Pat Regan

Jun 10 2008 by David Charters, Liverpool Daily Post

YOU could hardly imagine a more bitter irony. The woman, who had campaigned so bravely against violence on our streets, died at her home from multiple stab wounds.

Pat Regan was that rare person – an expert who actually understood her subject from personal experience. Even Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, was impressed by her methods.

Of course, she had seen the sociologists, the criminologists, psychologists and all the other talking heads spouting on TV. But what did they really know of the streets, where stabbings and shootings have become common, as drug-dealers wage their turf wars.

They couldn’t know it like she did.

After all, her son, Danny, 27, was blasted to death in 2002 by a man with a pump-action shotgun at his home in Station Road, Haydock, near St Helens. Danny left a three-year-old son.

Although there was much in his life which she knew to be wrong, she said that he had been a “loving” father and son. His killer is still at large.

Another of her sons had been shot and wounded in a nightclub. This and Danny’s murder persuaded Pat Regan that action was needed to check the violence in society. We didn’t need another long-winded report from the academics saying that guns and knives were dangerous in young hands.

So she contacted Mothers Against Violence, which had been set up in Manchester. This resulted in her establishing a branch in her home city of Leeds.

Her approach was direct, but she polished up her methods by attending a col- lege course and learning how funding could be obtained.

The internet enabled her to keep in touch with sympathetic community groups.

Soon, Pat was giving talks to prisons and schools, the police, youth and social groups, about how drug-trafficking and the ensuing violence ruined family life and placed everyone in danger.

Here was a woman who was not enmeshed in committees and procedures. People on the estates began responding to her, submitting stories and drawings, which she could use in the campaign.

Last year, she sat next to Mr Blair at a conference on gun crime in 10 Downing Street. On learning of her death, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, said: “I was greatly impressed by her dedication. She worked tirelessly and achieved a great deal.”

Pat Regan, mother and community worker; born 1955, died June 1, 2008.