Meeting the One Punch Killer | Truth Be Told with Zara McDermott

[00:00:00]I was being arrested for murder.

[00:00:03]On the 30th of July 2011, what started as a normal night out soon turned into tragedy.

[00:00:11]Can you talk to me about that night?

[00:00:13]I'm 19, on a night out.

[00:00:14]Get a phone call from a friend, yo Jacob, it’s kicking off.

[00:00:17]I was like, where are you?

[00:00:18]I've got your back.

[00:00:19]In the heat of the moment, Jacob threw a single punch.

[00:00:23]Didn't think anything of it.

[00:00:24]...that ended up being the biggest mistake of his life.

[00:00:27]I was being arrested for murder.

[00:00:29]Is this even happening to me? Like, what the hell is going on?

[00:00:31]What evidence is there? Was I on CCTV?

[00:00:34]How long were you in prison for? 14 months.

[00:00:36]Then, his victim's parents reached out.

[00:00:39]Just disbelief.

[00:00:40]The parents of the man I killed, why on earth would they come to me?

[00:00:44]I remember staring at the handle just like, am I actually going to do this?

[00:00:57]Can you talk to me about that night in 2011?

[00:01:01]Yeah, so, get a phone call from a friend.

[00:01:04]Yo, Jacob, it’s kicking off.

[00:01:07]So obviously my response was, where are you? Like, I've got your back.

[00:01:12]How old are you at this point?

[00:01:14]I'm 19 now, on a night out. Threw a single punch at this person who was, like, looking at my friend. Didn't look back until a month later when I was being arrested for murder.

[00:01:30]So I want to get to know you a bit and what life was like for you growing up.

[00:01:34]Can you talk me through that?

[00:01:36]I grew up in a council estate called the Meadows.

[00:01:40]Where is that? It's in Nottingham.

[00:01:42]My mum and dad divorced when I was seven.

[00:01:45]And that was quite like, there was some domestic violence in that relationship, which I witnessed.

[00:01:49]And I became like a bit of a mummy's boy.

[00:01:52]My mum sent me to a primary school outside of my neighbourhood.

[00:01:55]And so I was kind of like sheltered from the reality of my neighbourhood.

[00:01:58]I'd see like people like breaking into houses and drug deals and stuff like that.

[00:02:02]But I kind of like, was quite naive about all of that.

[00:02:05]But then when I got to secondary school, I then had all these people from my estate who were like, who the fuck are you?

[00:02:12]Like, you're not from around here.

[00:02:13]So then I felt like this pressure of like, yes, I am, I'm from this area, and there’s like pressure to like fit in and, you know, not getting robbed when I walk home and having to toughen up and not be as emotional anymore.

[00:02:26]And I lived like a double life. Why is that?

[00:02:29]Because at home with my mum, I'd be like, sweet Jacob.

[00:02:32]But then as soon as I left the door, I'd have to be tough Jacob.

[00:02:36]So I was the one that was always like making the jokes and getting kicked out of the class and skiving from school.

[00:02:40]It just started off with like, that low level kind of like disengagement.

[00:02:44]Nobody had aspirations of doing anything, like, ambitious.

[00:02:48]It was like, we're going to sell drugs.

[00:02:51]We're going to just smoke weed.

[00:02:53]Starting fires in the park or smashing a bus shelter or playing knock a door run and getting chased, do you know what I mean?

[00:03:00]And just like, hanging around with each other.

[00:03:01]You end up becoming a version of all the people around you.

[00:03:05]Yeah.

[00:03:06]There was a gang in my area historically called the Waterfront Gang, so we, and we always used to wear blue.

[00:03:12]I was in this little group, this little world of our own, with my mates and all of a sudden you don’t, you don't really know that there's another world outside your postcode.

[00:03:23]And like we thought like we were untouchable and invincible.

[00:03:26]And that pride of my little group and our little area and how we were badder than anybody else from any other area.

[00:03:33]And then we started mixing that with alcohol and going out and getting into fights and that kind of like seemed to be a way where we would like, how we’d strengthen our bonds as friends together.

