You may have heard that the Knife Angel has made it’s way to Nuneaton. The Knife Angel is a sculpture created in 2018 from knives collected through 200 amnesty Knife Banks in the UK along with some seized by the police force.  The contemporary sculpture formed of 100,000 knives was created by artist Alfie Bradley and the British Ironworks Centre, based in Oswestry, England.^[1]

The aim of the sculpture is to raise awareness of knife crime and provide education that looks to prevent further crimes from happening. The sculpture has been in Nuneaton for the month of June and those who have visited it have found the impact to be quite striking.

With this terms Etone Value being Supportive it was great to consider how we as a community can support the aims and values of the project. To highlight this we were thrilled to receive a visit from Stephen Crowshaw, Community Safety Project Manager for Warwickshire County Council and the Nuneaton Justice Centre. As part of the workshop Stephen was able to give an overall explanation of the Knife Angel, it’s importance and ask pupils about what they felt after visiting it. After a brief history of what the Knife Angel stood for and how it was mad, welded onto a steel structure so they cannot be removed and will remain in perpetuity. 

Following this Stephen was kind enough to give our Criminology pupils a separate session discussing his own experiences as an ex police officer dealing with knife crime cases including how social media and peer pressure is often used in joint enterprise cases. 

We would like to thank Stephen for his involvement and for providing our pupils with an opportunity to find out more about the impacts of knife crime. If you would like to find out more about the Knife Angel or visit it check it out here: https://shorturl.at/avA19