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Timeline, At a very young age Victor became involved with gangs and knife…
Timeline
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Victor had only extremely limited contact with his father who moved to the US when Victor was 4 years old, and for much of his childhood he was brought up by his mother.
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Growing up, Victor’s mother had different partners over the years, but the relationships never lasted longer than a year or two. Some of these partners were violent and several times Victor witnessed his mother being violently beaten by her partner. Victor often found himself trying to protect his mother and sister from these men.
. As a child he was referred for psychological assessment to an educational psychologist and was diagnosed with ADHD.
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When Victor was 12, his mother remarried.
His stepfather is a white British male who works as a branch manager at a local fast food restaurant.
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15
22
Victor was convicted of grievous bodily harm following the physical assault of a rival gang member who was only 17 at the time.
He was sentenced to five years in prison. Victor claimed he was in acting self-defence after being threatened with a knife. However, Victor felt he was poorly represented at court by a junior barrister and has felt let down by the judicial system. Although Victor has appealed against his sentence, he was unsuccessful and has been denied the possibility of any further appeal.
Initial assessment
One of the prison psychologists chatted briefly with Victor about having psychological therapy. He reports that Victor was initially dismissive about therapy saying, ‘I don’t trust therapists’. On further questioning, Victor admitted he could do with some help but said he would rather focus on education and training rather than ‘talking with someone I don’t know’.
Since Victor’s first prison sentence at age 15 (in a young offender institute), he has only had extremely limited contact with his mother and stepfather.
From the age of about 13 onwards, Victor became increasingly embroiled in the local drugs economy, first involved in selling cannabis and then moving on to selling harder drugs.
At a very young age Victor became involved with gangs and knife crime after being drawn into it through friends. Victor was frequently stopped by the police which led to him gaining a criminal record at a young age for a variety of offences of theft, criminal damage and possession of weapons.
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As gang member from his early teens, Victor was regularly involved in local gang fights.
He committed a robbery and violent assault as part of the gang and was also a victim of grievous bodily harm. Victor refused to co-operate with the police after this incident.
At one of the police stop-and-searches, Victor felt he was roughly treated by a white male police officer and retaliated by pushing him. The police officer fell to the ground awkwardly and was injured. Victor was subsequently convicted of assault and sentenced to a detention and training order for 6 months.
General Info
Victor
Victor is a 22-year-old Black male of African origin from Nottingham. He is currently serving a five-year sentence for grevious bodily harm.
Most of his extended family members live in Nigeria so Victor grew up rather isolated living in a household with his mother and younger sister (who is a year younger) on a Nottingham housing estate.
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He obtained occasional work as a labourer, working cash in hand on a day rate basis, but had no other income, and did not receive any benefits.
Until his prison sentence, Victor was living with a friend in a flat on the tenth floor of a twelve-floor tower block.
Victor is outgoing and social and has many friends, albeit mostly ‘drinking mates’ at the local pub. He is heterosexual and has had frequent sexual relationships with women but these rarely last more than a few nights/dates.
Immediately prior to his current prison sentence, Victor was involved in local gang-related rehabilitation programmes and had enrolled at a local college for an adult education course in painting and decorating. His mentor on the programme said that Victor had been taking steps to change his life and to disassociate himself from gang-related activity. However, at the time of Victor’s sentencing offence, the future of the programme was uncertain after a wave of cuts to funding for local public and charitable services.
Victor had been referred to a psychiatrist recently by a GP for PTSD from the incident when he received grievous bodily harm, but was still waiting for an appointment at the time of his sentencing incident.
Victor has three GCSEs: maths, biology and PE.
School reports suggest that Victor was a frequent truant and displayed early violent behaviour (in playground incidents). He was regularly suspended from school but was never formally excluded.