Heartbreaking image of toddler shovelling earth on to dad’s grave released in bid to cut knife crime
A HEARTBREAKING snap of a toddler shovelling soil into his daddy’s grave has been released in a bid to prevent knife crime.
Carter Bagshaw held the end of a spade with the help of a mourner as his father Lewis, 21, was laid to rest.
The 17-month-old had shouted out “Daddy” as family and friends paid their respects last week.
His mum, Olivia Keeley, said she hoped the image “stops just one person from picking up a knife or a gun”.
Lewis was stabbed in Southey, Sheffield, in July — the city’s tenth knife death victim in 16 months.
His pal Jordan Kissack, 25, posted the photo on Facebook — with the message: “Just a little advice for people that carry/use knives and guns. STOP!”
Life is just completely the total opposite to how it was, it's really empty and lonely, and there is a lot of sadness as well.
Olivia Keeley
In an emotional post he vowed: “Carter Bagshaw, I’ll keep hold of this picture forever in memory of your daddy.”
He added: “It killed me seeing mini Lewis at his funeral.
“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.
“Whilst these were playing Carter started shouting “Daddy” at the pictures . . . let that feeling sink in.” Olivia said: “Life is just completely the total opposite to how it was, it’s really empty and lonely, and there is a lot of sadness as well.
“The photograph breaks my heart but is shows the reality of knife crime.
“From the moment Carter was born, Lewis was completed besotted and devoted to him. He was a devoted family man.”
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“He had 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.”
Jervaise Bennett, of Shirecliffe, Sheffield, and a 16-year-old boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, have been charged with Lewis’s murder.
