Tomasz Oleszak murder: 'If you carry a knife you're weak'

Tomasz Oleszak was a talented footballer

Fourteen-year-old Tomasz Oleszak died a day after being stabbed in the chest in a Gateshead nature reserve. What happened to him and what impact has his death had on his community?

It was not clear why Leighton Amies took a serrated steak knife from his mother's kitchen on 3 October last year.

It was a last-minute decision, the then 14-year-old told his trial, but he grabbed the cutlery from the draining board and pocketed it in his body-warmer as he headed out into the dark autumnal evening.

When asked why he took it, Amies said simply: "For reassurance".

Teen guilty of murdering boy, 14, in knife attack

Reassurance against what, prosecutor Mark McKone asked him at Newcastle Crown Court.

"Just about everything really," the 15-year-old replied.

Did he have an interest in knives, Mr McKone asked, did he feel tough carrying one, did it excite him?

No, no and no, the boy said.

Tomasz's family said they were devastated by his death

Three hours after Amies left home, the knife was plunged up to 8cm into Tomasz' chest with what a pathologist said would have to have been "reasonable force".

He did not know Tomasz or the Springwell area, because he was from another part of Tyneside.

Amies was there to see a friend, a 14-year-old girl he was walking home from a dance class.

He claimed he was set upon by up to five youths after the young couple were followed into the park.

Leighton Amies will be sentenced in June

He said he was punched, kicked and grappled to the ground, at which point he withdrew the knife to scare off his attackers.

Amies waved it around, he said, but did not realise he had stabbed Tomasz or slashed the heart area of a coat worn by another boy.

He saw his attackers flee, thought maybe he had caught one of them as he saw the youth "limping" away, then he too left the scene and met a friend.

By that point, Amies said, he realised maybe he had done more than cut someone so asked his friend where he could hide the knife.

Tomasz's family were presented with his number 15 football shirt ahead of a match in his memory

He dumped it in a bush then called his mother to pick him up, later messaging his friend to say he would have the blade "melted".

He sent messages to friends lying about his whereabouts and involvement in the fracas that night.

He made, in the words of his lawyer Peter Makepeace KC, "bad decision after bad decision" after the attack, but "being 14 and being scared and making bad decisions go hand in hand".

Mr Makepeace said his client panicked when he was attacked, pulling the knife from his pocket and "flailing out indiscriminately in an act of self defence".

Afterwards he buried his head in the sand, wishing it would all go away.

Tomasz died in hospital a day after being stabbed

Tomasz had tidied his bedroom like his mother, Kamila Wisniewska, had asked him to before going out to play football with his friends, taking his rucksack, ball and Bluetooth speaker from his room.

He was supposed to be home at 19:30 and when he was 20 minutes late his mother called him.

He sounded happy, she said, and said he was on his way home.

Barely 10 minutes later Amies had stabbed him. He died the next day in hospital.

Prosecution witnesses said Tomasz was not part of the group following Amies but arrived just moments before being stabbed.

Mr McKone said the group was not "blameless" as they did discuss hitting Amies, but the defendant's claim he actually was attacked was a "lie".

Lisa Loan of Springwell Community Association said young people there had learned the danger of carrying knives

How, if he was punched and kicked by five "fit young men" all over his body, did he only have one small injury to his thumb, Mr McKone asked.

The friend who showed Amies where to hide the knife told police he seemed "happy" after the attack, that he was "bouncing all over" and it "didn't faze him at all".

Amies denied that to the jurors, but he also said he could not remember ever thinking "I hope the boy is all right," Mr McKone said.

Paul and Lillian Howson said Tomasz's death had rocked their community

Amies came "no way near telling you he was sorry for what happened to Tomasz," the prosecutor said.

Tomasz was one of several high profile young stabbing victims in the North East in the past two years.

Jack Woodley, 18, was fatally stabbed in Houghton-le-Spring with 10 youths found guilty of his murder, while a trial is still to be held over the death of Holly Newton, 15, in Hexham, Northumberland.

An investigation is still ongoing into the stabbing of Gordon Gault, 14, in Elswick Newcastle, in November.

Campaigners hope tragic stories like Tomasz's will deter youths from carrying knives

Tomasz's death shocked the Springwell area where he lived, especially its young people, Lisa Loan, chairwoman of the Springwell Community Association, said.

"The penny has dropped round here," she said, adding: "[Since his death] the young lads round here are more 'if you carry a knife you're weak'."

But, she added, the message still needs to spread further.

Lillian Howson, a friend of Tomasz's family, said there was a "black cloud" over the community.

Her husband Paul, who helps run the football team Tomasz played for, agreed and is "worried" about what could happen in the future.

"There's a cycle that needs to be broken," he said.

Connor Brown was fatally stabbed in 2019

Tanya Brown's son Connor was stabbed and killed in Sunderland in 2019.

Since then she has been an avid anti-knife campaigner and said youths need to be given more things to do to distract them from wanton violence borne from boredom.

"There are very few youth centres and we need more," she told the BBC, adding: "We need to hit those hard to reach children, they need something to do, they need a focus."

One such group is Youth Focus North East which has been working with some of the teenagers who witnessed their friend Tomasz being stabbed.

Rebecca Harrop from the group said the organisation only had funding for six more weeks, adding: "If we don't find that funding from somewhere then it comes to an end and that relationship we've built up with these young people goes away."