So I promised to keep you updated about the day to day running of Voluptasse. This week I've had some interesting developments with regards to the work that Voluptasse does to combat drug related violence in my local area, focusing in particular on knife crime and domestic violence.
Awareness of knife crime is of particular importance because of my older brother Marvin, who was sadly stabbed and killed in Todmorden in February 2002. Because I work with the community quite a lot with my refuge work and hospice events I wanted to use those connections to reach out to the public and tell them my story.
I will be working with the Police and local Press to raise awareness of the dangers of carrying knives and the consequences of impaired judgment through drugs and alcohol. I will be working with young offenders and also young people who have been carrying knives to talk to them about the human consequences of knife crime. Its not just about Prison, one moment of madness affects so many people.
I will be speaking at my first school on the 7th February and really hope that I manage to make an impression on the kids there. If just one life is saved then it would all be worth it.
So.... here's my story. It isn't a pretty one but here it is.
Speech For School
(Me and Marvin with Nana. I was just a baby here)
My name is Melissa MacFarlane and I am here to talk to you about my brother
Marvin Whitehead.
First of all let me tell you a little about Marvin…
Marvin and I grew up in a very large family with three other brothers and two
other sisters, we were brought up by our Dad who was a single parent and we were
all very close. Marvin was a regular guy, pretty much the same as you and I who
loved Michael Jackson, Eminem, a pint of Cider and and his beloved Roll Ups. He
was six years older than me and a lot of fun to be around. He had learning
difficulties and was therefore very childlike in the way that he acted and
thought but we all loved him very much.
Marvin was a free spirit and often travelled to Todmorden to work, sometimes
he would be gone for months and would simply turn up back at home when he felt like it. While he was in Todmorden he worked and boarded
with a family called the Shackletons who sold fruit and veg.
One morning on the 2
nd February 2002 there was a knock on the door
which changed our lives forever. Our lovely big brother had been stabbed 18
times at a house in Todmorden and was dead. He was just 28 years old. He wasn’t
a perfect person, like me and you he was human and made mistakes but we loved
him and now he was never coming back.
(Our last Christmas with Marvin and the only proper picture that I have of him)
The story is that Marvin went to the house of a friend after they had been
drinking and taking cocaine one evening. Marvin’s friend Geoffrey became
paranoid because of the drugs and snuck up behind Marvin whilst he was watching
television and stabbed him 18 times in the back. Marvin tried to run into the
kitchen but never stood a chance against such a ferocious attack.
After a failed attempt to escape, Marvin collapsed and died on the
kitchen floor. According to the forensic evidence it would have taken half an
hour for his body to shut down. I only hope that he lost consciousness very
quickly. Every single night before I go to sleep, I am plagued by thoughts of my brother
lying cold and frightened on a strange floor just waiting to die. I wonder if he
desperately thought that help would arrive, or if he thought about us, his
family.
We’ll never know, and it tears me apart.
If I was to try describe how it feels to have someone that you love so much
torn away from you in such a violent and cruel way it wouldn’t be possible.
There are no words to describe that feeling. Even now I don’t feel settled, I
have part of me that has been taken away and there will always be a hole in my
heart that can never be fixed. It’s a horrible feeling and I wouldn’t wish it on
anyone.
My Dad went to identify Marvin’s body and said that he looked like he was
sleeping, I still refused to believe that it was him. I was so sure that there
had been a mistake, I remember desperately hoping and praying that he would turn
up somewhere and everyone would be amazed at the huge mistake that had been
made. But obviously he never did.
After 2 weeks of tests and examinations we were allowed to bring my brother’s
body back to Blackburn. Still sure that it had been a huge mistake, I remember
walking in to the Funeral parlour to confirm the identity (to myself) once and for all of the person was led in that coffin.
It was a sight that I will never forget, he was a very strange colour and his
face looked strangely collapsed. Everything about him looked wrong, but it was
him. There was no arguing with what was in front of my eyes it was definitely my
brother. They said that because of the tests they’d had to run on his body and
the length of time that he had been dead his body had started to deteriorate and
that’s why he looked so odd.
That’s the last memory I have of my brother, glancing at his decomposing body
just to make sure it was him.
After Marvin’s death our close knit family began to unravel. For the 3 weeks
leading up to the funeral we were all on auto pilot. Planning the Funeral,
consoling people and sorting out his belongings. It was when we were left to our
own thought that the problems started.
Unable to cope with his grief my Dad, who already had a problem with alcohol
hit the drink even harder. Three years after Marvin died my Dad also passed
away, he literally drank himself into an early grave. He was consumed by grief
and guilt because he felt that he hadn’t been there to protect his son. We are
all plagued by guilt that we hadn’t done anything to protect him, even though we
couldn’t possibly have known what was going to happen that night.
The death of Marvin hit us hard as a family, my brother turned to drugs and
is now facing a lengthy prison sentence. My older sister never speaks about it,
she finds it too difficult. I have lots of nightmares and spent years searching
for an answer as to why Geoffrey stabbed my brother. I tried a counsellor to
help me with my grief. As soon as she asked me my name I burst into tears and
couldn’t speak for the rest of the session, I never went back because I found it
too difficult to deal with.
The man who killed my brother is currently
serving a
life sentence in prison; I wrote to him in Prison a few years ago and begged him
to tell me why he killed my brother. I told him about my nightmares and my
Father’s death and the pain of losing Marvin and the effect his actions had had
on my family. The only explanation that he could provide was that he was so full
of drink and drugs that his judgment was clouded. It was because of drugs and
drink that my brother was dead.
They both put themselves in a dangerous situation and now everyone was
paying the price for it. Two families lost their sons and their brothers that
night, his family are suffering because he is wasting his life in a prison cell
and ours because we lost our brother. There are so many lives affected by the decisions that we make and because of the choices made on that awful night on the 1st February our lives will never be the same again.
