I was a gang member as a NINE-year-old & survived being stabbed 14 times… now I’ve turned my life around & met the King
A REFORMED gang member has told how he was pulled into a life of crime at just nine-years-old – before miraculously surviving a brutal attack that came an inch from killing him.
Gideon Buabeng, 31, was stabbed 14 times before finally escaping the dark underworld and has since turned his life around, meeting Hollywood star Idris Elba and King Charles.
Gideon was slashed with knives as a dozen brutal thugs pummelled him with poles and baseball bats in a horrific attack while he was at university in Leicester.
He was stabbed 14 times in the assault including five wounds that plunged five inches deep – one just an inch away from killing him.
The then-teenager was left fighting for his life in hospital.
But Gideon had chosen to study 140 miles away from his home in Croydon to escape the gang life he’d been wrapped up in since the age of nine.
He told The Sun: “I remember being so scared. I was panicking, thinking I’ve done all of that to move away from this lifestyle.
“But now here I was again. I didn’t even know the guys who attacked me, it didn’t make any sense.”
He spent three-and-a-half weeks in ICU and had to learn how to walk again.
After I was attacked people were calling me. They told me they were ready to go. They said ‘we have all the machines ready to go, let us know what you want us to do.”
Gideon Buabeng
In the weeks after the attack, as Gideon slowly recovered – his old gang friends got in touch. They’d heard what happened and wanted to know if he needed them to launch a revenge assault.
“I had a choice to make,” he said. “People were calling me. After four weeks they told me they were ready to go. They said ‘we have all the machines ready to go, let us know what you want us to do.”
An emotional Gideon revealed 10 per cent of him wanted that revenge.
But he said no.
“I couldn’t let strangers drag me down, and I couldn’t let people control my life. If I’d said yes that’s letting the people that stab me control my life.
“We die or they die. No one wins. All we have is two broken families, and wars that could go on to last another 30 years.
“I know a lot of wars that started in Tottenham and Hackney and Brixton – they’re 30 years deep and people die on both sides.”
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan oversaw the biggest-ever jump in knife possession on record, the Sun on Sunday previously revealed.
The number of people reported to the police for carrying a knife soared to record levels in 2018.
Just this week 14-year-old schoolboy Kelyen Bokassa was stabbed to death while travelling on a bus in Woolwich.
And 17-year-old Thomas Taylor was stabbed by a gang of men wearing all black outside a bus station in Bedford.
Gideon, who has since founded Our Pain 2 Power, now campaigns against knife crime and supports young boys escaping gang violence.
Since breaking away from his former friends, he’s met King Charles and joined the Metropolitan Police to help train new officers.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Gideon, who grew up in a comfortable two-parent household in a small town between Croydon and Mitcham, South London, was first drawn into the Red Gang at the age of nine.
He didn’t realise it then.
But the older boys who taught him to ride a bike and called him “little brother” were actually grooming him for a life of brutal violence.
At least three are now serving life sentences for murder.
He said: “They used to say hi to my mum, they showed her respect. They taught me to ride a bike, played football with me. They sheltered and led me. When I was young they were loving, like family.”
It was only when he was 13 that he realised how much trouble he was in.
His friends had a feud with a member of a rival gang, forcing him to join them in a raid of their “opposition’s” house.
But the boy’s mum was home, and got caught up in the attack.
Gideon said: “It literally went from zero to 100. It went from just hanging around to actually friends selling drugs, some had knives on them.
“People have real issues with people living in other areas, and because I was there I was automatically involved.
“Outside of the violence it was fun, they were my friends. But there was a day when one of my friends had an issue with someone. We went to his house and I remember his parents being there.
“I remember thinking I didn’t want to do it, but it was like I didn’t have a choice.
“One of my other friends, who’s more careless, went to go and attack the mum and the dad. He moved them out the way.
“I’ll never forget the look on the mum’s face, how scared she was. I knew it was wrong, but it was too late, I was there. I thought I had to do what I was there to do.
“I just felt so bad.”
It was the first time Gideon felt bad about his actions.
“Being around people that were attacking other people who weren’t involved, especially parents. That didn’t sit right with me,” he added.
