For months, the youth worker in Bacup, Lancashire, had endured abuse, threats and - thanks to a coin thrown with a combination of practised aim, hatred and frustration - a cut eye.
"It was obvious then that the gang culture was not going to let us do what we wanted to do, so I started picking the guys off, one by one," says Charlie in his animated Scouse accent.
The Bringing Youth To Education (BYTE) project had been born a few months prior to this, to target these young White excluded males in Bacup. The gang spent most of its time, explains McKenna, "smoking cannabis and being generally antisocial", with graffiti, vandalism and the odd house-break thrown in.
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