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Amnesty yields over 600 knives

More than 600 knives have been handed in to Northumbria Police during the first week of a five-week national amnesty.The 617 total which were put into 27 bins in police stations around the force area included 299 domestic knives, 162 non-domestic knives, 118 weapons and 38 other items which included cut throat razors, samurai swords and an axe.Superintendent Peter Woods of Northumbria Police’s Operations Department Policy and Planning Unit said: “Already there are 617 fewer knives and offensive weapons on the streets of Northumbria and we are very pleased with the response so far. “We would continue to encourage people to hand in any knife or offensive weapon as every weapon handed to us is one which cannot be used in a crime. “It is illegal to carry most knives and anyone found with one could face up to four years in prison and this amnesty allows people to hand in weapons anonymously with the items not normally examined forensically.“The national knife amnesty was launched on 24 May and will run until 30 June. This is the first time an amnesty on this scale has been implemented in over 10 years. The programme is similar to the firearms amnesty held three years ago in which 44,000 weapons were voluntarily handed in to police. People handing knives in are asked to wrap them in cardboard or thick paper.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .