New figures reveal Coventry children as young as eight are caught with knives in school

[dutchman]

In the last three years, several pupils have been caught committing the offence of having a knife on school premises

An eight-year-old child was caught with a blade in a Coventry school according to police stats revealed to the Telegraph.

In the last three years ten children have been found with knives or other sharp instruments in city schools - but police wouldn’t say which ones because they say it would put people off reporting crime.

Four children were caught with weapons in Coventry schools in 2014 and 2015, with two found in 2013.

The offences were mostly committed by teenagers, but one of the youngsters was eight and another was 11.

One of the most common types of knife that was found on the pupils were lock knives, which are knives with blades that can be locked when unfolded.

Across the entire West Midlands 127 weapons were found on school pupils in the last three years.

They included a knuckleduster, ball bearing gun and a screwdriver.

Det Chief Insp Ian Parnell, West Midlands Police force lead for knife crime, said: “During the last decade we have worked hard on campaigns and operations to reduce knife crime across the West Midlands.

“Our Precious Lives project has now reached more than 100,000 pupils at schools across the region – including Coventry – with a powerful message steering young people away from knife crime and ‘de-glamourising’ gang culture.

“Looking at these 10 incidents in Coventry, one involved a child found with a pair of scissors, another was a craft knife, and in one instance a pupil took a knife from the school kitchen.

“However, there is never any excuse to carry a weapon, whether it’s at a school or other public place, and we encourage head teachers to report these types of incidents to us so we can investigate the circumstances.

“It is important to stress the responsibility for tackling knife crime sits with all of us – police officers, parents, teachers, licensees, friends – and it is vital we all work together to change behaviours and continue to stop young people carrying these potentially deadly weapons.”

[dutchman]

police wouldn’t say which [schools] because they say it would put people off reporting crime

More likely it's because parents would suddenly stop sending their children there!

[Melisandre]

That makes a change from taking lighter fuel being thrown over our kids to set fire to them.

[rebbonk]

That makes a change from taking lighter fuel being thrown over our kids to set fire to them.

Bl**dy Hell, Melisandre. I'd not heard of that one.

[Melisandre]

Well you have now Rebbonk I know it went on in one perticular school as it happened to one of my grand sons the first few days of starting senior school and his friend they had to climb a tree to escape the lighter and got told off for climbing the tree nothing was done untill his friends father and my daughter in law went up the school also my nieces daughter had it done to her in the same school they are now in their early 20s . Not even to this day will any of my family and I have a large extended family will they send their kids to this school the rest of my grand kids went to Woodlands out of the area my nieces took her daughter out and placed her in Ashgreen school.