[00:03:45]It’s like having each other's backs.

[00:03:46]Like having each other's back, yeah, that was like a -- you always have your mate’s back no matter what.

[00:03:50]That was like a, a value.

[00:03:52]Used to get into fights all the time, and it just became normalised and I got to about age 19, living that lifestyle for about 18 months of going out and partying.

[00:04:02]And you know what it was, I was addicted to, addicted to drama, that kind of like need for feeling alive because everything else in my life is like falling apart.

[00:04:12]Is that how you felt at the time? That's how I felt at the time, yeah.

[00:04:14]I've got no GCSEs.

[00:04:16]I've got no, I've never had a job.

[00:04:19]My self-esteem is really low, but I hide it through lots of bravado.

[00:04:23]And then on a night out, saw what I deemed at that time to be some sort of altercation.

[00:04:30]Which was a wrong assumption to make and then threw a punch.

[00:04:35]And I ran off, didn't think anything of it.

[00:04:38]And then I started like hearing that my friends had been arrested for murder and I was like, what the... Just disbelief.

[00:04:47]And was that the moment you knew, a month later, that that one punch had proved fatal?

[00:04:52]Yeah.

[00:04:53]I didn't know that it was that night.

[00:04:55]It was just word on the grapevine.

[00:04:57]Friends were ringing me saying, we think it might be that night when you threw that punch.

[00:05:01]And then I went and handed myself in.

[00:05:02]And that's when it was confirmed that, I'd punched, his name was James Hodgkinson.

[00:05:13]And, yeah, he was a trainee paramedic.

[00:05:18]Did lots of voluntary work with young people in London and was watching the cricket with his family and wasn't really doing anything.

[00:05:26]But yeah, that's the man he was. And that's what I have to live with.

[00:05:34]And how how did you feel in that moment when you found out that that action had been fatal?

[00:05:42]At the time, I kind of felt, I didn't really have any remorse.

[00:05:46]I was just thinking of myself.

[00:05:48]And I was like, how am I going to, like, get away with this?

[00:05:50]Like, is this even happening to me?

[00:05:52]Like, what the hell is going on?

[00:05:53]Like, how am I sat in a police cell, being told I've killed somebody?

[00:05:58]I was just like, this is not, this can't be happening.

[00:06:01]Like, I need to wake up.

[00:06:02]Like, I was like, banging my head against the wall, like, like, wake up.

[00:06:05]And I'm thinking, how am I going to tell my mum that I've killed someone, that I'm being arrested for murder?

[00:06:10]Like, is my life over?

[00:06:13]And so all those things are running through my mind. I was just, yeah, thinking about myself, thinking, what evidence is there, was I on CCTV?

[00:06:19]What are my friends saying?

[00:06:20]Are they going no comment or are they snitching?

[00:06:23]Yeah. I wasn't thinking about the harm I caused.

[00:06:24]I was just thinking about how to get away with it.

[00:06:27]And it sounds like initially when you were first arrested, you were slightly in denial about the gravity of the situation and what had happened. But do you remember the moment when it hit you?

[00:06:38]It didn't hit me in court, when I got sentenced. I was just, I just blanked out.

[00:06:43]I didn't know who the victims were.

[00:06:44]I knew that my victim's family were in the courtroom, so I didn't want to look over and make eye contact with anyone.

[00:06:49]So I was just like looking down.

[00:06:51]Just going, and then they took me down to the cells and were like, you've been sentenced.

[00:06:55]And I was like, what? How long did I get?

[00:06:57]I didn't even know. And then even when I went to prison that first week, I don't think it really hit me.

[00:07:03]I remember my mum ringing me and saying, what about that boy that you've killed?

[00:07:11]What about their mum?

[00:07:13]I can't imagine someone killing you and that, that hit me, but I didn't know how to deal with it.

[00:07:20]And I think that's what a lot of us do.

[00:07:21]We use anything we can to, like, not take responsibility.

[00:07:25]But that accountability is so fundamental to growth.

[00:07:29]Mm. And then when I was in prison, the prison chaplain come to my cell on the anniversary of the punch, and said, I just wondered if you want to come and say a prayer for you and for him.

