstayed inside until the police survived, at
which point suspects came crawling out ofthe portolope. They washed them all covered
in stuff. Stuff. Yeah,so yeah, covered and stuff. So
nevertheless, it was a very crappysituation for those well now arrested suspects.
(42:40):
Good and now I understand why yousaid it was a bit of a shitty
way to get cool clever. Itis a very shitty way to get caught
dumbasses. Well, can you imagineif you were I could you imagine if
you were a police officer, theyhad to like transport them in your vehicle.
Ah, that would be gross.I would not be no, I'd
(43:02):
be like, no, sorry,they can go in somebody else's vehicle because
they're not coming in mine. OrI don't forget the fibrigade down to hose
them down before they got in theback of the police man. Something gross.
That's really gross. And you knowthose things don't get cleaned out very
often. I mean maybe once aweek if you're lucky. That's really bad.
(43:23):
That's really bad. That's gross.Well, thank you very much for
that lifting my spirits at the endof that very sad case. If you've
got a dumb criminal that you wouldlike to you would like to nominate for
us, then please do so.You can find us both on Instagram.
It's really nice and easy. It'seither Cherry I think mine's Cherry crime Pedia
(43:45):
and yours is more than crime Pedia, So you can find us really easily.
If you do send us stuff onFacebook, we don't tend to look
at it very often, so I'vehad a few messages from people that have
said, hey, I sent yousomething on Facebook. About three weeks ago.
I don't look up Facebook very well, so stick it over on Instagram
because for some reason, I don'tget Facebook notifications, but I do Instagram
ones, so I will I willlook at those. I will look at
(44:07):
those a lot quicker. So yeah, and over those. If you've got
Kese suggestions for us, we're alwayshappy to receive them. I'm just looking
through a few that we've had comethrough this week, so we will start
looking at those as well. Sothank you for those, and we will
be back in two weeks time withMorgan's case. So for now, be
nice and bye
Welcome to crime Pedia. How areyou. We hope you're well. It's
Cherry and Morgan back with you foranother episode. So, as you know,
we've not been with you every weekfor a while whilst I'm away working,
so we're here with you every otherweek and this week is my turn
to give you a case to listento. So here with me as always
is my bff. It is Morgan. Hey, Cherry, I've missed you.
(01:02):
I've missed you. It seems feelslike it's been ages. I know,
so used to doing doing this everyweek and it's yeah, it's strange
now it's every two weeks for awhile, not forever. Let me just
tell you guys that it's not forever. It's just until I finished, which
will be at the end of likeMay time, so we'll go back to
normal then, right, So howare you being really good? Thank you?
(01:23):
Yeah, really good. Everybody inEngland seems to be getting sick at
the minutes and it's like sick everywhere. Everyone's ill and poorly and catching things.
So I'm trying to just stay awayfrom people at the moment. I
was sick of last week, soyeah, it was not fine. The
same over the pond. Then it'sexactly the same. You're all sick over
there too. I think it's goingto be good, But the good weather
(01:46):
comes and everything starts. You know, everything's starting to spring now, the
bulbs are coming up, and it'sall starting to get a little bit warmer.
So let's hope that brighter days arecoming and we're going to We're going
to be a lot better. I'ma lot less sick, I hope,
So I hope. So yeah,Well, today's case is it's very different.
So if you're a regular listener tothis show, you will know that
(02:08):
I always do old cases. It'san old timey cases, as Morgan likes
to call them. I like togo back and do the cases that everyone's
forgotten about. And this is verydifferent. This is a very recent case.
And I was looking through some filesand I came across an appeal by
(02:29):
the victim's father, and when Isat and watched it, it just stirred
something inside me that made me feelresponsible and made me want to do something
to help the family. So thisis a case from twenty eighteen. It's
still unsolved, and this is thecase of Sammy Sidham, a young man
(03:15):
on his way home from a footballgame, finds himself confronted with a choice.
Take the short path and walk througha situation that could get out of
control very fast, or take thelong path and avoid the situation completely.
He makes the right choice, onlyfate has other ideas. The situation and
him collide, and he's left fightingfor his life. Having done nothing wrong.
(03:39):
Someone chose to involve him, andsomeone chose to take his life.
This is cripedia, and this isthe cowardly murder of Sammy Sidham. Okay
Morgan, So, Sammy Sidham wasan eighteen year old lad who and I
say lad because I know at eighteenis really class as a man. But
(04:00):
he has the cutest face, veryyoung, cheeky face. He lived with
his father, Samir, and hisgrandmother in Forest Gate in East London.
