Dozens of weapons have been handed in by children after knife crime training in schools in the wake of the murder of Bolton teen Reece Tansey, councillors have heard.
The ‘Let’s End The Hurt’ one-day training programme on the dangers of carrying knives has been delivered to around 20,000 children in total at Bolton’s 20 secondary schools.
A meeting of the town’s children’s scrutiny committee heard a presentation on youth crime in Bolton, in which the prevalence of children carrying and using knives was discussed in detail.
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The training programme came after the knife murder in Bolton of teenager Reece Tansey in May 2021.
Reece, 15, was stabbed six times and following a trial, James White, 16, was found guilty of his murder and jailed for 15 years.
Mark Nuttall, 15, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to six years imprisonment.
Bernie Brown, director of children’s services for Bolton, addressed the scrutiny meeting.
Shockingly, she said many young people carrying weapons do not know that stabbing someone with a knife can kill them.
She said: “We have engaged with and excellent training programme ‘Let’s End The Hurt’ with GMP and secondary schools. This was following the tragic murder of Reece Tansey.
“We provided one day training to raise awareness in young people around knife crime. Lots of young people carry knives but don’t realise you can kill people with them.
“That sounds crazy but when you talk to young people they carry them because they’re worried about being attacked but they’re not clear that if you stab somebody in the body you could quite likely kill them if you hit the wrong place.
“We also want to debunk the myth of children ‘grassing’ on each other.
“It’s not wrong if you tell someone or are worried about something that has happened.”
The meeting heard that following the schools training several knives were voluntarily surrendered by children.
Ms Brown, said: “These were not by stop and search. They have seen the training and discarded a weapon at the venue or gone to a teacher and surrendered a weapon. Children are choosing to surrender knives.”
Addressing wider criminality among children, the meeting heard that as of December there were 95 children in Bolton borough who have been released under police investigation and another 21 children on police bail.
Between September 1, 2021 and the start of December, 485 children were released with no further action taken.
Ms Brown, said: “That doesn’t mean that things didn’t happen but that the CPS are unable to progress the cases for a whole host of reasons.”
Ms Brown added that the council’s youth justice team help families and offer support to the siblings of young criminals to try and prevent them following the same path into criminality as their brother or sister.