[00:07:40]At the time, I didn't know where that prayer was going, and I didn't know, you know, whether it would make any difference or not.

[00:07:45]But like, I felt like I could actually feel what I needed to feel.

[00:07:50]And that's because prisons are a very, like stimulating place.

[00:07:54]And like, there's a lot of people with a lot of issues and it's kind of like crazy.

[00:07:59]And there's people shouting all the time and there's fights and it kind of is not the best place for like reflecting and taking responsibility.

[00:08:07]How long were you in prison for? 14 months.

[00:08:10]Wow. That's quick. Yeah.

[00:08:13]So when did you get released and how did it feel in that moment?

[00:08:18]I got released on New Year's Eve 2012.

[00:08:22]It was a very conflicting time period.

[00:08:25]You’re seeing what you've missed and the impact your crimes had on your own family.

[00:08:30]I saw my mum had deteriorated because she used to be an Ofsted-registered childminder.

[00:08:36]So when I committed my crime, they said that she couldn't be a childminder anymore because of the crime that I committed and that I was living in that home.

[00:08:44]And then she got behind on the mortgage payments and then she had to sell the house.

[00:08:47]She basically burnt through all her money drinking every night.

[00:08:51]And then my brother, my little brother became her carer. Wow.

[00:08:54]And that's really one of my biggest regrets is like the stress and the worry and the pain that I put my family through.

[00:09:01]Because at the end of the day, when I came out the other side, they were probably the only ones that were really there for me.

[00:09:08]You talk about restorative justice.

[00:09:11]When did that initially kind of spark in your mind that this is something that you could do with your victim's family, and when did you first get in touch with them?

[00:09:20]Yeah.

[00:09:20]So it was about two months after I came out of prison.

[00:09:23]I went to my probation officer and she said, your victim's parents want to have a conversation with you, and want to ask you some questions.

[00:09:31]And I was like, what?

[00:09:33]Like, I'd thought about them, but I couldn't ever, like, think about them for very long. And so I went away.

[00:09:38]I spoke to my mum, she encouraged me to do it and it felt like the right thing to do.

[00:09:43]Did you ever reflect on how difficult that must have been for them to make that initial contact with you?

[00:09:51]Yeah, 100%, I had, because I had no, I was like, how and why?

[00:09:55]Like, why on earth would they come to me for help?

[00:09:59]You wouldn’t think that the person that hurt you the most can actually help you move forward and move on.

[00:10:03]But because I went guilty early, we didn't have a trial.

[00:10:07]And when people have a criminal trial, all the details of the events come out. Right.

[00:10:11]So they didn't even know why I punched their son.

[00:10:14]They didn't even know who I was as a person, whether I’d learned from all of this.

[00:10:17]But I didn't meet them straight away.

[00:10:20]I agreed to answer their questions through a mediator, which were, you know, what happened on that night?

[00:10:25]Did he spill a drink over you? Did he stand on your trainers?

[00:10:28]Did he chat up your girl? Did he, do you know what I mean, they didn't know, right?

[00:10:32]And then I had to really, like, look at myself in the mirror and go, why did I actually punch him?

[00:10:37]And it was going back to those, like, you always got to have your mate’s back.

[00:10:39]Where did I even learn that from?

[00:10:41]I mean, so I mean, can we really interrogate like the person I was and the choices that I was making.

[00:10:46]It kind of like served this purpose of, like, being like a moral kind of mirror that nobody else could really have, like, inspired that.

[00:10:56]Because I didn’t want to lie to them.

[00:10:57]And then they started asking me questions like, what are you going to do now with your life?

[00:11:02]And that was the question that got me.

[00:11:04]The parents of the man I killed, David and Joan, were taking an interest in me.

[00:11:10]They didn't want two lives to be lost.

[00:11:12]They didn't want for their son to die in vain.

[00:11:14]They didn't want his legacy to be me just getting into drugs and in and out of prison, and me being a complete waste of space and time.

[00:11:22]And that made me go, wow, like, maybe I should look after myself.

