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Give people who carry knives at least six months, parents tell Gordon Brown
Aline Nassif21 Jul 2009
Sally Knox with Margaret Mizen at Downing St
The parents of murdered Harry Potter actor Robert Knox have called for a mandatory six month minimum custodial sentence for anyone caught carrying a knife.
Colin and Sally Knox were speaking in Downing Street following a meeting with Gordon Brown, Home Secretary Alan Johnson and other families of knife crime victims.
Robert, 18, was stabbed outside a bar in Sidcup in May last year.
Mr Knox said that carrying knives on the street was "abhorrent" and that he wanted the Government to change the law.
He said: "The family felt it only right and fitting that the way they could fight knife crime in this country was to propose something to this present Government.
"We're actually calling for a mandatory six-month minimum custodial sentence for those people caught and found guilty of carrying knives."
He said he had written to both the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary and said: "It's up to them to take that on board and give me a reply."
His wife said: "If you carry a knife you will use it. A lot of people who have died have never carried a knife in their life. If you carry a knife, you're going to kill."
The couple have set up an organisation for families who have lost loved ones. They include the parents of Jimmy Mizen and Damilola Taylor.
Mrs Knox said she wanted people who carried knives to be taken off Britain's streets.
"We don't believe that having to do community service is enough deterrent. These people that are carrying knives need to be removed from the streets. People don't carry them for self-defence."
She said it only took a "split second" for someone who is carrying a knife to become a killer.
Mr Brown gave his backing to Families United, an umbrella support organisation for people who have lost someone through violence by youths, and told them they were doing "the right thing" at the reception yesterday, Mrs Knox said.
"He said the Government will back us as much as they can," she said. "This is clearly the start, but it's got to be ongoing."
Their son's killer, Karl Bishop, who had a conviction for a previous knife attack and habitually carried knives, was jailed for at least 20 years at the Old Bailey in March.
Robert Knox - who completed filming on Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, in which he played Marcus Belby, just days before his death - died after Bishop stabbed him five times outside the Metro bar in Sidcup.
A No 10 spokesman said today Mr Brown "supports the Families United initiative to work with families who suffer the devastating effects of violent crime, and in particular knife crime, and looks forward to ongoing work with the families through the Government's Coalition Against Youth Crime".
Mr and Mrs Knox were joined by several families of victims of violent crime including Margaret and Barry Mizen, whose 16-year-old son Jimmy was killed in Lee last year, and Richard Taylor, father of 10-year-old Damilola.
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Reader views (3)
Nu Labour & Co. will never come down hard on thugs because they are too besotted with their 'Yuman Ryte' to maim and terrorise law-biding people. Only when MP's, members of the House of Frauds or Celebs start getting stabbed and/or terrorised will things change. It has to be remembered that very few, if any of the above people know anything of life outside of their cossetted expense-account paid lifestyles, thus if it isn't happening in their own faces, then its not happening at all.
- Joannie, London, England, 22/07/2009 00:06
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Bill, the sentencing is inadequate in many respects.
Last year an investigation showed that the average time in prison for people with LIFE sentences, as about 8 years.
Unfortunately this "tolerance" is spreading to the US like wildfire.
- Trunk, US, 21/07/2009 16:04
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As someone who lived several years in England, I'd like to offer the following observations. First, there are only about 80,000 jail cells in all of the UK to house prisoners. This leads to extremely short sentences for perpetrators of serious crimes. I was amazed to read this week that a person was recently sentenced to only 8 years for abducting a lady and leaving her in the boot of her car for 10 days. That criminal should never again see the light of day. What makes anyone believe there's room to incarcerate people for simply carrying knives? Second, there are many places in the UK where it's foolish not to go armed. Crime rates in the UK have been higher than in the US for several years in every catagory but murder, and your even gaining on us there. I loved my stay in the London area, but found the UK's approach to dealing with crime woefully inadequate.
- Bill, Houston, Tx, USA, 21/07/2009 15:19
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