A meeting of teenagers, community experts and police officers to discuss the best way to tackle Wild West Britain was held this weekend.

The meeting organised by Essex youth councillor and Redbridge Youth Council member Hannah Chowdhry on Saturday, April 6, brought together police officers with members of the community to discuss the growing concern about national teenage knife crimes.

It was held at Ilford High Road Baptist Church on Saturday to discuss rising crime levels across Redbridge and the surrounding areas.

One of the police officers who attended the event was PC Ross Richmond-Clarke who spoke about the work of the police in tackling knife and violent crime.

He said: "Local services are working with us including local councils, local emergency services, the health services and community and charity groups, in a shared approach to prevent local youth falling into knife crime.

"Box up Crime gives opportunities to people involved in a gangs to join a free boxing class for catharsis and mentoring. This is being rolled out across the tri-boroughs and hopefully into schools soon.

"When tackling violent crime we needs to consider the impact on you, us and the nation as a whole."

He also discussed gang culture and how it impacts teenagers across the country.

It is estimated that around 46,000 children aged 12 to 17 are involved in gang activity such as moving money and drugs around for drug dealers.

PC Sandeep Gakhal showed a new campaign video produced and directed by the local police cadet force aimed at eradicating knife crime across the UK.

David Anglin from community group For The Youth which works with disadvantaged youths through the medium of media and music shared details of his work.

He said: "I have worked with young offenders for 10 years now and I believe this a problem that was slowly building from the first austerity measures, but like most things in a system it takes a while to build up momentum, but when the momentum gains we get the crisis that we have now."

He added that decriminalising petty crime would benefit society as young people become trapped in the justice system which exacerbates the problem by placing younger victims with older and more hardened criminals.

Also in attendance was Bhupinder Iffat Rizvi, mother of Samina who was brutally shot dead in 2003 who shared an emotional speech about her work over the years to bring about justice and help rehabilitate young criminals.

Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association and East Ilford Betterment Partnership, organisers of the event, said: "A report will be compiled that extrapolates all pertinent facts from the meeting especially contributions made by guest speakers and visitors.

"We will share all the date with PM Theresa May, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Jas Athwal leader of Redbridge Council.

"Some very valuable contributions were made by local people to this big conversation and we intend to hold further events.

"We also intend to help local police get opportunities to share their video in Redbridge Schools so that we and other local people can really get behind this campaign and work towards the eradication of knife and violent crime together."