[00:11:26]Maybe I should maybe consider doing my GCSEs again.

[00:11:30]Or maybe I should believe in myself.

[00:11:33]Because if they want me to change, then no one else's opinion matters.

[00:11:37]So I wrote them a letter saying, I'm going to go back to college, going to do my GCSEs again.

[00:11:41]I was like 20, 21 now, I went back to college, I studied 3 GCSEs, I did my Maths and English, and Psychology. Wow.

[00:11:48]Now psychology is probably just as important as the restorative justice part.

[00:11:54]It's about conditioning.

[00:11:55]How do you, how does your brain become conditioned with the values and the belief systems that you have?

[00:11:59]How are they formed?

[00:12:00]I'm like, oh my God, I was in a gang.

[00:12:02]I had these childhood experiences.

[00:12:05]I witnessed this as a kid. And then it becomes like, okay, yeah, I've become a person I'm not very proud of.

[00:12:10]But there's a, there's a story to tell.

[00:12:13]So that kind of like, freed me up to think, you know what?

[00:12:15]Well, we're all just... We’re products of our environment, aren’t we?

[00:12:17]Yeah, we’re all products of our environment, right?

[00:12:19]So that made me feel like, well, yeah, I don't need to hold on to this old version of me as if it's like the only version of me.

[00:12:25]And then I started working for my local youth offending team, and in schools, doing like some youth worker mentoring.

[00:12:32]Those steps that you took in your life to get an education for yourself, how much of that was motivated by you having contact with the victim's family?

[00:12:42]I'd say the majority of it was inspired by that initial contact, but I think the combination of like being back in college and having a good experience with good teachers and not feeling judged.

[00:12:54]How was that?

[00:12:55]The thing that I really realised was, being able to express yourself with words, how liberating that is, actually being able to identify an emotion and actually being able to have a broader range of words to be able to express yourself, which is what kind of kept me trapped and frustrated and angry as a teenager and a young person.

[00:13:12]So I was just like going through this like revelation of at this moment and, and I and I got those, I've got this piece of paper and I got A*s in Psychology, A* in English.

[00:13:22]And I was like, oh my gosh, like the ceiling literally smashed.

[00:13:27]I did an access course.

[00:13:28]So within two years of coming out of prison, I was at uni, I was applying for university.

[00:13:33]And then I told David and Joan, I've got my place at university.

[00:13:36]And then they said, we want to meet you now, face to face.

[00:13:39]We feel comfortable meeting you.

[00:13:41]We know you’re serious.

[00:13:43]Talk me through the first time you met your victim's parents.

[00:13:47]The first time I met them face to face, I remember knowing they had arrived, being taken to the room that they've been sat in and just, like, staring at the handle and just like, am I actually going to do this?

[00:13:59]Am I actually going to meet these people?

[00:14:01]And the weird thing was that I'd had a relationship with them for two years.

[00:14:05]They'd been encouraging me through education to becoming the person that I was stood at that door.

[00:14:10]So I felt like I knew them.

[00:14:11]I felt like there was a bit of a friendship there, but at the same time, I knew the harm that I’d caused them, that I was going to have to sit in there and face and hear.

[00:14:19]And so I kind of, going into that room, I wanted to say sorry and thank you at the same time.

[00:14:25]And then at the end of that meeting they said Jacob, we've got one final request.

[00:14:30]We wondered whether you'd want to work with us to raise awareness that one punch can kill, and to raise awareness of restorative justice as an alternative form of kind of punishment and a way of resolving conflict.

[00:14:41]And I was like, yes.

[00:14:42]Which led me to where I am today.

[00:14:45]David and Joan, they're senior advisors to the Common Ground Justice Project, which we set up together, which is trying to find the common ground on our justice system.

[00:14:54]Yeah. And I've launched a campaign with a charity which I want to plug called Why Me?

[00:14:58]to make restorative justice a legal right for all victims to be offered it.

[00:15:02]Because at the moment, only 1 in 20 victims of crime actually know that restorative justice exists, and it could be, in the future, something useful for them to try and get answers.

[00:15:14]And it could also help perpetrators.