He is described by as many peopleas you can ask as popular, ambitious,
really caring, the kind of guythat would do anything to help his
family. He had been interested inlaw since a really really young age.
(04:25):
He's like the age of twelve andit made me smile so much when I
listened to his dad describe why.His dad says that he was really good
at arguing and that he wanted touse the skill of arguing to help other
people. And I thought that wasa brilliant a brilliant reason to get into
something like law, because you haveto be really good at that. But
(04:46):
if you looked at him, hedoesn't look like the type of the type
of guy that's there would be anarguer. He looks very placid, It
looks very happy. He was studyinglaw, a law and history degree actually
at the Queen Mary University in London, and at the age of twelve he
was chosen by the Newham Council tofront a campaign to encourage parents to register
(05:10):
their children for primary and secondary schoolright for their admissions into school. So
his picture actually appeared on billboards allover the London borough of Newham when he
was twelve, so he had thatbig billboards with his face on it.
He absolutely loved playing football when hewas young. He used to play at
Wanstd Flats, which is mad becausewants Did Flats is actually where some of
(05:33):
my family live, so I knowexactly where it is that he used to
play when he was a kid inforest Gate. It's near forest Gate.
Sammy loved online gaming. He lovedhe was like an administrator of all these
different gaming communities. He used toorganize football tournaments. He loved cycling and
(05:54):
he used to cycle around wants didflats as well. When he was younger.
He used to love traveling, veryinterested in learning about other cultures and
other societies. He used to reada lot. He had a passion for
history and he would always take timeto learn about the history of places that
he visited. And this is likenot the kind of thing a normal eighteen
year old does. He and hisdad used to play football together and Sammy
(06:18):
soon became a big fan of westHam football team. My dad supports west
Ham. Funnily enough, he wasa season ticket holder and he used to
watch as many of the west Hamgames as he could. So here in
England, west Ham were also knownas the Hammers. Very very very unique.
But they are yeah, they calledthe Hammers and they play in like
a Clara and blue and yeah,brilliant. Now he was, like I
(06:43):
said to you, it was reallycheeky faced he looked. I think when
I see pictures of him, helooks a lot younger than eighteen. I
don't think he even looks eighteen.I would be given him, I would
make him give me his idea ifI was serving him alcohol somewhere. He
had like this lovely thick black hairthat kind of framed his and it's really
his friends and family only have goodthings to say about him. Everybody that
(07:05):
talks about him talks very fondly ofhim. Now. On the sixteenth of
April in twenty eighteen, Sammy hadbeen to watch west Ham play Stoke City
at home in Stratford and East London, and at the last minute of the
last few minutes of the game,west Ham had scored to draw to draw
equal with Stoke, so Sammy wasreally happy. Left the game in high
(07:27):
spirits. It was a good,good evening. He and a friend took
a bus home together and Sammy gotoff at Romford Road, which is on
the Romford Road and Woodgrange Road junction. It's approximately half a mile i'd say
from his home, so not veryfar at all. Now, approximately half
past ten. Police believe that therewas some kind of altercation between two rival
(07:50):
gangs in Avenue Road under the bridge. There's a bridge there and this was
on Sammy's way home, so hecould walk through walk through their walk through
the Avenue Road to get to hishome on Chesnut Avenue. Now, they
believe that when Sammy started to walkin towards it, he saw the altercation
(08:11):
was happening, and then instead ofjust walking straight through it, he took
the long way round and walked allthe way round to get to his house.
Now, listen to the kind ofthings that his dad says. He's
not the sort of person that wouldget himself involved in any kind of trouble.
He had no no gang affiliation,He had no criminal activity in his
(08:33):
life. He was a straight,straight a student and you know, didn't
mix with with people like that.Now, police believe that there were two
cars in Avenue Road. Okay,one they believe to be a silver audi
A three. They're not one hundredpercent sure on that they know it's either
silver or gray, but they believeit from the shape and from the CCTV
(08:54):
that they've got that it is tobe an Alda three. The other vehicle
was a black Mini. Now,these two were in the street and some
kind of fight was going on betweenthe occupants of these two cars. Now,
Sammy made his way along Serbert Roadand turned left into Kramer Road.
He then turned left again into CapelRoad before crossing over into Chesnut Avenue,
(09:16):
which is where he lived. Now, as he reached the top of Chestnut
Avenue, it was just before elevenpm. The silver car, believed to
be this Audi that was in thisaltercation, was driving away from the scene.
