I WANT my daddy back.

Those five words from seven-year-old AJ Buron should act as yet another wake-up call to the senseless killings caused by this fascination with knives by too many young people.

Haydan O’Callaghan was yesterday told he would spend at least 21 years in prison for the murder of AJ’s daddy Aaron and there is little need for this column to repeat the condemnation of him from Saturday’s edition.

Yet we publish interviews today of the mothers of Mr Buron’s two sons in yet another hope that the message about knife crime gets through, even if to only a few members of our community.

AJ and Cory will now grow up without their father in their life because O’Callaghan saw little wrong in arming himself with a knife and brutally using it when Mr Buron tried to protect his killer’s girlfriend.

It is the same mentality that cost the life of Blayne Ridgway. And while it may be futile to expect to educate the likes of O’Callaghan and Mr Ridgway’s killer Eze Eke, we can’t just shrug and accept this is to be the way of the world.

All parents should be more vigilant about the developing attitudes of their children.

Because, as we have seen so painfully demonstrated in the past few days, you don’t want your son or daughter on either end of a knife.