Murdered by the teen gang who ruled the streets
Peter and Jane had planned a future together
Thursday 24th May 2007
You can guarantee that on every housing estate, there are groups of kids who spend all their time loitering around the local shops. Ours was no different. It was a Saturday night, and as my fiancé, Peter Woodhams, 22, and I drove into our road, I spotted the usual gang on the corner.
Crack!
A shattering noise made both of us jump with fright.
'Something's hit us!' I cried.
'Stop the car and I'll have a look,' Peter said.
I parked our new Ford Focus, and Peter jumped out. All of a sudden, I saw him stumbling against the car, and a lad running away.
'Are you OK?' I asked, jumping out of the car.
'I-I've been stabbed,' he stammered.
'Get in. I'll drive you to hospital,' I babbled.
'I don't want to get the seats dirty,' he said, through the pain.
Typical Peter. He'd worked six days a week for ages so we could buy a new car. Now he didn't want to ruin the upholstery. I watched in horror as he collapsed on the ground.
'Peter!' I screamed, rushing over to the spot where he'd fallen.
I was vaguely aware of my neighbour, Sarah, holding a towel to the wound, and of a crowd gathering as someone dialled 999. But all I could focus on was the blood as it drenched through his light blue shirt, staining Sarah's hands and trickling into the gutter.
By the time the ambulance arrived, I was hysterical.
'Let me in!' I wailed, flinging myself at the ambulance doors.
'Please, calm down,' the paramedic said.
Calm down? My fiancé had just been stabbed! Instead, my friend, Vicky, 23, drove me to Newham General Hospital in East London.
A doctor led me to Peter's bed.
'He's been stabbed in the neck,' he explained. 'The wound is just 1mm from his jugular vein. If the knife had of hit that, it would have almost certainly killed him.'
'I-is he OK?' I asked, stunned.
'He'll be fine,' the doctor smiled. 'We've stitched up the neck wound and the scratch on his face.'
As soon as I saw Peter, I felt tears stinging my eyes again. Some scratch! What kind of person would do that for no reason?
'I guess they didn't like me confronting them over throwing the stone at the car,' Peter said.
The next day, Peter was allowed home, but we were so scared of the gang that we went to stay with my mum, Anne, 52, and dad, John, 53, who lived a few miles away. Our son, Sam, 2, was already there. We reported the stabbing to the police and two weeks later, we moved house. We thought everything was back to normal. Peter even returned to work as a satellite engineer.
But for some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that something else was going to happen. I didn't know how or when the yobs would strike, but deep down, I knew they would. And until they did, we were sitting targets.
Three weeks passed, and we were getting ready to go and see Peter's dad, also called Peter.
Carrying Sam in his car seat, Peter and I opened the front door and walked over to the car. Suddenly, my heart felt like it had stopped. There they were, five or six of them.
'That's the one who stabbed me,' Peter whispered as we got into the car.
One by one, they looked over in our direction. Soulless, dead eyes stared at us from deep within their hooded tops, hands thrust into the pockets of their baggy jeans.
Slowly, one of them pulled his hand out of his pocket and drew a finger across his throat from one side to the other. The gang all started to laugh.
'It's not fair,' I sobbed to Peter. 'What are we going to do?'
'We keep our heads down,' he said quietly.
After that day, we didn't go to the shops and we even stopped Sam playing outside in the evenings. Soon, seven months had flown by and one hot August night, Peter decided to drive round to see his mate, Adam.
'I won't be long, love!' he called, grabbing his keys.
But barely half an hour had passed before he was back.
'That boy's starting again,' Peter said, a panicked look in his eyes.
Dropping his keys on the table, Peter ran back outside. Unsure about what to do, I grabbed Sam and followed him out.
Bang! Bang!
I was aware of a lad running off as Peter stumbled towards me.
'I've been shot!' he cried.
Everything happened in slow motion. Peter's mouth opening to yell… the noise as he staggered back and fell into a stinging nettle bush.
'Help!' I screamed, hammering on the neighbours' doors.
Soon, the whole street was filled with people.
'I can't breathe…' Peter gasped.
His breath came in violent gasps.
'Hang on,' I sobbed.
When the paramedics arrived, I was pushed to one side. A horrible feeling of déj" vu swept over me as I followed the ambulance to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel.
At the hospital I was ushered into a relatives' room.
'I'm so sorry,' a nurse said. 'Peter's gone.'
I don't know if it was the months of abuse, the endless pressure we'd been under or that my beloved Peter was gone forever, but something inside me snapped. Once I started screaming, I didn't think I'd ever stop.
'Make him better!' I howled, as I fell to my knees and vomited on the floor. Very gently, a doctor helped me to my feet.
'Peter was shot three times,' he explained. 'In the chin, the hand and the heart.'
Over those next few days, I stayed with my parents and existed in a kind of trance. Every morning, the realisation would hit me again that Peter was gone, and I was violently sick.
Sadness soon gave way to rage when, five weeks later, a local lad, Bradley Tucker,
18, handed himself in. I was determined to get justice for Peter and, seven months later,
I walked into The Old Bailey. Tucker denied murder, but admitted manslaughter while
a 17-year-old, who cannot be named, denied all charges.
As I stood in the witness box, Tucker shot me a smug smile. Then do you know what that animal did? He actually turned to my family and pointed two fingers to his head like he
was firing a gun. The cocky, arrogant little… I refused to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.
During the trial, Tucker claimed he didn't know the gun was real and that Peter had been taunting him. Every word was a lie. A witness said he'd seen Peter confront the gang on the night of the shooting as they smoked cannabis outside the supermarket. He then heard Bradley Tucker snarl: 'I'll f*****g have him…'
It couldn't be proved that Tucker was behind the earlier knife attack, but after three weeks of evidence, the jury returned their verdict. Tucker was found guilty of murder, while the 17-year-old youth from Canning Town was cleared of all charges. The judge started to read out my victim impact statement.
'Seven months ago, Peter and I had everything to live for. We were a family getting started in life… Peter was the doting dad, and Sam was the daddy's boy…'
Nine months have passed since his murder, and I still don't have the answers. I probably never will. What I do know is that Peter was a hero. He stood up to those thugs, despite the consequences.
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