Campaign sculpture to be made from old handcuffs

Clive Knowles is contacting police forces across the country for handcuff donations

An anti-domestic violence sculpture made entirely out of old police handcuffs is set to be created.

The idea was inspired by the Knife Angel, a 27ft-tall sculpture made from 100,000 blades which tours the country acting as a memorial to young knife-crime victims and created by artist Alfie Bradley and the British Ironworks Centre.

The Oswestry-based centre said its new genderless sculpture would form the shape of two people.

"Domestic violence came into the conversation very early on, because it is a definite national problem, it probably eclipses knife crime," said Clive Knowles, the centre's founder.

The centre is set to recieve 2,500 cuffs from West Mercia Police and is also hopeful of recieving some from Greater Manchester Police.

"We’re going to be ringing all the other British constabularies to see if we can make it a national sculpture. As with the Knife Angel, it’ll tour the UK," Mr Knowles told BBC Radio Shropshire.

"Every time the Knife Angel goes to a city or town, there is all sorts of initiatives, programmes, educational workshops, that take place off the back of the visit," he said.

"We would hope it would be the same with the domestic violence sculpture, that we could instigate, encourage towns and cities to do the very same on domestic violence."