By Chirag Trivedi
BBC News, London |
  Kiyan was a striker for QPR's youth team |
"Someone, somewhere has to take the lead on knife crime, but where is that leadership coming from? "We are happy to tackle unhealthy eating in schools, but which is the more dangerous - a turkey twizzler or a knife?" Those are the questions posed by head teacher Phil Hearne, whose 15-year-old student Kiyan Prince was stabbed to death near the gates of the London Academy. A 17-year-old excluded pupil has been convicted of his killing, but the death has again raised questions on the extent and the ways in which the UK's knife culture can be tackled. Kiyan, who was a promising young footballer with Queens Park Rangers, died just six days before a nationwide knife amnesty got under way in May 2006. About 90,000 knives were handed in across England and Wales, but nearly 100 serious or fatal knife attacks took place during the five-week amnesty, a Press Association poll found. Among them was a student stabbed to death on a train from Glasgow to Paignton, Devon, and a man knifed as he went to help a woman being attacked outside a bar in Nottingham.  Phil Hearne said his school never had a problem with knives |
Several weeks earlier, police special constable Nisha Patel-Nasri was stabbed to death with her own kitchen knife as she investigated intruders outside her home in Wembley, north London. Already this month in London alone, Sian Simpson, 16, Ben Hitchcock, also 16, and 14-year-old Martin Dinnegan have been stabbed to death. An unnamed 16-year-old has also been charged with murder following the fatal stabbing of Orlando Thompson, 27. But it is the danger of young people carrying knives, especially in and around schools, which is of most concern. A study by the Schools Health Education Unit suggested nearly 25% of 15-year-old boys believe their friends carry weapons, often knives, for "protection". This year the government gave head teachers the power to search pupils but some campaigners want to go further and have scanners in schools. Dee Edwards, of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (MAMAA), said: "I think it would be very sad if we had to go the same route as America, and have scanners in schools. "But as more than 60,000 children have carried a knife into schools in the last two years, then I'm afraid that might be the route we have try." The National Union of Teachers (NUT) said it had "no objection" to detectors if staff and parents felt they were needed. Selling knives But Home Office ministers stopped short of introducing scanners as some felt it would make school entrances more like those found at courts and prisons. Police said another front in the battle to stop knives getting into the hands of young people lay in preventing shops selling them in the first place. But it emerged in government figures that no-one had been jailed for selling a knife to an under-aged child between 1997 and 2006. And in 2004, only nine people were convicted for under-age knife sales, the lowest figure for three years.  |  How many people have to die before somebody takes this seriously? |
The maximum sentence is six months imprisonment for selling a knife to someone aged under 16. On 1 October 2007, the law changes to make it illegal to sell a knife to anyone aged under 18. Further evidence there is a long way to go in tackling knife culture has been shown with pen-knives sent out to a school in a sales promotion. Mike Pedley, head teacher at Southfield School in Wokingham, Berkshire, who received two knives with the school's name and postcode on, said he was "appalled". The Home Office has also made �500,000 available to help police forces in England and Wales tackle knife crime through education and special operations. But for some, the measures do not go far enough. Mr Hearne, speaking at Kiyan's funeral, asked: "How many people have to die before somebody takes this seriously?"
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