Driving away from the altercation scene.Now, witnesses say, and this
is witnessed by various people, theysay that the car stopped. Three men
(09:41):
jumped out of the car and chasedSammy down Chestnut Avenue yards away from his
house. Okay. Now, thedriver of the silver car stayed in the
car, so in total, it'sbelieve that there were four occupants in that
Aldi. The driver stayed in thecar, the other three jumped out and
chased Sammy. Now they chased Sammyright the way down Chestnut Avenue almost to
(10:03):
his house. Okay, it wasyards just literally like ten meters if that
from his house. The three mensurrounded him and they stabbed him multiple times
in the back. The car thendrove off at speed. Now Sammy had
Sammy had been stabbed in the backmultiple times as well as in the groin.
After being stabbed, he cried out. People could hear him cry and
(10:26):
please help me, I've been stabbed. Neighbors were said to have then gone
out to try and stop the bleedingand phoned emergency services. One of the
people that witnessed was on scene.That witnessed it said that he was mumbling
incoherently and it was horrific and verytraumatic. Sammy's father was waiting for him
at home and says that he sawblue flashing lights outside the house, so
(10:50):
he went out to see what washappening. Saw the police and the ambulance
workers. The paramedics were their performingCPR on someone on the ground, but
at that time, and he hadno idea that it was Sammy that they
were performing the CPR on. Sohe said that he had a feeling something
was really wrong, so he wentwalked towards the paramedics and as he got
(11:13):
to the paramedics and looked down,he then saw that it was his son
that they were performing CPR on.Now sadly, Sammy died forty five minutes
later in hospital with his dad byinside. And I just when I watched
the I watched the interview with Sammy'sdad and I just thought, my god,
(11:35):
imagine that you're at home you cansee something's going on outside the front
of your house, so you gooutside, not expecting it to be anything
to do with you, and yougo out with that kind of dread feeling
in your stomach that something bad hashappened. But then something drew him to
walk over to the paramedics, andas soon as you did, then realize
(11:56):
that actually it is something to dowith you, and that that's your son
on the floor and you have noidea what's happened. You have no You're
hearing people saying that he's been stabbed. There's a lot of blood, and
it just must be so confusing andyou just must be stunned all at the
same time, you know, especiallyas your kid has got no gang affiliation,
(12:22):
you know, no gang affiliation,no trouble. Yeah. I find
it's interesting because you sent me likea little like a little map of his
walk home, right, so downSiebert to that was it Cranmer to chest
Chestnut? Yeah, And just lookingat it, you can see how he
(12:43):
must have saw the the fight thatwere going on, and he was avoiding
it by going down on the streetbecause normally because that Avenue road where that
fight or was going on, leavewriting the chest exactly, so he would
have had to would have but hegoes down he Yeah, he would have
walked farther away to avoid it.And the other thing that's really sad about
(13:05):
this is like looking at like wherewhere he got off, is if he
would have gone another way completely,he would have completely avoided it. Yeah,
it just so happens they drove thatway and happened to just meet him
at the top of his road.Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if he
would have I don't know the nameof the street, but there's the main
(13:28):
street which actually goes in the Chestnuts. So if you would have just instead
of walking down that Stebert Road,if you would have just continued up just
a little further to Chestnut Avenue,he would have made it. Good chance
he would have made it home.It's horrible, isn't it. It is?
Well, DC, I'm Mark RidleyMorrible, who is a Detective Chief
(13:50):
Inspector of the Metropolitan Police, spoketo Crime Watch, which is a TV
program that we have here that justfeatures lots of different crimes. We've talked
about it before in different different showsthat we different episodes that we've done,
and they actually did a reconstruction ofthis and you can see it. It's
on YouTube. If you put itinto YouTube, you can watch the whole
(14:11):
thing. I think it's about tenminutes long, and they go over everything
and they have a reconstruction of whatthey believe happened. Now, the police
say that they don't believe that Sammyhad any kind of connection to either of
these gangs that were fighting, andthat he was just in the wrong place
at the wrong time. They've gotCCTV of the silver vehicle, so you
can actually watch it, and Iurge you to watch it because you can
(14:31):
actually see the car, you cansee what's going on. The murder weapon
itself has actually never been found,so the police believe this to be a
long, thin, bladed knife.Now police are appealing for a witness that
came forward right at the beginning ofthis investigation. Now, this person came
forward anonymously and gave some very specificinformation on Sammy's death, aparently through different
(15:01):
sources. I've read that this personor person's have called a few times to
give information. And this person orpeople or obviously well, you know,
they're well in the know of whathappened because the information that they've given has
been very specific to Sammy's death.So they are urging that witness to come
forward again because they need to speakto that person again. So if you
(15:26):
know who that person is or you'rethat person, please just give them a
call, just give them some moreinformation. Sammy's dad also did an appeal
to the person and this is whathe said, so un quote in this
he said, my son's killers arestill walking the streets free of conviction or
charge. I need you to providethe evidence to convict them. You know
(15:48):
who you are, and you havea choice, a choice to be someone
that hides in the dark or abrave person who sets the record straight.
