Murdered teen's crime scene shown to schoolchildren

Connor Brown died after being fatally stabbed in Sunderland city centre

The crime scene where a Sunderland teenager was stabbed to death has been shown to local schoolchildren in a bid to deter future knife crime.

Connor Brown, 18, was stabbed five times after trying to defuse an argument outside a pub in the city in 2019.

Five years on from his death, Northumbria Police used virtual reality to replay the murder investigation from a trainee detective's perspective.

It is the first time real-life footage has been shown to children, and is part of a pilot to raise awareness of serious violence in north-east England.

Pupils at Hetton Academy, aged 11 to 14, were the first to visit Sunderland's Bede College, where images recreating the crime scene are projected onto a 360-degree wall.

The force showed the events leading up to the stabbing of Mr Brown, and how detectives progressed the investigation - ultimately leading to the conviction of Leighton Barrass.

Footage - which includes an interview with the killer while he was in custody - was reviewed by a child psychologist and shown to the pupils with consent from their parents.

The 18-year-old was fatally wounded in an alley in Sunderland, replicated by virtual reality, as part of the anti-violence campaign

“It is very real," said the victim's mother, Tanya Brown, who runs the Connor Brown Trust in her son's memory.

"It’s using facts, not actors - a real person, a real case, footage - everything about this is real," she told BBC Look North.

"When it comes to knife crime, it needs to be different, it needs to be realistic -because it is real."

Tanya and Simon Brown, Connor's father, have allowed the police to share the footage as part of the campaign.

"We don’t see it as courage. We look at it as helping the next generation," he said.

"We have to look at the positive side of things because it’s already happened to us.

“For this to take off and really work, it’s got to work everywhere - and this week has been testament to that it really does work."

Early intervention

Inspector Angela Hewitt brought the idea to the North East after similar projects were trialled by Merseyside Police.

She said it was "important that we adopt a different style of policing" to tackle knife crime as it "becomes more and more prevalent in our communities".

"It’s about what we can do before that happens. It’s about education [and] early intervention for our young people - for them to understand."

Inspector Angela Hewitt said footage had been approved by a child psychologist

Toni Rhodes, deputy chief executive at Education Partnership North East which runs Sunderland College, was hopeful the footage had "made a difference", stressing pupils were "thinking about the consequences" which they "wouldn't necessarily have got from sitting in a classroom".

The campaign - a joint partnership with North East Regional Organised Crime Unit -is one of a series of initiatives intended to tackle knife crime, including the publication of unanswered messages from family members to lost relatives.

In recent years, a number of teenagers have been fatally wounded across north-east England.

In 2021, 18-year-old Jack Woodley died after being stabbed in Houghton-le-Spring, while Gateshead's Tomasz Oleszak, 14, was stabbed to death in October 2022.

Several weeks later, Newcastle teenager Gordon Gault, 14, died days after being wounded with a knife and in 2023, Hexham's Holly Newton, 15, died, also after being stabbed.