Heartbreaking photo captures young boy burying his dad after stabbing in Sheffield

This heartbreaking photograph of a young boy at his daddy’s graveside in Sheffield is being used to urge people to stop carrying knives.
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Little Carter Bagshaw, 17 months, whose father Lewis Bagshaw was fatally stabbed in July, joined the 21-year-old’s friends at his graveside and helped shovel earth over his coffin last week when he was laid to rest.

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The heartbreaking moment was captured on a mobile phone and is being used by Lewis’ friends and family to urge those who carry knives to ditch their weapons.

Little Carter Bagshaw at his dad's gravesideLittle Carter Bagshaw at his dad's graveside
Little Carter Bagshaw at his dad's graveside

Lewis’s death was the tenth fatal stabbing in Sheffield in the space of 16 months.

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Sheffield mum due in court today over murder of two sons

Jervaise Bennett, 20 of Bishopholme Close, Shirecliffe, has been charged with his murder along with a 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Lewis BagshawLewis Bagshaw
Lewis Bagshaw
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Lewis’ childhood friend, Jordan Kissack, 25, was the first to share the moving photograph in a Facebook post which has now gone viral.

Devastated at Lewis’ death, he posted: “Just a little advice for people that carry or use knives and guns. STOP!

“Today we laid to rest yet another one of my friends who should still be here, but some coward took his life with a knife.

“Whilst at the funeral reception we played video clips of memories and pictures of my dear childhood friend, Lewis Bagshaw. While these were playing, his son Carter started shouting ‘daddy’ at the pictures.

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“Let that feeling sink in. if it you was taken from your loving girlfriend and son and friends and family imagine the pain they are all going through because somebody took your life that shouldn’t have been taken.

“Think before using a knife or anything in fact to take somebody’s life.

“A moment in anger causes a lifetime of pain for others.”

Lewis' heartbroken partner, Olivia Keeley, said he was a 'devoted family man'.

"From the moment Carter was born, Lewis was completed besotted and devoted to him. He was a devoted family man," she said.

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"He had just passed his driving theory the month before he died and his test was booked. He was making his life better for us and our son."

She said she hopes the heartbreaking photograph of her son helping to bury his dad will change attitudes to knives.

“The photograph breaks my heart but is shows the reality of knife crime,” she added.

Lewis's friend Jordan, who has a son the same age as Lewis’ son, Carter, has been stabbed himself and has lost five friends in total to knife and gun crime.

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His close friend Kavan Brissett, 21, was stabbed to death when violence flared off Langsett Walk, Upperthorpe, last August.

Four months before that murder, another friend, Jarvin Blake, 22, was knifed at the junction of Catherine Street and Brackley Street, Burngreave.

In 2007, when Jordan was only 13, his friend Jonathan Matondo, 16, was shot dead in Burngreave and the following year another friend, Tarek Chaiboub 17, was gunned down in the same city suburb.

Today, Jordan, who grew up in Longley, said ‘enough is enough’ and called for an end to deadly street violence, which he said is ripping families apart.

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“Seeing Lewis’ son at his funeral was the final straw for me and made me speak out. Too many people are dying, too many lives are being destroyed and too many families are being ripped apart,” he said.

“I’ve been stabbed, I’ve experienced knife crime, I’ve seen guns being pulled. I know what it is like to be constantly looking over your shoulder.

“But there are other ways. There is another way of life and I want to do all I can to persuade the younger generation to put their knives down.

“I don’t think people actually realise how many people carry them. But those who do carry them need to realise what they dealing with and that striking out in one moment of anger is not only going to potentially end a life but ruin their own and all the families connected to them.”

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He added: “To see a little boy burying his dad is surely enough to make people stop and think about what they are doing?”

Jordan, who is now a professional boxer based at De Hood Boxing Centre on the Manor estate, said he is using his experiences to urge others to change their ways.

“This gym has saved my life and I want the younger ones to know that there is an alternative to gangs and crime, that they do not have to go down that path,” he added.