Basketball helps Middlesbrough teen stay away from crime

Now a community coach, Riley says his confidence has grown since getting involved in basketball

A 19-year-old basketball player says the sport has helped him stay away from the wrong crowd.

Riley Anderson from Middlesbrough fell in with the "wrong people" and was 15 when he saw his friend being stabbed.

He said: "I think about it quite a bit, my mate was stabbed and it could've been me."

The teenager plays for Teesside Lions, which has been given £30,000 to try and steer young people away from crime.

The emphasis is not exclusively about developing elite basketball players as the club wants to develop young people, set standards and morals.

Established in 2007 Teesside Lions has trained hundreds of young people

The club has about 400 members from the ages of five to 50, and its chair and coach James Thomson said: "Positive influences are vital in the development of a child, what we want to do is nurture role models through the club and send them out into the community, engage them and attract them to the club and develop their skills and them as people.

"With the funding we have the opportunity to expand dramatically and go out and meet the people that maybe need it the most."

The club 's Role Models project is one of a number of schemes sharing £500,000 to try to stop violent crime, as the Cleveland Police area has the highest level of knife crime in the country and is third highest for violent crime in England and Wales.

Theo is the captain of Teesside lions and says getting youngsters involved in sport at a young age is transformative

Theo Turner is Lions' captain and played for Newcastle Eagles and around the world at US university teams in Seattle and Miami before playing professionally in Germany.

Now back in Middlesbrough and trained as a Cleveland Police officer, he stresses it is important young people have positive role models to look up to.

"It's important to get involved with young people at an early age to lead them down a better path, so important to talk to people and engage with young people to get them on board."

As a PC he says dealing with violence is "challenging" but he has found he can solve a lot of issues by talking to people.

For Riley, playing basketball has helped his confidence, and he says he is happy to pass his skills on to a younger generation.

He believes his experience of violent crime is something which changed him.

"Watching my mate get stabbed by three other people wasn't the nicest thing I've seen and I was run up on with a knife the next day because my mate owed some money to a drug dealer," he said.

"It changes you in a way you wouldn't expect it, it mentally drains you and being at Teesside Lions helps you, brings your confidence up and James and everyone have done so much to help me."

Mr Thomson said: "Riley is indicative of the importance of positive role models, he also shows it's never too late to change direction."

Club chair James Thomson says the role model project will help nurture young people