Benefits Street star White Dee reveals knifeman broke into her dwelling

Benefits Street’s White Dee says she needs she had by no means appeared on the landmark documentary – as she detailed how a knife-wielding attacker broke into her home and threatened her with a knife.

The 52-year-old, actual identify Deirdre Kelly, stated she and her household had been subjected to a ‘marketing campaign of terror’ by her daughter Caitlin’s ex-boyfriend Luke Shervington. 

Shervington, now 26, attacked Caitlin in October 2017 earlier than turning up at her mom’s home and earlier than coming into the house with a knife.

Ms Kelly, trying again on her time on the Channel 4 documentary set on a Birmingham avenue, stated the present’s producers had ‘stitched up’ the neighborhood, and claimed they solely discovered of the title weeks earlier than it aired.

In a brand new interview following Shervington’s conviction for widespread assault and possession of a knife, she stated she wouldn’t seem on the programme realizing now that her and her neighbours’ lives can be depicted as ‘poverty porn’.

Deirdre Kelly, AKA ‘White Dee’, as she appeared on Benefits Street alongside daughter Caitlin

She went on to seem on Celebrity Big Brother, for which she was paid a repored £50,000

White Dee strolling alongside James Turner Street, the setting of controversial Channel 4 documentary Benefits Street

She advised the paper of Shervington’s assault: ‘I turned spherical and there was Luke, standing within the bed room doorway with a knife in his hand. He was agitated and yelling, “Who called the police?”.

He fled earlier than police arrived, sparking a manhunt that ended days later when Shervington appeared on the property once more; police arrested him and located a 21inch blade in his unhealthy.

She added: ‘My daughter didn’t need to go away the home alone and was at all times trying over her shoulder. She felt like she was being stalked.’

When his case got here to court docket in September 2022, he was given a 23-week sentence, suspended for a yr, after pleading responsible to widespread assault and possession of a harmful weapon.

He was additionally given a restraining order, neighborhood service and a requirement to attend an anger administration programme – a sentence Ms Kelly couldn’t perceive.

She stated: ‘I used to be fuming. Everything he put us by ought to have led to a custodial sentence. It was the toughest factor I’d ever skilled in my life.’

Ms Kelly, drawing on her personal expertise in addition to these of her neighborhood, has based Birmingham Says No, an anti-youth violence group that goals to discourage younger folks from getting concerned in crime, particularly with knives.

It is the following step in an sudden profession that started with the airing of Benefits Street on Channel 4 in 2014, depicting the lives of residents of James Turner Street in Birmingham’s Winson Green space.

The programme, which counted her amongst its ‘characters’, courted controversy amid fears it was exploiting its susceptible forged; Brummie comic Frank Skinner, turned down a suggestion to relate the sequence, citing issues about its themes.

And the documentary sequence didn’t shrink back from the extra unsavoury features of its topics’ life, depicting profit fraud, hashish cultivation and shoplifting.

But Ms Kelly gained followers for her look as the road’s unofficial ‘mom hen’, seen cooking meals for the hungry on the street and taking care of youngsters. 

The programme was debated in parliament, with some praising it as of a microcosm of disadvantaged communities throughout Britain serving as a wake-up name for motion; others criticised it as exploitative and contributing to stereotypes about profit claimants.

Some of those that took half in filming declare they had been deceived into showing on the present, claiming producers Love Production had advised them the programme can be about neighborhood spirit. 

White Dee arriving to enter the Big Brother home in August 2014, months after she appeared on Benefits Street

White Dee in a scene on Benefits Street, alongside James ‘Fungi’ Kelly – who died of a cardiac arrest in 2019

She has since spoken of her remorse at showing on the programme, claiming producers ‘stitched up’ those that agreed to be filmed

Ms Kelly has spoken concerning the harm she feels the programme has performed earlier than. In 2021, she stated it ‘ripped my life aside’, at one level driving her to aim suicide.

She stated on the time: ‘Benefits Street triggered such a storm and the folks in James Turner Street had been shocked by it and completely overwhelmed.

‘The present ripped aside my life on the time. It modified my life without end and it destroyed the James Turner Street I knew earlier than the present.’

