Ronan Kanda was murdered close to his home in Wolverhampton after he visited a friend’s house to buy a PlayStation controller in June 2022.
A trial heard his attackers, one of whom had just collected knives bought online, mistook him for his friend.
Ronan died at the scene as a result of his injuries.
Since then, the family have been campaigning to get all sort of knives, machetes and blades from being sold online to prevent such a tragedy from happening again in the future.
The mother of Ronan Kanda published an open letter stating:
“…I am the mother of Ronan Kanda. On 29 June 2022, my beautiful 16 year old son was fatally stabbed just yards away from our home. It was broad-daylight and he was attacked by two boys who went to the same school as my son. Prabjeet Veadhesa and Sukhman Shergill were armed with a ninja sword and a machete in a friendly, peaceful neighbourhood, looking for someone else. I lost my innocent son to a harrowing case of mistaken identity.
Knife crime is getting worse. Most recent data from the ONS showed a 21% increase in the number of knife and offensive weapon offences recorded between September 2021 to 2022. This is a problem which requires immediate and drastic change at a national level.
The government is currently considering whether to introduce new knife legislation to restrict the sale of machetes and large knives. I have written this open letter to the Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urging his government to take these proposals further and implement an outright ban of the sale of all types of machetes, swords & other threatening bladed articles online. There is no place for these knives on our streets or in anyone’s home. Please help to save lives and get justice for Ronan, and all the young people who we’ve needlessly lost to knife crime..”
A petition has been raised by the family to raise this issue amongst MP’s to make a change. In just a short amount of time over 8,000 people have signed the petition.
You can sign the petition via clicking on this link as well as viewing the letter to the PM by Ronan’s mother.
