Award for Coventry club launched to fight knife crime

A youth club launched amid a spate of shootings and stabbings has won a national award.

Tyler Campbell set up the weekly event called Fridays in Coventry in 2019 to provide a safe place and show teenagers they could have a "better future".

It has now won the National Crimebeat award for innovative and successful crime prevention.

Mr Campbell said he was "so happy" to have received the award at the ceremony in London.

"It was a lot of hard work," he said.

"There were times where we have had only one young person in the club, three young people in the club, but it has always been building."

For the launch, Mr Campbell said he had received about £5,000 in funding from the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner's office and also pledges of money from local businesses and universities.

Parents must give their permission for their children, aged between 15 and 17, to be a member of the club and pay £5 a year to join which will go towards running costs, he said.

West Midlands Police engagement officer Peter Sturgeon said: "It has been immense really.

"It started off with a basic conversation in the police station at Park Street about an idea, a concept; we never thought it would end up getting a national award."

Mr Campbell said he planned to invest the money which came with the award win.

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