Harry Potter’s tragic hero: Rob Knox

Five Harry Potter movies had already been made when Rob Knox joined the cast as Marcus Belby for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. An outgoing 18-year-old, he quickly made friends with regulars, including Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy and remembers hours spent together in the Leavesden Studios parking lot.

“Rob was quite the jokester, quite cheeky,” says Tom. “We would have a game of cricket outside or try to steal Robbie Coltrane’s phone and change the language to Turkish, just be naughty. I remember it was just as much fun on set as it was off set with Rob.

Four days after he finished filming, on May 24, 2008, Rob went out to celebrate at his local pub in Sidcup, Kent. His younger brother, Jamie, called from outside, sounding frantic, saying there was a man in the street with two kitchen knives.

Seeing the man threatening Jamie and his friends, Rob tried to intervene.

He was stabbed five times by a psycho thug named Karl Bishop, who had just been released from prison after another stabbing. Rob was taken to the hospital but pronounced dead. Bishop was jailed for a minimum of 20 years for his murder.

An outgoing 18-year-old, Rob quickly became friends with regular cast members from the Harry Potter films, including star Daniel Radcliffe (pictured together)

It’s been 15 years since Rob’s death, but tears still roll down his father Colin’s cheeks as he remembers the shock of the phone call that his beloved eldest son had been attacked.

All he knew was that he had been stabbed. I thought it was in the arm or something,” says Colin. “When I got to the hospital they sent me to the family room and a nurse said that she was in the resuscitation unit. It took me a few seconds to take it in; I couldn’t believe the worst had happened. Then when a staff member walked in with a policeman… oh oh no! I could not believe it. That this was the end of his life when it seemed like it was just beginning. It was very, very, very hard.

Remains. There are still gaps in the lives of Colin, his ex-wife Sally, his son Jamie and Rob’s friends, but together they have made a documentary about Rob’s life, his death and his fight against knife crime. .

Called (K)nox: The Rob Knox Story – ‘nox’ is a reference to a spell in Harry Potter – has already won several awards and will now air on ITVX.

Colin and Sally realized that their son’s fame meant they had a platform that other parents of stabbing victims did not, and they were determined to use it.

“We knew we could rant and rave and solve nothing, or we could try to oppose knife crime,” says Colin. Our stance has always been to use Rob’s legacy to focus on what we can do. But I also wanted the documentary to show what a great guy Rob was; that he was a living, breathing person who was taken away. He was exceptional. He got an award from a supermarket he used to work at for arresting a guy who had attacked a lady, and I remember once giving him a bottle full of old coins. Instead of buying something with it, he donated the money to charity.

The family created the Rob Knox Foundation to educate about knife crime and also to teach young people to work in the arts. “Like the silver lining and the dark side of the moon, we work in both knife crime and the arts, teaching kids to make movies like Rob and his friends used to,” says Colin.

One of the foundation’s projects was a short film with Ray Winstone called Cold Kiss, made in 2010. Ray continues to support the Knox family in their campaign and is featured in the new documentary.

‘A member of my family was attacked and stabbed. They came very close to death, so we’re one of the lucky stories, we have a survivor,” says Ray.

Rob, pictured front left in Half-Blood Prince. His family went on to establish the Rob Knox Foundation to educate about knife crime and also to teach young people about working in the arts.

“I didn’t realize that I had met Rob before in a movie we did called King Arthur; I found out it was him when I joined the cause. What affected me was the issue of knife crime. We sweep it under the rug and call people who murder people with bombs terrorists, but this is also terrorism. It terrifies people. I think it’s getting worse and I don’t think anything is being done. I think our documentary is a step in the right direction.’

Nothing will bring Rob back, but Colin hopes that by putting knife crime back on the agenda he can ensure a few fewer parents have to endure the pain he’s been through.

“I want this to be discussed in Parliament because things cannot continue as they are now,” he says. “It seems our message is falling on deaf ears, but we can only try.”

(K)nox: The Rob Knox Story will be available from Thursday on ITVX.

Crime time TV: Five great shows coming very soon

THE TOWER II

ITV1, MAY

Based on Kate London’s novel The Tower II: Death Message, the story sees Collins on a cold case involving a girl who went missing on the day of Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997.

Game Of Thrones star Gemma Whelan returns as DS Sarah Collins in the second series of the hit ITV drama. Based on Kate London’s novel The Tower II: Death Message, the story sees Collins on a cold case involving a girl who went missing on the day of Princess Diana’s funeral in 1997.

city ​​on fire

APPLE TV+, MAY

Samantha, a New York student, is shot in Central Park in 2003 after seeing her friends’ band play in this gritty drama. The investigation she follows reveals a link between a series of mysterious fires, the New York music scene, and a wealthy family.

BLIND POINT

CHANNEL 5, LATER THIS YEAR

Ross Kemp, in his first major television role in seven years, stars as investigating officer Tony Warden in this story of a disabled woman who believes she’s witnessed a murder. While monitoring CCTV at a farm, Hannah Quinn sees a criminal lead a young woman into a blind spot. When he emerges alone, she appears to have disappeared, and listless Tony takes on the case. But what is he hiding?

DUBLIN NARCOS

SKY DOCUMENTARIES, MARCH

The program includes testimonials from criminal gangsters, officials who tried to stop the trade and journalists who tried to expose drug lords.

Told in three episodes, this is the story of the criminals who profited from the sale of heroin, ecstasy and cocaine in the Irish capital, with testimony from criminal gangsters, officers who tried to stop the trade and journalists who tried to expose the drug lords.

BLUE LIGHTS

BBC1, SPRING

If you’re a police officer on the front lines in Belfast, crimes hit you fast and thick, even if you’re new to the force. Grace Ellis (Sherlock’s Sian Brooke) has made the biggest gamble of her life, abandoning her career in social work for a job in Northern Ireland, and is one of three rookie cops whose stories are followed in this six-part drama. .