Badruddin Pouget speaking at the Coram’s Fields AGM 

THE brother of a semi-pro footballer murdered after a horrifying knife crime attack said how important outreach services were for the aftercare of bereaved families.

At Coram’s Fields annual general meeting last Wednesday, Badruddin Pouget spoke about the loss of his brother, Abdul Latif Pouget, and its impact on his family.

“Nothing can really prepare you for an incident like that. There is nothing you can do to prepare your family. Even early on after it happened, you lose touch with reality.”

Twenty-year-old Abdul, known by his friends and family as Abs, died three days after being attacked with a 2ft blade in Back Hill, Clerkenwell, on October 21 last year.

In July, Oguzcan Dereli, 27, was sentenced to 24 years in prison at the Old Bailey for the murder.

The Youth Outreach Programme at the Coram’s Fields charity, which delivers targeted outreach across local estates, parks and local hang-outs, has been supporting Badruddin and his family since the loss of their loved one.

Mr Pouget said: “You don’t know who to turn to and you don’t really know how to hold conversations about what has happened, and that’s where the aftercare programme has had a positive impact for me.

“[Youth worker] Basil Andrews and the outreach team were able to holistically look at those who are affected, so that included my family, my brother’s close friends and the wider community and bring those people together who are feeling disconnected following the incident. It brought us all together.

“For us to go out on the weekend and have something positive to do – it’s difficult to describe how positive those experiences have been for my family. I guess I feel a sense of duty to speak about my experience with that and ultimately my experience has taught me that aftercare and outreach is essential.”

The Outreach Programme at the charity tries to build relationships and establish trust with young people in environments familiar to them where they feel most safe.

The work targets those young people most at risk, including confronting head-on the issue of serious youth violence.

Due to a small pot of funding from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) the outreach team were able to continue an aftercare programme for Badruddin and his family providing one-to-one support and family days out.

But speaking at the meeting, youth worker Basil Andrews, who has been supporting the Pouget family, said that vital services for families affected by serious incidents like this got to a point where they stopped – leaving families struggling without help.

“It is essential moving forward regarding the community that we fill this void that families experience after an incident like this. It’s something we have identified. We do have aftercare, but it stops at a certain point and in that void, from October last year we have been with Badruddin, friends and family.”

Abs grew up on the Bourne estate – where the charity regularly focuses their outreach work and where Mr Andrews lives.

Hundreds of people attended Abdul’s funeral last year and a bench was unveiled in his memory in Coram’s Fields where he used to go with his friends and siblings as a child.

Mr Andrews, who was speaking with his colleague Michael Colbourne, added: “This outreach is so important and the impact it has had on myself and my colleague has been intense. It actually put a battery in my back and really made me want to continue this. I cannot stress how important it is.”

Having worked with the October Gallery, the team and family will be unveiling a portrait of Abdul in the near future.