Firm surrenders 107 zombie knives during amnesty

More than 100 zombie knives were handed in by a single firm during an amnesty ahead of a ban coming into force, police have revealed.

DAI Leisure in Brierley Hill, West Midlands, a firm which stocks adventure sports goods including bikes and rifles, is one of a number of companies to voluntarily hand over its stock of serrated knives.

A government compensation scheme launched ahead of the ban, which came into force on Tuesday, saw those surrendering knives receive £10 per weapon.

The new legislation closes a legal loophole and make it an imprisonable offence from Tuesday to own, make, transport or sell a wide range of what are called “statement” knives, often favoured by criminal gangs.

West Midlands Police said a specialist taskforce to target knife crime and youth violence had also seized more than 350 weapons and made more than 500 arrests since the ban was announced in January.

Project Guardian was set up in 2019 and employs a team of more than 50 people, including police officers and analysts.

It carries out patrols in known hotspots in the West Midlands, with some officers in plain clothes looking for suspicious behaviour.

The force said it was most concerned about children aged between 14 and 15 and the youngest person it had stopped for carrying a knife was just 12 years old.

Insp Colin Gallier said: “It’s pretty much every day that teams are coming across individuals in possession of knives and weapons.

"Sometimes quite sinister zombie style-knives, on a regular basis.”

Insp Gallier said his officers out on patrol would often find knives hidden in all kinds of places.

"We’ll find them in skips, in bushes behind trees. Anywhere where they can be quickly discarded," he said.

The blades recovered ranged from kitchen knives to military-style knives.

"Young people are sometimes carrying these weapons for street status to show off rather than because they have a criminal intent to cause harm," he added.

Insp Gallier said he believed Birmingham had a problem with knife crime for a number of reasons, including its size and the high proportion of young people living in the city.

His force had seen the "tragic consequences of someone carrying a knife" too many times and that it was "one of those issues we need to hit from all angles".

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