A man tracked down the teen knifeman who mugged his nephew and spoke to him about turning his life around. And after listening to the remorseful youth's story, heating engineer Winston Davis has been inundated with job offers for the lad to keep him away from crime. It took Mr Davis six weeks to track down the 16-year-old who had mugged his 12-year-old nephew and discovered he had no parents, job, or education, but he wants to be a computer engineer. They arranged to meet so that the teen could hand back the bag he had stolen and instead of calling the police Mr Davis recognised he had done something brave by returning the goods and spoke to him about turning his life around. Their conversation was filmed and has now gone viral, sparking a flood of job offers for the lad. Mr Davis, who is also a charity worker, had called out for support and apprenticeship opportunities from his followers. He received a huge response and says it’s been amazing to receive loads of offers of apprenticeships, training, money, and mentoring. When he eventually found the boy, he said he realised he had found a “frightened boy” and used the encounter as an opportunity to find out why he did it. Mr Davis said: "When it happened the lad that did it was gesturing to the knife on his leg, it was with a knife. but you can see on camera that he hasn't held it to his neck or anything, he just used it as a threat. “He told me he’s been in and out of detention centres and had no education and has literally been living in supported living. “I said to him look, I’ll help you if you return the bag. We made the agreement that he would go get the bag and come back the next day and fair play to him that’s exactly what he did." In the video, Mr Davis tells the boy: “The fact that you brought the bag back, that says a lot about you. “You could have easily turned your phone off, you could have easily of allowed it and bury your head in the sand. "In life sometimes we do things that we regret and then we want to try make something change after that and what you’re doing, bringing this back is a big moment.” Speaking of the incident later he said: “You can’t go around mugging 12-year-olds, you can’t go mugging anyone let alone a defenceless child. “So I went to the place where it happened and started to look and see where there was CCTV. I followed the route where the lady chased the boys. “I think we dealt with it in the appropriate way and hopefully more youngsters can be dealt with by showing him the errors of their ways.” His online post read: "This young man mugged one of the boys (a nephew but helping to raise like my son) for his bag with a knife…we managed to track him down and he agreed to meet to return the bag… "Although what he did was completely wrong, he said he was broke and needed the money…he’s 16 years old, been in and out of detention centres, lives in a supported living place and has no qualifications… "Despite this, he wants to work in computer engineering…this kid doesn’t need punishment, he needs help…if there is anyone that knows about career routes/training programmes for him, please drop me a dm" However, he said unfortunately the young boy is too lost to accept help. He said: “Unfortunately he’s at the point at the moment where he can’t see, either the benefit or that he actually needs this help. “That’s the saddest part of it, he’s like, well basically I’m a lost cause so I’m going to carry on doing what I’m doing. “But I think in time he’s going to reflect and go actually, you know what, please.” He said the young man is housed in supported living, receiving £30 a week. As chairman of Southside Young Leaders Academy, a charity helping young African and Afro-Caribbean boys become leaders, Mr Davis has dealt with many kids in the same situation, and he said: “Sometimes people aren’t ready for whatever reason. “Sometimes children are so traumatised from what they’ve been through as young children that it’s really hard for them to have any connection or belief that they can do anything other than what they’ve been exposed to at such a young age.” The young man robbed Mr Davis’ 12-year-old nephew's bag while he was on his way to the shops to buy a chocolate bar before a tutoring lesson. Suspecting the police would do nothing after speaking to the upset child, the father went on a six-week search to find the perpetrator. Thinking he would find an adult, Mr Davis searched CCTV and doorbell camera footage near where the event took place, he spoke to people in the area and started to get together some names and faces. The charity worker hung around the area, and one day bumped into a kid who matched one of the pictures he had been given - only to realise he was just a boy. He told him: “Look, I know who you are, I know what you’ve done, and I can help you, but you’re going to have to return the bag.” The kid agreed to come back and return it. Mr Davis said: “He agreed to come back to give us the bag. The fact that he came back to give us the bag, I was like wow. Yeah, you’ve done something really bad to the family I love, but the fact that you brought it back says a lot about you. “I wanted to help him, and I said to him that I would help him. “I can see in this young man there’s something in him that wants to go on and do good, he wants to do engineering. He brought the bag back. “You know, what he did was shocking and I can’t condone it. And if he was to go out tomorrow and do that again, well rightfully he should be punished for it and he’ll have to learn that way. “But as it stands at the moment, he hasn’t got a criminal record, we wouldn’t be taking him to the police. “He’s got an opportunity to really, if he takes the opportunities that are presented to him, to really change his life. “It’s just, can he see far enough into the future? To be able to take advantage of the good nature and goodwill of so many people?” But Mr Davis says it hasn’t all been words of support, and he’s also seen online comments criticising the young lad for wearing a tracksuit, saying he, therefore, can’t be suffering. “They’re saying look what he’s wearing, he’s not suffering. “Listen, I was in front of his boy - he needs help. He needs a strong male role model around him, he needs love and attention, he needs nurturing. “Our prefrontal cortex doesn’t develop until we’re 25, and that’s all about decision making, so people make riskier behaviours because that isn’t developed. “These young people aren’t even physically and mentally developed and we’re writing them off for society because they do things they shouldn’t do at such a young age. “Like no let’s try to intervene with them, let’s try to help them make changes, and help them take a different path. Because that helps us as a society.” He said even if the kid had turned out to be a 20-year-old man, as Mr Davis had expected he would be, he would have asked for the bag back and had a conversation with him. "It's all about the energy you put out to the world, and if you put out the right energy people respond to it in that way. "If I went really aggressive to this boy, maybe he was carrying a knife. It doesn't matter if someone is 18, 20, 25, it doesn't matter how old somebody is. "If you come at someone in a certain way, they're gonna come back to us in a certain way."