It is not the memory of rival gang members kicking in her front door that haunts Michael's mother. Jean is consumed by a different kind of fear - every morning when she wakes up she wonders if it will be her son's last.

Whenever there is teenage violence in the capital, she is filled with dread. She monitors the news, panicking at the possibility that Michael could be the victim - or perpetrator.

“I know it could be my son. I know it could be his mug on the TV. I don't want him to fall into this abyss where kids get stabbed and killed and go to prison,” Jean, 54, told The Times.

“Every day I pray for him and for the people around him. That is my deepest sadness - to think that he could ever harm someone. The torture I live with is that my son could not just be a statistic, but could create a statistic. He is teetering on the edge of disaster and he has to pull back.”

Jean sees occasional glimpses of the gentle and sweet child she brought up. For her birthday he cleaned the whole house, even making her bed. A few days later any illusion of normality was dashed. Michael rushed home and bolted the door. He asked his mother not to make any noise but wouldn't tell her what was wrong.

“I live in fear that people are coming after him,” she said. “This isn't my life; this isn't what I signed up for. They've got this thing about pride and respect but they don't know what it means.”

She will never forget the night in March that Michael's troubles were first brought to her home. Although her son was not inside, rival gang members tried to kick down her door.

“They were shouting and swearing, smashing the glass. If I'd have opened the door, it would have been a fatality, I'm sure. I had to go live with friends for a while. It was terrifying.”

Jean, a single mother, says that her son has no excuses for his behaviour. He comes from a loving and generous family and had plenty of strong role models as he grew up. “I was strict. He was never allowed to hang on the street. My family are the pillars of the community. We have always been law-abiding citizens. He's on that scrapheap of people who don't know where they're going and he shouldn't be there. He's got a fantastic family who love him.”

In his early teens Michael began pushing the boundaries and, while Jean does not know where it all went wrong, she is convinced he was in need of a father figure. “He just started to turn to these people who didn't have any direction and then he lost himself. I know that he's involved in stuff that would sicken me. I never could have conceived in a million years that I could be the mother of someone who behaves this way. But I still hold on to hope that he will change. If I don't believe that he will change, there's nothing left.”

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