Police chief says parents must do more over knives

Craig Guildford said that quite often young people "don't appreciate the consequences of using a knife"

Parents have to do more to educate children about knives, the chief constable of West Midlands Police says.

Craig Guildford was speaking out after 12-year-old Leo Ross was stabbed to death as he walked home from school in Birmingham.

He said some young people were now "scared", and he wanted to "appeal to adults; we need to intervene more, to talk more".

Leo died in hospital after he was found with stab wounds near Scribers Lane in Hall Green on 21 January. A 14-year-old boy has appeared in court charged with murder.

Asked how parents should intervene, Mr Guildford said: "It's important that it [knife crime] can be talked about in the home and can be talked about with friends, and it can be talked about with youth workers."

He has also previously said: "We've got officers in schools, and I'm really working hard with schools to try and make sure that we get the message across earlier in people's lives."

Actor Idris Elba has also made a documentary for the BBC about solutions to knife crime. It will be shown on BBC One tonight at 21:00 GMT.

Mr Guildford said the documentary, Idris Elba: Our Knife Crime Crisis, as well as the prime minister's task force that he is involved in, "and all the initiatives that we're trying to do, have to come together to deliver".

He added that young people's fears needed to be addressed around individual safety, particularly routes someone can take, going out with friends, avoiding certain situations, and de-escalating situations.

Schoolboy Leo Ross died in hospital after he was stabbed in the stomach

'Very optimistic'

The chief constable was also asked if he had any insight into the crime figures for the region ahead of the latest Office for National Statistics due to come out.

He replied: "I'm very optimistic about the fact that crime will probably have reduced at double the national average across the West Midlands... serious youth violence down 11%, robbery down about 8%, knife crime down 6%."

But he added he had been speaking about a boy's death and was "very, very conscious of that fact in talking about crime reduction in the same interview".

Rt Revd Dr Michael Volland said everyone had a responsibility to shape society

The Bishop of Birmingham, Rt Revd Dr Michael Volland, said it was "not the police's job to shape society, it's the rest of us".

He added: "Schools have a role here too in education, but schools have a lot of other responsibility and we can't dump this onto schools and say 'solve knife crime'."

"Most adults are, of course, good people... but, perhaps, we can do a bit better or think a bit harder, so that the society that exists in 10, 20, 30 and 50 years' time is different than the one that we're currently experiencing."