POLICE have been educating residents about the dangers of knife crime as part of a campaign to tackle serious organised crime.

Secure surrender bins, where members of the public could anonymously surrender their knives, were placed in the town as part of the knife amnesty - Operation Sceptre.

Additionally to this, the Safer Neighbourhood Teams in the town teamed up with British Transport Police (BTP) and the revenues office to ask members of the public to walk through a knife arch and check train tickets as they leave the train station.

Members of the public were asked to walk through the arch, which works in a similar way to airport scanners, and also had their tickets checked by BTP.

Five stop and searches were also performed in Redditch.

Inspector Lewis Lincoln-Gordon said: "We want to reassure residents in our communities who've raised concerns about people carrying knives, that we are doing our utmost to catch individuals and to seize offensive weapons.

"Initiatives like the knife arch that was used in Redditch are being rolled out as part of our Protect campaign to tackle serious organised crime, disrupt criminal activity and protect our local communities alongside the aims of Operation Sceptre."

He continued: "I would like to send out a clear message that it is not acceptable to carry knives, and that doing so could have fatal consequences. We will continue to work closely with our partners to carry out work to deter people from carrying knives."