'My best friend was stabbed to death'

A BBC Three documentary has uncovered the stories of the teenagers left behind after their friends have been killed in violent knife crimes, and revealed what life is like for youngsters caught up in the dangerous world of gangs.

Steven Lewis was the first teenager to die violently in London this year. He was 15 years old and had spent most of his teenage years in care.

Knifings about 'money, power, respect'

His best friend Okemena, 16, was with him when he was killed after a party at his local youth club in east London.

"Steven was my one and only best friend. Before him I never had a best friend," Okemena said.

"Most people get caught up because… you'll see your elders, they've got big chains, they've got watches, they've got cars, they've got girls.

"You want to be like that, you don't want to be like a punk... and getting jacked and all that stuff.

"So people just get caught up."

Months before they had talked about the risks they were being exposed to.

Everyone is trying to be gangsters but really most people in England, they're not gangsters Okemena

"We had this talk before, like, I thought I was going to die and he thought he was going to die.

"But I never thought it would become... reality," Okemena said.

"They think it's that easy, like you're just going to make it up to the top like that. So they just get caught up in all this stuff.

"Money, power, respect. If you've got respect, yeah, no-one's going to touch you.

"Everyone is trying to be gangsters but really most people in England, they're not gangsters.

"It's not a game. I don't care about all this postcode stuff and our rep, east London and all that.

"I stay true to myself."

Steven's girlfriend, Ornella, 16, said she went out with him as he had a reputation in Plaistow.

"I liked going out with boys that had a name. Basically if you have a name if means you're popular... everyone knows you."

When schoolboy Kodjo Yenga, 16, was stabbed in the heart in March 2007 after being ambushed by a gang, his best friend Bilal had to turn his back on offers of revenge after the death.

Five youths were found guilty of killing him in Hammersmith, west London.

Bilal, 19, said: "We tried to avoid violence and hype and all that, we tried our best, but all the time you're hearing about someone being stabbed or shot.

Guns are not hard to get, knives are definitely not hard to get Bilal

"Like, I know at least two people who went to my former school who've been shot or stabbed y'know, since I've known them, so obviously, you know once you've gone to prison, its just, it's normal.

"The day after Kodjo died, people were calling my phone offering to have people shot.

"It's not hard to access things like that.

"Guns are not hard to get, knives are definitely not hard to get."

Michael Wright and his brother Arthur moved to the UK from war-torn Sierra Leone nine years ago with their mother.

But Michael, 17, was killed on 19 February when another teenager stabbed him after refusing to pay back £15 he owed him.

Arthur, who is 15, said: "They think they know what I'm going through, but only I know what I'm going through.

"I'm thinking: revenge, revenge, but revenge isn't going to help me or him.

"So, I'm just staying cool. I'm trying to stay out of trouble and just do my own thing."

The pair spent most of their days on the streets with a close-knit circle of friends, who have lost several members to violent crime and who prefer to remain anonymous.

One revealed: "If you kill one of ours, then we kill one of yours.

"That's how it's like.

Michael's friends have taken to wearing stab vests

"It's like revenge. You kill one of ours, I take one of yours. That's what it's like, get me?"

Another of Michael's friends explained why they carried knives.

"People carry (a knife) for fun, they carry it for style.

"Like they come up and they go 'Look at me, look at me. I got a knife innit, I got a knife'."

But their attitudes are changing, according to another youth: "I want to admit, I thought it was cool at first.

"But when they put me in the cell and shut the door in my face, then that's when I realised, what's the point?

"So then I threw it down and I thought no I'm not doing that again."

Bradley Walters-Stewart, 16, has been sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted of Michael's murder.

Watch more on My Best Friend's Murder, BBC Three, 2100 BST, Thu 9 July then for 7 days on BBC iPlayer .