Operation Sceptre: Hundreds of knives seized across Swindon

As part of a national knife crime campaign named Operation Sceptre, twelve knife amnesty surrender bins were placed around the county over the course of two weeks.

During that time, 439 blades were handed in anonymously by members of the public, with 176 of those coming from bins located in Swindon.

Following two high-profile stabbing deaths, and dozens of other instances, often involving machetes, knife crime is perceived as a growing problem in the town and the official figures from the county force show it is increasing.

Inspector David Tippetts described the campaign as a ‘positive two weeks of action’ but revealed further plans to make knife collection bins a permanent fixture in the troubled town.

Machetes, broad sword and samurai swords among hundreds of bladed weapons handed in anonymously by members of the public during a two-week knife amnesty from Wiltshire Police (Image: Newsquest)“In the next few months, we’ll be installing permanent knife amnesty bins in Swindon as part of a new trial,” he said, although he was unable to confirm when that would happen and where they might be placed.

Many of the knives handed in were household and kitchen knives, but there were still plenty of weapons primarily used for combat like swords, axes, switchblades, combat knives and machetes.

Insp Tippetts added: “I am pleased with the number of knives handed in across the county. It demonstrates the public is aware of the dangers of knife crime and is determined to proactively reduce the likelihood of violent incidents, the kind of which we have seen in recent months in Swindon and other towns in Wiltshire.”

These incidents include a machete attack in Eldene where the victim was chased down, a stabbing outside JD Sports in the town centre, and the deaths of both Lee Turner and Owen Dunn over a year apart.

When asked how effective a knife amnesty would actually be in helping to prevent further deaths, Inspector Tippetts admitted that the type of person that would stab someone wasn’t usually the type of person who would hand a knife in.

But he said the main focus is on raising awareness and getting these weapons off the streets, particularly out of the hands of young people, who more and more often seem to be at the centre of these violent incidents.

A knife amnesty surrender bin with a pile of hundreds of kitchen and combat knives in the background. (Image: Newsquest)

“I wouldn’t say that there are a lot of young people carrying knives in general, but there are definitely certain groups of young people that carry weapons and other groups of young people who do so just to make themselves feel safer.

“It’s about education and enforcement, and early intervention,” he said. “Things like this knife amnesty and policing, in general, aren’t going to stop knife crime on their own, it's a complex issue that needs a multi-agency joined-up approach to get to the root cause of it all.”

When previously speaking to the Adver about their loss, both the families of Lee Turner and Owen Dunn stated that not enough was being done by police to combat the issue, we put that to Inspector Tippetts.

“It’s a 365-day-a-year issue for us. Every day our officers are out there stopping people, responding to incidents, we’re working with Probation, Youth Justice Service, Trading Standards, local authorities, and schools to try and do something," he said. 

“It’s horrific for us when someone gets stabbed in our community, these are our areas of responsibility, we’re invested in improving things and keeping people safe and when something like that happens we feel it too, we’re part of the community.

“We get that a lot, 'what are the police doing about it?', but we’re doing everything we can, we're doing a lot and with everyone working together I’m confident that we’ll get there.”