Northumbria Police PCC launches Knives Impact Everyone campaign

National World - LocalTV

The Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner Kim McGuinness alongside the Violence Reduction Unit have launched the knives impact everyone campaign to get the message out there to young people.

Transcript

00:00 "Even if you've lost a loved one, no matter how the death happened, seeing a message like

00:06 that will have an impact. It brings back as soon as I've seen the message today like,

00:12 I miss you. That brought a lot of emotion to me because that is the message. I do miss

00:20 Samantha a lot and it's a message you can send to the phone but you'll never get a reply."

00:26 The Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner alongside the Violence Reduction Unit have

00:29 launched a campaign aimed at young people to show them that carrying a knife does impact

00:34 everyone. The image that will be used on public transport and in other forms of media is a

00:40 text that hasn't been delivered, reading "I miss you so much." Reading that, the launch

00:45 of the campaign, Carly and Alison from Samantha's Legacy and Tanya and Simon from the Connor

00:50 Brown Trust got emotional as it really hit home for them after they lost someone close

00:55 to them due to knife crime. "It's one of those messages that when you lose somebody you always

01:01 want to send it but receive a message back and the message it's shown you is it hasn't

01:07 been delivered and that's probably the biggest heartache you can receive." "It's so simplicity

01:15 in what it is but yet it has such a hard hitting message in that message and it just hits you

01:24 and it'll hit anybody, anybody who has lost anybody it will affect them and that's kind

01:32 of the point of it. You can't help but not read the words, you can't help but not say

01:38 that message, you just look up at that board and you instantly say that message and that

01:44 is the hard hitting message that we want to get across." As the campaign was being created,

01:49 police worked with young people to see how they could reach even more kids across the

01:53 region. "So young people have told us that the text messages are how they communicate,

01:58 it's how so many of us communicate now isn't it? But that emotional nature of the message

02:03 I think is really important. You see this message on the back of the bus today that

02:08 says 'I miss you' and it's not delivered and you know they're not going to get a reply

02:12 and that is a really poignant message and most people who have come here today have

02:15 gone 'huh' and had that kind of very visceral reaction to it." Unfortunately, knife crime

02:21 has been a big subject in the North East over the past few years and the Chief Superintendent

02:26 Helena Barron said that education and awareness is key at a young age. "Education is so important

02:32 and raising awareness of the issue. You know we can't hide from the issue, we do know that

02:37 we do have a problem with knives in our communities, it's a national issue, it's not just in the

02:41 North East. Trying to educate people at a young age, trying to make them aware of the

02:47 dangers of carrying weapons, the impact it can have not just on the person they use the

02:51 weapon against but also on themselves if they end up in the criminal justice system as a

02:56 result of it. It's devastating, it can have such a wide impact on so many people that

03:01 trying to educate from a very young age is really, really important."

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