Jamie’s phone rang near midnight. He picked it up, expecting his brother to say he’d be late. Instead, Rob was hysterical, barely able to form words. “Mom, Rob’s been stabbed.
”
“What do you mean, he’s been stabbed? ”
“I don’t know. He’s just been stabbed. ”
She heard herself ask how serious it was, heard Jamie say he didn’t know.
Saying it out loud made it real, and she grabbed her keys and ran for the car. She doesn’t remember driving to the Metro Bar. She remembers the police tape, the ambulance, and Jamie running up from under the bridge, shouting for her to leave the car, that Rob was on the pavement. She hugged Jamie and looked over his shoulder.
They were resuscitating her son. She knew then, in her heart, that he was already gone. The doctors came into the waiting room with two policemen. They said the words you only hear in films: “I’m sorry, we couldn’t save him.
” Sally fainted. Colin screamed. The world stopped being round after that. Rob Knox was eighteen years old.
He grew up on a street in Sidcup, always organizing the games, always the one to talk to. He loved dressing up from a very young age, putting on his dad’s clothes and walking around the garden with an umbrella like he was off to work. He’d pull his younger brother Jamie into magic shows and fancy dress performances whenever the grandparents came around for lunch. He was the kind of older brother who included Jamie in everything, same group of friends, same hangouts.
At seventeen, walking through Bluewater shopping centre, he grabbed his mother’s hand. She told him it wasn’t good for his street cred. He said he didn’t care, that everybody could know he loved his mom. He was bullied at his first secondary school, so he changed schools and ended up with Jamie.
He was the teachers’ nightmare, always joking, always entertaining, but he was good at it. He wanted to act. He found his first jobs himself, no agent, just pure determination. He got a part in a Channel 4 series called Trust Me, I’m a Teenager, then landed a role in After You’ve Gone alongside Nicholas Lyndhurst.
His family watched him on TV, excited to finally see him on screen. Then came the Harry Potter auditions. Months of callbacks, nerves, and hope. His mother felt sick waiting for the phone call, knowing how disappointed he would be if he didn’t get it.
He was cast as Marcus Belby in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. He would play the nephew of the inventor of the Wolfsbane Potion, a character who cared more about his pudding than any potion. During filming, the director kept making him eat bowl after bowl of pudding for take after take. Rob ignored the advice to pace himself and just kept eating.
He was a trooper, patient, and brought a wonderful energy to the set. He was also a joker, playing pranks with the other young actors, trying to steal Robbie Coltrane’s phone and change the language to Turkish. He was charming, confident, and loved every second of it. The last time a friend saw Rob was after filming a short horror movie called Employ the Dead for a 48-hour challenge.
They shot his death scene, the character getting crushed in a box crusher. Rob got up, said goodbye, and walked out to his brother’s car waiting outside. It was a normal, casual goodbye. See you soon.
And then he was gone. On the 23rd of May, Rob went to the Metro Bar like he usually did. Jamie stayed home, not old enough to get into the bar. Rob rang him late, saying it was lively, that Jamie should come down.
Jamie went. Inside, they were all laughing, having a drink. Outside, a lad Jamie had never seen before was shouting rude things at some girls. One of their friends pulled him up on it.
An argument started, turned into a scuffle, and the lad and his mates took off through the train station. Jamie walked with his friend Callum to the car in a nearby car park. He saw his older brother Nick across the road. Then he saw a boy walking past with a knife in his hand.
“Watch out, boys. That boy’s got a knife. ”
The boy overheard him, came up close, put the knife to Jamie’s neck. “What are you saying?
”
“I’m not saying anything. ”
Callum drove up onto the pavement to distract him. It worked for a moment, giving Jamie a chance to move away, but the boy walked around the car and said to all of them, “You’re lucky it’s not your night to die. ”
Jamie rang Rob straight away.
“There’s a boy with a knife. He’s coming down to the Metro. Get inside. Get out of the way.
”
The police were called. But they weren’t going to get there quick enough. The boy arrived at the front of the Metro Bar with two large kitchen knives. The bouncers closed the doors.
People started shouting at him to put the knives down. Rob was furious, shouting about how this lad had pulled a knife on his brother. He was protective, so protective. Almost like possessed, the boy had a look in his eyes, waving the knives around.
A friend saw the boy point a knife at people and moved to stop him. He got stabbed in the chest. It felt like a little punch. He didn’t even know he’d been stabbed until he woke up in the back of an ambulance with his clothes cut off.
Another friend grabbed one of the boy’s hands, and saw the second knife come down. He put his hand up and watched it go straight through. Jamie turned away, screaming. When he turned back, he saw Rob slumped forward against the boy, his arms around him, holding on.
Jamie ran over and bundled him into a bush. Rob said, “I’ve been stabbed. ”
Callum laid him down on the pavement in front of a low wall. Rob looked into his eyes and said, “Callum, I need help.
I need you to help me. ” Callum held his head in his hands, trying to keep him calm. The boy was arrested at the scene, still holding the knives. He had a previous conviction for knife crime and was on bail for another knife offense at the time he killed Rob.
At the hospital, the doctors couldn’t save him. Witness reports suggested Rob died trying to protect his younger brother. The press arrived quickly. Reporters camped outside the family home day and night.
One journalist even pretended to be police to get an interview with a witness. They had to manage a lot of media interest, because Rob was in Harry Potter. His mother said it was like catching a winter vomiting disease, the way the story spread. Colin is certain of one thing: if Rob hadn’t been in Harry Potter, his son’s story would have been two lines in the local newspaper, and then it would have been over.
There are many families who lose children to knife crime who never get that platform. They suffered the same loss, but had nowhere to put their grief. At the Harry Potter premiere, the cast all wore white bands to commemorate Rob. Dan, Rupert, and Emma wanted to show kinship, to honor his memory.
It was a simple gesture, but an important one. Rob’s family walked the red carpet with a mixture of pride and deep sadness. Colin had planned to buy him a dinner suit and a bow tie for that night. The trial was brutal.
The defendant pleaded not guilty, claiming people attacked him and threw themselves onto his blades. He smirked while listening to Jamie testify. The defense tried to twist every word, trying to catch people out. It was a relief for about thirty minutes when he was found guilty.
He was sentenced to life with a minimum of twenty years. For Colin, it’s a countdown. In twenty years, the man who killed his son will be back out. Rob won’t come back.
The sentence just means he can’t commit another crime for two decades. It’s not a nice way to feel, but it’s how he feels. From the tragedy, Rob’s family and friends created the Rob Knox Foundation. They educate children about street crime, teaching them to respect each other.
They’ve been to prisons, spoken to murderers, trying to turn people around. They sponsor short films about knife crime and hold a film festival and academy that gets kids off the streets and involved in filmmaking. It’s an alternative approach, an imaginative one. Jamie wishes it would all stop tomorrow.
But he’s afraid that’s not going to happen. It’s just getting worse. When’s it all going to end? Rob was a big character.
He was always outgoing, playful, and loving. He loved life. He would have been so proud of the foundation, so proud of the legacy. Jamie says the bit he misses most is the part of him that’s missing.
Nothing will ever replace the fact that he lost his brother. He never got to say goodbye. Every day is a struggle, but every little thing reminds him of Rob. On his best day, he’s a lion.
A lot of other days, he’s just trying. Just trying to be.
