More than 300 knives surrendered at start of permanent Greater Manchester amnesty

More than 300 vicious blades have been handed in the first few days of a Greater Manchester Police knife surrender.

At the beginning of the month, GMP publicised its "forever knife amnesty" after new bins for blades were placed in 10 different locations across the force area including Wigan.

These replaced temporary amnesty bins that had been in place since the start of the New Year, whilst the permanent bins were in production.

When officers emptied the temporary bins, they found a variety of different knives that totalled to over 300.

A knife bin like this can be found at Wigan Police HQ on Robin Park Road

Senior officers today proclaimed this is a "great result" and start to the permanent amnesty and means there are 300 fewer deadly weapons on the city-region's streets.

The newly designed bins have now been placed in 10 stations and can be accessed at any time of the day or night to allow anyone to deposit a knife safely and anonymously.

Sgt Paul Nolan of GMP’s Violence Reduction Unit said: “We are sharing the images of knives not to frighten people, but to thank those who have taken the time and effort to bring knives into their local stations.

“The bins are out there to encourage anyone who comes across a knife, in any part of their life, whether it has been obtained through a hobby, such as hunting or fishing or anyone who has previously ordered a knife online and now wants to get rid of it.

Police say the streets are safer with these weapons out of the way

“The amnesty is not about secrecy, it’s to allow people to bring a knife to a police station where they can deposit it into a bin.

"The purpose is to reduce the number of knives on the streets of Greater Manchester and this is proving to be a safe and secure way of doing this.”