If you know the killers, youalready know that they killed a perfectly innocent
person for no reason whatsoever. Hehas done nothing to anyone. He was
never involved in anything and had nothingto do with his killers. The only
(16:10):
person that would stop them from doingthe same to you is you. And
I thought that was really powerful,because these people have chased someone they don't
know down a street, three ofthem, and they've stabbed him multiple times
in the back. That is themost cowardly act that you can do,
(16:33):
especially that three of you have setupon one young lad first off. Secondly,
the fact that you've used weapons andyou've not given that kid a chance
to defend himself. Cowardly. It'sjust the whole thing. Cowardly, cowardly,
cowardly. And if that was somebodythat I knew, I would be
embarrassed to know you, and Iwould be shopping you to the police as
(16:57):
soon as I could, because ifthat's the sort of thing you can do
to somebody, you don't know whatthe you know, what are the chances
you could do that to somebody thatyou do know. They seem to have
no morals, yeah, at all. And what I don't understand too,
is I mean this saw stand fromtwo gangs. Yes, going at it
(17:21):
right, but then it doesn't soundlike the other gang is really providing much
information at all, Like, no, you should know who the hell you
were fighting and who it was.Yeah, and the fact that Sammy is
nothing to do with your gang,so you they should be really pissed off
because this other gang have killed thislad, thinking that he is part of
(17:45):
the other gang is a case oflike if that's what is a case of
mistaken identity, If that's how I'mreading this right, If that's the case
that other gang. They just killedsomebody they think is part of your gang.
So why aren't you dobbing them in? Why aren't you you know,
you don't give a shit about theirtheir gang. You don't care. They've
just killed somebody they thought was partof you. So why aren't they going
(18:08):
to the police. Why aren't theygiving names up? Because that could have
been that could have been one ofyour friends, that could have been one
of your family. And so that'sokay, it's all right to just do
that. Let them kill somebody likethat. I don't understand how that's right.
Crazy. I recently completed I recentlydid I did a course on gangs
(18:33):
by the Linton Consultancy, a guycalled Martin Linton, who is a detective
in the Metropolitan Police and he hasa consultancy company, and I did a
gang's course and I was so surprisedhow invested these kids are in their gang,
and how how much they believe inthis gang life, and how much
(19:00):
they put into this, the trustand the and the like. What what
they'll do for each other in thisin this gang. It's it's frightening,
It's really frightening. When I lookat it, and I I'm sitting there
going, this is ridiculous. Youare going to take someone's life for walking
(19:21):
down the wrong side of a street. Now to me as an adult,
as a forty something year old woman, I'm looking at this going, you
are nuts. You are absolutely nuts. You would kill somebody because they've walked
in your postcode. That is ridiculous. Yeah, when you hear he lives
(19:41):
and they But when you listen towhen you listen to these kids, when
you listen to how they talk aboutit, and how passionate they are about
it, and how they believe thatthat person walking in their postcode is so
wrong, it's it's frightening. It'sfrightening that kids as young as twelve and
(20:03):
thirteen are picking up weapons and arewilling to kill each other over something that
that's small, you know, andit is I find that I find that
so frightening, and I really feellike we have is we have to do
(20:26):
something about that. C. J. Davis. That is the case that
that's the case, that's the casethat this links to. This does I
said to you before we started,this links to a case that's really close
to my heart. And I'll tellyou how it links to Cjy's case in
a minute, because there is athere there is a link to CJ's case.
Now in this investigation, so far, ten people aged from fifteen to
(20:49):
twenty two, have been arrested inconnection with this murder. Okay, they've
all been released, so ten,so I'm going to tell you right.
A twenty two year old man wasarrested on the twenty third of April twenty
eighteen on suspicion of murder. Hewas released under investigation. A twenty one
year old man was arrested on thefourth of May twenty eighteen on suspicion of
(21:10):
murder, and he was released underinvestigation. Then we had on the tenth
of May twenty eighteen, a twentytwo year old man arrested on suspicion of
murder. Released under investigation. Okay, we had a fifteen year old.
