Mother of knife victim welcomes Northants violence strategy

A quarter of all serious violence incidents in Northamptonshire involve knives

A new drive to reduce serious violence has been welcomed by the mother of a teenager who was stabbed to death.

Cheri Curran whose 17-year-old son, Louis-Ryan Menezes died in 2018, said the strategy was already "making waves" in Northamptonshire.

The authors of the plan, aimed at under 25s, said there was "no such thing as an acceptable level of violence".

And the leader of a programme to deter youngsters from crime added it should not be "just a short term fix".

A rally against knife crime was held in Corby in 2022 following the death of another young person, Rayon Pennycook

The new Northamptonshire Serious Violence Prevention Partnership (NSVPP) started by looking at five years of data about serious violence in the county.

It found that rape and other sexual offences accounted for nearly half of the serious violence incidents and half of the remainder involved knife crime.

The NSVPP said its strategy included using more data to understand the causes of serious violence and getting organisations to work together with children and young people.

It also involved "designing new solutions" and "drawing on evidence of what works."

Cheri Curran said there were so many "amazing people" working together to combat knife crime

Cheri Curran, whose son Louis-Ryan Menezes was stabbed in a stairwell in Kingsthorpe in 2018, said: "I think it's absolutely outstanding.

"We're moving forward in a really good direction, we're making really good waves, there are so many amazing people coming together and everybody's got the same objective."

Det Supt Andy Glenn said serious violence was not inevitable

Det Supt Andy Glenn, of Northants Police, said: "Serious violence is not something the police can tackle on their own, it has to be a partnership approach.

"Serious violence is not inevitable, it is preventable and, working together, we can achieve that."

Jordan Letts from the Saints Foundation said he hoped the strategy would bring in funding for youth work

Jordan Letts runs a programme set up by the Northampton Saints Rugby Club's foundation to work with young people who are not in education, to deter them from crime.

He said: "The focus will always be on us wanting to get the young people to change, but the funding is never really there to directly support that.

"[We need to be] looking at the funding models and making sure that this is not just a short-term fix."