Colchester's campaign to reduce knife crime to go to council next week

Launched in October, the Gazette’s campaign is intended to raise awareness and increase concern about a rise in the number of knife possession offences in Colchester and across the county.

Next week’s full council meeting, which will take place at Colchester Town Hall from 6pm, will involve Martin Goss praising the Gazette’s initiative as the publication looks to play its part in reducing the number of knife offences in the city by this time next year.

According to council papers, Mr Goss is due to ‘note and congratulate the Colchester Gazette on their anti-knife campaign launch in association with the arrival of the Knife Angel statue to Colchester.”

Lethal - the number of offences involving knife crimes in Essex stood at more than 1,500 during a one-year period from March 2022 to April 2023 (Image: Essex Police)

Currently, both the Colchester borough and Essex more widely are experiencing an increase knife offences.

In a one-year period leading to August 2023, Essex Police recorded almost 23 per cent more possession of weapons offences in Colchester; across Essex, a trend over a ten-year timespan has shown that offences involving knives and bladed articles have trebled.

The statistics, which are available on the ONS website, show there were 531 knife and sharp instrument offences recorded by Essex Police from April 2011 to March 2012.

Since then, however, the number of offences has trebled, with 1,642 knife and sharp instrument offences recorded between April 2022 and March 2023.

Essex Police’s detective chief inspector Ian Hughes argued the way in which crimes are recorded has contributed to a perceived rise in knife offences, but added the police are working to ensure the messaging to younger audiences on the issue is “very purposeful and very obvious”.

Striking - the Knife Angel statue, which was in Colchester over the month of October, was designed to raise awareness about knife crime (Image: Colchester Council)

Martin Goss has called for the council, through the Safer Colchester Partnership, to “deepen multi-agency collaborative working on this issue” – including working more closely with schools.

He said: “What I am calling for is more education because it is something that some schools don’t want to talk about – some schools worry that it gives the impression they have problems in their school when they don’t.

“But it’s all about prevention and I’ve started to reach out to a few schools to make sure it’s talked about, and make sure they tell young people, ‘don’t let a knife take a life’.”