He was arrested on the tenth ofMay. He was released under investigation.
Twenty two year old on the thirteenthof July, released under investigation. Then
(21:32):
we had a twenty two year old, a twenty one year old, and
a twenty two year old all arrestedon suspicion of murder. And released under
investigation. Then we had a seventeenyear old arrested on the third of May
twenty eighteen on suspicion of murder,released with no further action to be taken,
(21:52):
so he was completely wiped out.Then we had the final one that
we've had so far was a thirtyfive year old man arrested the fourth of
male suspicion of murder. He wasreleased with no further action to be taken.
So there's only two out of theten that have been released with no
further action to be taken. Therest of them have all been released under
(22:12):
investigation. Okay, so this isLondon. We know. One thing we
know about London is that there's CCTVcameras everywhere. I mean, we have
to know whose car it was,yeah, I mean yeah, I would
imagine, so so you can assumewho the driver is. But the problem
(22:34):
is, you know they assume partright, So you go after the driver
the car, the owner of thecar, like who is in the car
with you? Yeah, but youknow what you're gonna get, don't you.
You're gonna get no comment, nocomment, no comment, no comment,
right, And the problem with thisis is that that in London.
Yes there is. There is CCTVeverywhere, but this is a normal street.
(22:59):
This isn't like in the middle ofthe high street, this isn't in
the This is a normal like anormal residential road. This isn't like in
a really really busy part of London. So there may be that. I
mean, there obviously is CCTV becausewe've got CCTV footage of the car,
but there isn't any cct CCTV footageof them out and running. I don't
(23:23):
think, not that I could seeanyway. Now, since twenty eighteen,
there haven't been any significant leads inthis case, and Sammy's family they're left
in this kind of strange limbo.It's how I can sort of understand it,
in the fact that they know thepeople responsible for Sammy's death are still
out in the community. They couldpossibly walk past his house every day.
(23:45):
I mean, imagine what that's like, go into the local shop and not
knowing if that person in front ofyou in the supermarket queue is the person
that killed your son. That's somethingthey have to live with every day,
is that they could be paying fora newspaper in the corner shop and the
person that's behind them in the queuecould be the person that killed their son,
and there's nothing they can do aboutit. This is something that they
(24:07):
are waking up to every single day. And I don't I don't believe that
there is no one with loose lipsenough to give names in on this,
because there's a group of people thatknow. There's more than one group of
people. There are groups of peoplethat know exactly They know that it was
(24:33):
an act. They know that itwasn't It wasn't. It wasn't for a
reason. They know that it wasa case of mistaken identity because everybody knows
that. Now as soon as theyfound out who it was that died,
those people that killed him are goingto know that it wasn't who they thought
it was because they don't know SammySamy's got nothing to do with any of
this. So they now know thatthey have killed an innocent person. And
(24:59):
I don't care. If you arethe hardest person in the world, when
you're on your own and there's nonone of that bravado around you and there's
none of those people they're egging youon, I'm sure that in the back
of that person's mind they know they'vekilled an innocent person, and that that
person did absolutely nothing wrong and they'redead because of because of them. I
(25:19):
don't believe that there's not a timethat they don't think about it. I've
listened to enough offender offender profiles andenough interviews with offenders to know that when
they're on their own, they dothink about it. And if they say
they don't, they're lying because theydo. And you've got to think about
(25:41):
that. If that was your dad, that's your dad there, you know,
absolutely torn to bits because his son'sdead all because you. You mistook
him for somebody else and you tookhis life away. Right now, I
did research, okay on the gangsthat are reported to operate in the forest
(26:03):
Gate area of London. There werea few that came up. Now seventh
is a street gang that's based onthe wood Granger State in forest Gate.
I remember I mentioned Woodgrange earlier.Now their rivals are listed as the ACG
and Custom House. And you knowwhat, I don't care if I get
these wrong. So if you're listeningto this and you're part of these,
I don't care if I've mispronounced thename of your gang. This is what
(26:25):
this is how it is. Theyapparently have allies listed as North Side Newham
and CGE Now. In July twentysixteen, a fight occurred in Stratford Park
that resulted in a person being fatallystabbed. His killer was found to have
been from Beckton and as a resultof the killing, more violence would escalate
(26:47):
between the Seventh and ACG. NowACG is a gang from Beckton. There
was a fight between the two gangsin twenty seventeen in Westfield, Stratford City
where another eighteen year old was stabbed. So I mean notice a pattern here
three stabins involving this Seventh Right.It was also noticed that the violence could
(27:07):
have been a result of the Seventhgetting a supply of cocaine, heroin and
marijuana through an Albanian gang, allowingthem to send younger members to the home
counties to do county lines to establishnew markets right now. In April twenty
seventeen, armed Grinner Jar was stabbedto death in Canning Town. Now.