But he didn’t know how to get away.
It wasn’t long before Gideon was initiated into what he called The Red Gang.
Members of the group wore red bandannas, scarves and clothes to signify their membership
Gideon started wearing his gang colour and was often drafted in to act as a lookout for anything from shoplifting to drug deals. He was regularly pulled into violent mass brawls.
Gideon added: “Literally every day I’m coming home with black eyes.
“I can’t walk outside without my hoodie.
“My mum had to kick me out of the house a few times to go and stay with my family members outside of the area, because it was just too much.”
ESCAPING GANG LIFE
It was only when a rival turned up at Gideon’s home and his mum answered the door, that he finally made moves to get away.
He studied hard for his GCSEs and escaped by studying for his A-Levels at a school outside his area.
“I was trying to leave for like a year and a bit but I couldn’t. I had to just kind of distance myself, because again I liked my friends.
“Forget everything that we did that was negative, they were still my friends and I still loved them.
“We still had a lot of fun together, learnt together, played games together, so it wasn’t all bad as well.
“But the best choice I ever made was moving myself away.
“I still got into fights but I was intentional about being around the right influences.”
At 18 he went to Leicester to study business management and accounting.
“The goal was to get out. I moved so far away to go and do better for myself.”
After passing his first year he was diagnosed with dyslexia, which he called “amazing” because of the extra support it gave him access to.
However, his life took a drastic turn on April 30, 2015, when he received a call from a friend asking for help in a dispute with some local Leicester lads.
When Gideon met his friend, they soon discovered they had been set up when 25 to 30 people approached with “poles, crutches, baseball bats, sticks, all sorts.”
“I ran but unfortunately, they caught me by chance.
“They attacked me, attacked me, attacked me.
“It felt like it lasted about 10 min, but probably lasted only about 4 min.”
Gideon was rushed to hospital, where doctors told him he’d been stabbed 14 times.
There were five stabbings five inches deep and one was inches away from killing him.
“My friends have died with one or two stab wounds,” he recalled.
As well as the physical scars, Gideon has been left with PTSD from his violent past, which he now uses to power his campaign against gang culture.
In 2022, he founded Pain 2 Power, a programme dedicated to supporting disadvantaged young people.
He said: “It’s a societal issue. If there was an organisation that was actually there for us, and they had time to support us.
“You know half of my friends wouldn’t be in jail for murders.”
KHAN'S SHAME Fury as Sadiq Khan oversees biggest-ever jumps in knife possession on record, figures reveal
MAYOR of London Sadiq Khan oversaw the biggest- ever jump in knife possession on record, the Sun on Sunday can reveal.
The number of people reported to the police for carrying a knife soared to record levels in 2018.
Analysis of police data shows that since Khan took office in 2016, knifepoint robberies have more than doubled to almost 10,000 a year.
During that period, threats to kill with a knife nearly tripled to more than 1,000 a year and fatal stabbings rose 38 per cent, hitting a record high of more than 100 a year.
Meanwhile, the average number of knifepoint rapes and sexual assaults jumped by two thirds.
In 2018, knife possession jumped 30 per cent to hit a record high.
Last week, The Sun told how the stepmother of slain girl scout Jodie Chesney had branded Sir Sadiq’s knighthood, for services to politics, a “total joke”.
Jodie, 17, was fatally stabbed in March 2019 by two yobs who mistook the sixth-form pupil for a rival gang member.
The Mayor’s spokesman insisted the number of people injured by knives in London had decreased since Mr Khan succeeded Boris Johnson – but our statistics show that on almost every other measure, knife crime is significantly worse.
Jodie’s heartbroken stepmum Joanne, 42, said: “It is ridiculous for Khan to claim that knife crime is down.
“Every day we hear about another stabbing, like the one in Woolwich.
“The Met Police haven’t been given the power they need to fight knife crime.
“The capital is going feral as a result, while Khan just wants to bury his head in the sand.”
The Mayor’s spokesman added that nothing was “more important” to him than keeping Londoners safe, saying: “The number of young people being injured with knives is down and there were fewer homicides of people under 25 in London last year than in any year since 2003.”