A mother has kept her son's blood-stained jacket ever since he was shot dead on a city street.
Paula Ogungboro, 65, was devastated when 25-year-old son Eugene was gunned twice in the chest with a sawn-off shotgun.
She now campaigns against gun and knife crime and takes Eugene's jacket, with holes ripped by bullets, to schools to use it in her workshops.
The mum says it serves to provide a stark reminder of the devastation caused by violence - and it has even reduced some teenagers to tears.
Speaking to Liverpool Echo today, Paula said: "If I see a kid when I'm doing my talk, and I see him messing about with his phone or chatting to the next lads or whatever, I'll target that kid.
"I'll go up to him before I go to any of them with the jacket, and I'll put that jacket right in his face and I say to him, 'You have a good look at this jacket, lad', I say to him, 'because at the end of the day, this could be your jacket and I could be your mum, standing here, showing your jacket'.
"And their face just goes, they put their head down, look at the jacket, put their head back down. And some of them start crying."
Paula, from Toxteth, Liverpool, was saddened when 12-year-old Ava White was stabbed to death in the city last month.
A 14-year-old boy has been charged with her murder.
It's this age group Paula likes to talk to at her workshops.
"That's the most important thing that I do in that workshop, because that is real," Paula said.
"This is your life we're talking about. Your life.
"One minute you could be walking, and the next minute you're gone. And this is your life."
Eugene, who was a builder, was killed in the early hours of Sunday November 16, 2003, in Georgian Quarter, Liverpool. His killer was given a 14-year jail sentence for manslaughter.
Even now, 18 years later, his room in that house is intact with his clothes and caps in place.
Paula thinks about Eugene "every minute of the day".
She continued: "My house is just full of pictures of him. I'll never forget him.
"He shouldn't be always on my mind. He should be here where I can see him, where he's walking through the door going, 'Hiya mother!'
"It's either knives one minute, or guns the next.
"But, to be honest with you, I don't think anything has changed, because it's still going on."
Merseyside had the 14th highest rate of firearm offences (not including air weapons) in England and Wales in the year ending June 2021, based on a rate per 100,000 using mid-2021 population estimates.
There were 130 firearm offences in the 12 months to June, while there were 248 in 2018/19 and hundreds more in 2001/2.
With an above average rate of 9.1 firearm offences (not including air weapons) per 100,000 last year, Merseyside is performing better than Greater Manchester with a rate of 14.6 and first place West Midlands with 25.