Grinner's death was noted as having increasedtensions between the gangs in the North and
(27:32):
the South of Newham. This resultedin several shootings and stabins in twenty seventeen.
Now, in September of twenty seventeen, Cory CJ. Davis, who
I don't like this. I don'tlike that this is written like this.
But in the report that I read, he is listedly as an affiliate of
the Seventh. Now we know weknow ourselves because we covered CJ. Davis's
(27:57):
case, and I know his mumvery well, and she is not the
sort of person that will give youany bullshit about her son. She will
tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about her son.
She's not one of those parents thatwill only tell you that her son was
a good boy and that her sonnever did anything wrong. She will tell
(28:17):
you the truth. Now, CJ. If you haven't heard our episode on
it, CJ was a fourteen yearold boy who was shot and killed in
a drive by shooting. Now,he the gang had tried to groom him
to get him into gang life withthem, gang activity, to sell drugs,
(28:40):
to deliver drugs, and he wasreally scared and lots of different things
happened, and he was shot atin a in a local park. Okay.
Now, it's alleged that the governmentthat killed him was affiliated with the
Becton Boys, which is the ACGwho are located in South Newham. Now,
in addition to this, it wasfound that this young Diz they have
(29:03):
the weirdest names, but this youngdis part of this gang, and this
Twin S and Twin H are allaffiliated with the Becton Boys. Now,
these guys were all arrested in connectionwith CJ's murder and they were all released
due to the lack of evidence.And this seems to be a like a
continuing thing. They all seem tobe arrested in connection, you know,
(29:27):
or arrested, arrested on suspicion ofmurder and then released under investigation and then
released because there's not enough evidence.When I spoke to I spoke to a
guy that runs gang gang courses forkids that are wanting to get out of
gangs. He is a former gangmember himself, and he explained to me
(29:49):
how being groomed into a gang works. And it's mad to me listening to
it. It's totally mad to me. But I can see how young kids
are pulled into this gang lifestyle,and I can see how they are they
are pulled into this life where theyare making bad decisions because it's the It
(30:11):
looks like a good way of lifeto them. They feel like they belong,
they feel like this gang has gottheir back. They feel like they're
part of something, and it's reallysad that they wouldn't normally get they're getting.
Yeah, yeah, they're getting shoes, they're getting clothes, you know.
Yeah, they're getting notoriety, they'regetting you know, they're getting a
reputation. They're feeling like they're big. They get younger kids to come in
(30:34):
and then all of a sudden,they're not the youngest anymore, and they've
got a bit of hierarchy in thisgang. The problem is that the kids
don't see is that people higher upin this gang give no shits about them.
They don't give a toss whether thiskid lives or dies on the street.
As long as the drugs get soldand they get the money, they
don't care. They'll find another youth. Of course, you're replaceable. Yeah,
(31:02):
if you're killed, there's yeah,there can be someone else. There's
someone else to just step in andtake your take your place. And that's
that. And it's really sad.I think it's really really sad when you
look into like these gangs and I'vewatched I've watched a documentary and there was
this kid. They all talk andthey all had their hoodsup so you couldn't
actual see their faces, and theyhad like scarfs over their noses that all
(31:22):
you could see with their eyes.And they were talking to these kids,
and they were the kids were explainingto them like how it works and how
and how their initiations go, wherethey've got to go. And some gangs
will be that you have to goand stab someone to be part of their
gang. You have to prove yourworth. And I was just sitting there
like watching this documentary in my head, in my hands, just thinking,
(31:44):
I don't believe that this is real. I don't believe that these kids believe
this way of life is the wayto go. It's so sad. Do
you remember the guy that we metQuentin? Do you remember the guy we
met crime com? He was theguy that did the poet. I would
urge you to look up Quentin aswell on Instagram, on Facebook. He
(32:06):
is a guy doing amazing work.He's another guy that works with offenders.
He works with kids in gangs.He was in a gang himself again,
he was stabbed and he'll tell youall about it. He's a fantastic man
with absolutely brilliant He's a grown upnow, you know, he's grown up.