[00:15:16]Well, I was just going to say this idea of second chances.

[00:15:20]It's not to say that, you know, justice shouldn't be served, but what we don't want is perpetrators to come out of prison and re-offend.

[00:15:28]Yeah. We want to reduce that.

[00:15:30]And if there is a way of doing that through, you know, the work that you're doing, that's a step in the right direction, surely.

[00:15:36]Yeah.

[00:15:37]And I think that we've been, we've been told that justice is revenge.

[00:15:42]And I grew up in that environment as well.

[00:15:44]You look at the kids that are stabbing each other on the streets, they use that same mentality.

[00:15:49]Yeah.

[00:15:50]And like, I just feel like it's not getting us anywhere.

[00:15:53]And also, like, you know, you try and put yourself in the position of a family who are grieving, and a lot of the time you find that people who are close to the victim and love the victim, they want to understand the why.

[00:16:06]The why is so important to people because it helps them get that closure.

[00:16:10]And it helps them, you know, even though it has been the most traumatic thing they've ever gone through, make peace with what's happened. Yeah.

[00:16:19]Yeah 100%, like, because the why can go round and round in your head.

[00:16:23]Yeah. Forever and send you crazy.

[00:16:25]So it kind of like, it supports victims.

[00:16:27]It gets them answers.

[00:16:28]It helps them move on, and it reduces re-offending.

[00:16:32]Why do you think it reduces re-offending?

[00:16:34]Just because from my perspective, I'm thinking is, is the idea of having to look the victim's family in the eye and take that accountability part of reducing re-offending?

[00:16:45]Yeah. I wasn't very good at doing empathy.

[00:16:48]I wasn't very good at, like, showing my feelings, let alone trying to, like, understand somebody else's feelings or what the damage I've caused or what harm I’ve caused.

[00:16:56]I think shame can get in the way of feeling empathy as well.

[00:16:58]And that is something that I'm still working on.

[00:17:01]Sometimes it feels very overwhelming feeling bad about yourself to the point where you struggle to get out of bed in the morning.

[00:17:10]But knowing that that isn't serving anybody, that isn't honouring anybody.

[00:17:14]And by helping someone, you feel better about yourself, which like frees you up to like make maybe different choices or to maybe continue working on yourself.

[00:17:23]I suppose there might be people watching this who will believe that a criminal will always be a criminal, and you know, people are incapable of change if they have committed a serious offence.

[00:17:35]Yeah. They will always be defined by that.

[00:17:37]And they should always be defined by that. Yeah.

[00:17:39]What would your response be to someone who had that opinion?

[00:17:43]Well, my, my response would be, I did the crime, I did the time, and I need to take responsibility for it.

[00:17:49]But most people grow out of crime in their mid 30s, and half of it is you taking responsibility and pulling your socks up and being resilient and doing the hard work yourself.

[00:17:59]But people make bad choices if their needs are met, and that's the over half of the equation.

[00:18:07]Do you still keep in touch with your victim's family?

[00:18:11]Yeah. Yeah, well, I've got them, we both speak on WhatsApp most weeks.

[00:18:15]It's the most precious relationship that I've got.

[00:18:18]Yeah.

[00:18:19]And everything that I do is in honour of their son, in honour of the chance that they gave me, and paying that forward.

[00:18:25]How do you honour James in the work that you do now?

[00:18:29]I don't know if I'll ever be able to, in a, in a long, it’s a long answer, because these are the kind of things that keep me up at night just because of, like, the guilt that I carry.

[00:18:39]But I honour James by trying to be the best version of myself.

[00:18:44]I don't think I'll ever be able to repay the harm fully, but I have to convince myself that it's okay in order to be able to keep getting up every day and doing the work that I do.

[00:18:53]So yeah.

[00:18:55]Well, Jacob, thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your story.

[00:18:59]It's incredible how you've managed to completely turn your life around.

[00:19:03]And the fact that I'm sure you've had an impact on so many people's lives and you've educated and continue to use your voice to educate is so important.

[00:19:11]So thank you.

[00:19:12]No, thank you.