DAYS after two high-profile knife killings in London, Devon and Cornwall Police is launching a knife amnesty campaign. The nationwide Home Office initiative, announced in February, was launched on Wednesday and runs until the end of June. Knife crime accounted for 0.19 per cent in Teignbridge in 2005 and the Basic Command Unit saw a reduction in violent crime of just under 14 per cent between 2005 and 2006. 'As far as knife crime is concerned there are real hot spots in this country, but fortunately Teignbridge is not one of them,' said police spokeswoman Tieneka Drew. Despite this, she said that copies of school lesson packs produced by the Home Office, called Knife City, have been ordered and will be distributed through youth workers and neighbourhood beat managers for work in schools. In the next five weeks people will be able to hand in knives and other offensive weapons at police stations without fear of prosecution. Large secure red knife wheelie bins will be placed in police stations at Newton Abbot, Teignmouth and Chudleigh. Sgt Jim Lewis-Clarke said: 'There will be no questions asked and they won't have to leave any personal details, giving them complete anonymity.' Under the Offensive Weapons Act (1996), it is an offence to sell a knife to anyone under 16 or to carry a knife at a school. The potential penalties include a maximum of six months in prison and/or a £5,000 fine. 'If this campaign manages to take one knife off the streets that could harm someone we will be extremely happy,' said St Lewis-Clarke. Posters are going up around the region, encouraging those with illegal or unwanted knives to hand them in. People wanting to get rid of knives are being advised to wrap them securely before leaving home. Launching the campaign at police headquarters in Middlemoor, Assistant Chief Constable Caroline Winter said: 'By adopting this high-profile campaign we are hoping to raise awareness of the dangers involved in possessing a knife. 'Surveys tell us that most people carry knives for self-defence - in other words they are afraid of being attacked. They do not realise that they are likely to have the knife turned on them and suffer injury if they attempt to use it.' This is what is thought to have happened in the case of Special Constable Nisha Patel-Nasri, 29, who is thought to have armed herself with a kitchen knife before confronting three men outside her house. Airport-type scanners have been introduced at a sixth-form college in North-East London to catch knife carrying students but a Devon County Council spokesman said that nothing similar was being planned in Devon. 'We obviously take a very serious view of any instances of violence in our schools, but fortunately these are very rare,' he said.