(32:27):
He's come out of the gangs nowand he talks. He can talk
to kids on that level. Hecan talk to them because he's been there
and he's done it. And thereare parents that are just absolutely pulling their
hair out because their kids are partof these gangs that are I mean,
it's really serious. It's really serious. They're killing each other over drugs,
over postcodes, over just being inthe wrong place at the wrong time.
(32:52):
This is lie. This is somebody'slife. This is not just two kids
having a fight in the street.This is really really serious, and it's
getting worse. You look at thestabbings in London. Now, it used
to be somebody was, oh mygod, there was a stabbing in London,
Oh my god, this is terrible. This is awful. Now it's
(33:13):
barely even on the news anymore becauseit's not news anymore. You know,
thirteen and fourteen year old kids beingshot being killed in London is not it's
not shocking anymore because everyone's used toit happening, because it happens so often.
How have we let that happen.Yeah, it's really sad to think
(33:37):
that like twelve thirteen year old kidsare carrying knives, and not only that
they're carrying them, they're willing touse them. It's horrific. It's absolutely
horrific. And I just can't imagine. I can't imagine the torment and the
pain that Sammy's dad goes through everyday. And the other thing is is
(33:58):
the fact that it's not that easyjust to pick up a house and leave.
He lives right where his son wasmurdered. Every day he has to
see that place. Every time hewalks out his front door. It's there,
you know. That's just it.That's torturous. It's just awful.
And for what for what? What? You know? Why why did Sammy
(34:19):
die? It's just it's it's horrific. There are there is, I mean,
there's something lovely that's come out ofthis. Queen Mary University have set
up the Sammy Hidden Sidham Award,which will support a student at the university
for three years, and his familyare really pleased that he will have this
lasting legacy at the university and inhis name a student will be helped,
(34:44):
which is what he really wanted todo was help people. So that's a
lovely thing to come out of this. And anyone that's witnessed Sammy's Samy's murder,
or knows any information at all,even if it's just names, like,
do the right thing. There isa there's a twenty thousand pounds reward
for any information that leads to aconviction. But don't do it for the
(35:07):
money. Do it for his family. Do it to stop this from happening
to other people. That could beyour son, your daughter, your sister,
your friend, your you know,it could be anybody that you know
that this could happen to. Sammywas an innocent boy that had nothing to
do with drugs, He had nothingto do with gangs, and his life
(35:30):
was just taken just just like that. So any information, if you've got
any information at all, then there'sa number that you can call. It's
two eight three four five three sevenone five. So it's two eight three
four five three seven one five.Your information will be dealt with by experienced
(35:52):
officers. They know how hard itis to make that call. But just
think about that, just for twominutes. Just think about it if that
was your brother or your family,or your friend who did nothing wrong.
People know who did that, andthe police need to know who did that
so that there's some kind of justicefor Sam and his family. This is
(36:17):
insane. Yeah, I was justreading this where it says about the Beckdam
Boys beck and Boys used a gangdid database might read by the Knew Him
Council in order to find potential targets. Yeah? What the Yeah, they
managed to get hold of a databaseof people in the Council of States and
(36:37):
they managed to get hold of thenames from the Council somehow, and then
they were able to target people theyknew exactly where they lived. That is
insane, it is. And andKeisha CJ's mum has been campaigning tirelessly to
try and get things changed because obviouslyCJ was from Newham and she was fighting
(37:01):
and meeting with council representatives and theydid nothing. They did nothing to help
her, and she was begging themthat something was going to happen to her
son if they didn't move him outof the area and move him out of
the school that he was in.But because they lived in that area,
he couldn't go to school in anotherborough because he didn't live in the borough.
(37:22):
It's honestly, it's awful. Butwhen kids are taking each other's lives,
we need to step in and dosomething because this can't this can't happen.
This can't be happening. No,absolutely not no. So if you
get the chance, if you've gotfive or ten minutes, just have a
(37:43):
look on YouTube. There is areconstruction and you can see Sammy's dad and
he looks like such a lovely man. You can see him, and his
grief is just you can feel it. It's horrendous. And he talks about
how him and his son were bestfriends, just father and son, they
were best friends, and that justit just made me feel sick because I
(38:05):
think it's so senseless. There's noneed. Murder is senseless anyway that you
can understand sometimes people losing their temperin rage and hurt in somebody in an
argument and a heated argument, it'skind of an understandable with this. They
didn't even know who he was,they didn't know who he was, right,
and three of them, you know, set on him and he did
(38:30):
nothing wrong. He was just walkinghome and that just broke my heart.