However, she went on to seem on Celebrity Big Brother, being paid a reported £50,000 to seem on the programme, and has since turn into an unofficial spokeswoman on points affecting these residing in poverty.

Hundreds of complaints had been made to media regulator Ofcom, which in the end dominated that Channel 4 had not breached broadcasting rules.

Lee Nutley, an everyday determine on the present’s second sequence, died in 2015. Neil Maxwell, one other determine from the second sequence, was jailed for all times for homicide in 2019. 

James ‘Fungi’ Clarke, who appeared within the first sequence, died of a cardiac arrest linked to a suspected drug overdose the identical yr.  

What grew to become of the celebrities of Channel 4’s Benefits Street? 

DEIDRE KELLY, AKA WHITE DEE 

Benefits Street star White Dee stated her ‘avenue household’ was ripped aside by the TV present – and she or he left the world.

The actuality TV star, whose actual identify is actual identify Deidre Kelly, moved away from James Turner Street in Winson Green and the neighbours she grew to like.

After the success of Benefits Street , Dee went on to make TV and journal appearances after which made Handsworth her new dwelling.

White Dee not sees these featured within the hit Channel 4 programme first aired again in 2014 – corresponding to Black Dee and 50p Man.

In the present, Dee had a heartwarming relationship with lovable rogue Fungi who struggled with homelessness and drink and medicines. He tragically handed away in 2019. 

Dee stated in 2018: ‘I have never spoken to anybody proven within the documentary although I do nonetheless communicate to folks on the road.

‘It is the one unhappy factor. I do suppose it was one of many largest regrets ever. We had been like one large household. 

‘But the way it was portrayed by the TV modifying ripped us aside.

SAMORA ROBERTS, AKA BLACK DEE 

Benefits Street star Samora Roberts, who used the moniker Black Dee, was jailed for seven years in 2016 for protecting reside ammunition in her dwelling – the place she ran an ‘open-all-hours’ drug enterprise.

Roberts, 39, was present in possession of over £5,000 of Class A medication in addition to bullets which she hid in a pink coach underneath a washing basket.

She admitted seven counts of possessing hashish with intent to provide and was discovered responsible of possessing crack cocaine and heroin.

Roberts was additionally discovered responsible of two counts of possessing 11 .38 Smith and Wesson cartridges with no firearms certificates.

Judge Philip Parker QC jailed Roberts for seven years at Birmingham Crown Court the place he accused her of operating an open-all-hours’ drug enterprise from her dwelling on James Turner Street, which was higher referred to as the placement of Channel 4’s Benefits Street.

Samora was one of many first Benefits Street residents to hit out at Channel 4 producers for ‘exploiting’ locals when the present aired in January 2014.

She later had a public spat with former pal White Dee, claiming she was a ‘promote out’ for showing on Celebrity Big Brother. 

STEPHEN SMITH, AKA 50P MAN

Door-to-door salesman Stephen Smith, grew to become affectionately referred to as ’50p Man’ after promoting cut-price family wares to the residents of Benefits Street.

His entrepreneurial spirit captured the eye of millionaire and Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins, who provided him a £10,000 deal to open a 50p low cost retailer to rival Poundland.

Unfortunately, they fell out and the enterprise enterprise didn’t occur.

Mr Mullins claimed he may have turn into a millionaire and blamed ‘unhealthy recommendation from folks round him’ for the deal falling by.

JAMES CLARKE, AKA FUNGI

Fungi died in July 2019 on the age of fifty after a coronary heart assault sparked by a suspected medication overdose.

While stars like White Dee made a fortune and have become celebrities, Fungi struggled with habit, misplaced his job as a Big Issue vendor and ended up sleeping tough in Birmingham.

He give up drink and medicines after a viewer paid £11,500 to place him by rehab and he regarded to have turned his life round in 2016.

But the father-of-four was unable to beat habit and located himself again on the streets, spending his advantages on 10 cans of super-strength cider every day whereas additionally taking crack cocaine.

He moved right into a hostel for addicts in his dwelling metropolis however was discovered useless after the household stated they hadn’t seen him for six months.

His ex-partner Donna, who introduced up his daughter Kirsty, took to Facebook after his loss of life and posted: ‘Death leaves a heartache no can heal, love leaves a reminiscence nobody can steal’.