The UK Knife culture

Disclaimer: This site is part of a project to explore the problems associated with knife crimes. It aggregates information from a variety of sources including, but not limited to the BBC. Their respective rights in any images or information used is hereby acknowledged.

2 April

Fiona Marshall, 41, was stabbed at her home in Northants. She was the sister of Carphone Warehouse tycoon David Ross. A post-mortem concluded Ms Marshall had been knifed before the house was set on fire. A 44-year-old man was also found stabbed in the ruins of the bungalow.

Be Safe workshop

Teaching kids to Be Safe

Former policeman Kevin Everard decided to give up his career in delivering personal safety to police officers in 1999 and started the Be Safe project to deal with violence in the workplace.

Be safe soon developed into delivering anti-knife education to youngsters following concerns of magistrates on the increase of young offenders entering the courts for possessions of a knife.

Magistrates didn’t know what to do about it as the offenders claimed they were only holding them for their own protection.

After speaking to offenders who had already entered the criminal system it became clear most of them would not have been arrested if they had been informed of the implications.

Once they are told how easy it is to take someone’s life with a knife or how the knife could be used against them, even by taking their own life, - they normally change their mind.

One of the people who work with Be Safe is an offender who got an 18,5 years jail term for murder.

"It can be quite powerful when he explains to the youths what it is to loose that much of your life and living with the consequences of having killed someone."

If you have taken someone’s life, there might also be the revenge factor hanging over you for the rest of your life.

Be Safe founder Kevin Everard

On occasion some teachers and head teachers think a problem situation can be solved by speaking only to the most disrupted children, or classes in school.

Mr Everard warns that by doing that they may be missing out on those who carry knives for other reasons, as the following example demonstrates:

The consequences of excluding kids from school can be very negative. Instead of going to school they are put in groups with other youths who are also ‘trouble-makers’.

“These kids feed off each other and as a result they develop a bond where they can become very disruptive and threatening to other people.”