I just thought it was an awful, awful case, and we're not that
it wasn't that long ago. Thereis still time with this. This doesn't
need to become a cold case.There are still people who are probably still
in that gang right now that knowexactly who did it. They know oh
(38:51):
no, and they need to beheld accountable of what they've done. They've
taken someone's life. That's really reallybad, so frustrating. Yeah, so
that is this week's case for you. I wish, I wish I could
bring a I think I'm going tohave to get a case that's got a
(39:13):
resolution. I think my next caseI might do a case that's got a
resolution, because sometimes when you hearcases like this, you just want to
fix it, You just want tofix it for the family, and you
can't and it's it's really difficult.It's hard. So I think it would
be really good. Maybe maybe weshould do a case that's actually been solved
to prove that sometimes sometimes things dogo right and people do get people do
(39:37):
get justice for their family members.Well, thank you for tell us about
this one. Yeah, and Ihope really appreciate it. I hope that
someone somewhere hears and give us apolicy call. Okay, Cherry well with
that, how about we do alittle thing we like to call criminal.
(40:00):
Hey, criminal, use a dummy, So cherry, this is this is
a shitty way to get caught.Let's just say that. Okay. So
this was This was back in Novemberup in Wisconsin in a town called Glendale.
(40:22):
So, so back in November,Glendale police were chasing some suspects in
a stolen suv. Okay. Now, this suv ended up crashing into multiple
cars and then ended up going ontothe freeway and crashing into a guard rail.
(40:43):
Okay. So at that point,four people came out of the car
and began running. Two of themwould cross the freeway before running into the
nearby Lincoln Park golf course. Okay. So at the time, there was
a group of golfers who were onthe third hole and sold a crash and
(41:04):
that's when they saw the two ofthe suspects running onto the golf course.
Okay. So the suspects end uprunning towards a porta potty and they end
up going inside the porta potty.So in England we would call those a
porter loo. What he's talking about. I love that And if you know
(41:28):
anything about those, those are notthe nicest places to use the bathroom.
But if you have to go,you have to go. They smell really
bad, don't they. They smellreally bad. So obviously they knew something
was wrong. They knew they werebeing chased by police. So what did
the golfers decide to do. Theydecided to go over and push the porta
potty over, trapping the suspects inside. I don't want the fluid's gonna come
(41:52):
out of the toilet. Yeah,So when the golfer said that it was
extremely smelly and you could hear slashinginside us horrible God can you imagine,
right though? But gross exactly,So obviously they called the police so over
(42:14):
and they made sure that the suspectsstayed inside until the police survived, at
which point suspects came crawling out ofthe portolope. They washed them all covered
in stuff. Stuff. Yeah,so yeah, covered and stuff. So
nevertheless, it was a very crappysituation for those well now arrested suspects.
(42:40):
Good and now I understand why yousaid it was a bit of a shitty
way to get cool clever. Itis a very shitty way to get caught
dumbasses. Well, can you imagineif you were I could you imagine if
you were a police officer, theyhad to like transport them in your vehicle.
Ah, that would be gross.I would not be no, I'd
(43:02):
be like, no, sorry,they can go in somebody else's vehicle because
they're not coming in mine. OrI don't forget the fibrigade down to hose
them down before they got in theback of the police man. Something gross.
That's really gross. And you knowthose things don't get cleaned out very
often. I mean maybe once aweek if you're lucky. That's really bad.
(43:23):
That's really bad. That's gross.Well, thank you very much for
that lifting my spirits at the endof that very sad case. If you've
got a dumb criminal that you wouldlike to you would like to nominate for
us, then please do so.You can find us both on Instagram.
It's really nice and easy. It'seither Cherry I think mine's Cherry crime Pedia
(43:45):
and yours is more than crime Pedia, So you can find us really easily.
If you do send us stuff onFacebook, we don't tend to look
at it very often, so I'vehad a few messages from people that have
said, hey, I sent yousomething on Facebook. About three weeks ago.
I don't look up Facebook very well, so stick it over on Instagram
because for some reason, I don'tget Facebook notifications, but I do Instagram
ones, so I will I willlook at those. I will look at
(44:07):
those a lot quicker. So yeah, and over those. If you've got
Kese suggestions for us, we're alwayshappy to receive them. I'm just looking
through a few that we've had comethrough this week, so we will start
looking at those as well. Sothank you for those, and we will
be back in two weeks time withMorgan's case. So for now, be
nice and bye
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