North East knife crime campaigner says zombie knife ban is just a starting point to combat knife crime
From today it is illegal to own zombie-style knives and machetes.
A North East knife crime campaigner says that the zombie knife ban is a good start, but more needs to be done to tackle knife crime.
From today it is now illegal to possess, sell or manufacture zombie-style knives and machetes across England and Wales.
Tanya Brown set-up the Connor Brown Trust after her son Connor was stabbed to death in 2019 on a night out in Sunderland. She is now working to ensure that no one goes through the same pain they have faced.
Tanya said: "It's been a long time coming and I think this is a really positive initiative. We've got to look at the positive side of things. It'll be interesting to see how things move on from this.
"The ban is a start. It's a good start, but it's nowhere near enough what needs to be done to tackle knife crime.
"We need to look at the education side of things. We need to look at the online stores and the selling of these weapons. We need to look at the weapons that people still have, because not everybody’s handed the weapons in, so there's still probably a lot of weapons out there on the street.
"It's not just about a victim and the victim’s immediate family. The impact of knife crime ripples throughout the whole community, throughout the whole family, not just the victim’s family, but the perpetrators families as well.
"It has that ripple effect through the communities and that's the impact of knife crime. People just think it's about those involved, it's not. It's much bigger than that.
"I'm hoping that the ban is just the base, a starting point for the whole issue of knife crime. They do need to build on this as well and strengthen the preventive and proactive work against knife crime."