Gordon Brown joins launch of 'Count Me In' anti-knife crime campaign

Prime Minister Gordon Brown today joined the families of murder victims to launch an online campaign aimed at tackling knife crime.

Mr Brown said relatives of victims were able to give "the most powerful warning there is" about the effects of using a weapon.

Primary schools in knife crime hotspots will also be given information to help teachers tell children about the dangers.

The Government is working with the charity Families Utd, which represents victims' relatives, to launch the Count Me In: Together We Can Stop Knife Crime week.

Mr Brown said: "I'm very proud to support Families Utd. Their unity comes from shared tragedy and their loss is the most powerful warning there is against carrying a knife.

"I believe young people want to see an end to knife crime, just as we all do, and I believe the power to make that happen is as much in their hands as it is ours.

"So this week we're asking them to sign the pledge and say 'Count Me In' to a world without knife crime."

The mother of murdered 18-year-old Harry Potter actor Rob Knox backed the campaign.

Sally Knox said: "I truly believe that we need to get into schools and educate young people about street violence and respect.

"Together with the other families who have suffered similar tragedies and the Government we can make a difference to the future of young people on our streets."

Barry Mizen, whose 16-year-old son Jimmy was murdered in a south London bakery in 2008, said: "Count Me In is a chance for all the young people of this country to add their voice, and display in a tangible way, their desires to bring improvements to our communities.

"It is all too easy nowadays to brand young people as aggressive and confrontational, when in fact that is far from the truth and most want to show they have much to offer and can be part of the solution.

"We should support and encourage them as they come behind families who have lost loved ones to violent crime and are seeking to work for changes to the attitudes and actions that blight our communities.

"All of us have a part to play in bringing peace, whether it's the fear we feel on our streets, or our concerns for our own children or grandchildren, or indeed our elderly relatives, and together we can."

Youngsters will be urged to sign up to the campaign at the Families Utd website or on Facebook.

The websites contain advice, information about further support and testimonies from the families and communities affected by knife crime.

Information about the issue will be available to all schools online and distributed to almost 300,000 primary school pupils in the areas most affected by knife crime.

:: The Count Me In: Together We Can Stop Knife Crime week campaign websites are: www.familiesutd.com/countmein; www.facebook.com/countmein; www.teachernet.gov.uk/countmein

Writing in the Daily Mirror, Mr Brown praised the efforts of victims' families who campaign against knife crime.

"Despite losing their loved ones in the most brutal and painful of circumstances, their response has been to make sure that no other family has to go through their experience," he said.

"They are turning their tragedy into the most powerful warning there is against carrying a knife."

The Prime Minister added: "Like every dad I worry about my kids - and I know every parent wants their son or daughter to feel safe and be safe.

"How it must feel to be woken in the middle of the night by the police to be told your child has been stabbed? Or have a neighbour call you at work to tell you that something terrible has happened to a loved one? I can only imagine."

Schools Minister Vernon Coaker told GMTV that the Government had doubled the maximum sentence for knife possession to four years and changed court guidelines so most people would be taken to court instead of cautioned for the offence.

He went on: "Part of what we're trying to do is get in early.

"Obviously, if someone's carrying a knife then you need to deal with that, but we're trying to point out the dangers of knife-carrying and to change attitudes and to get in and intervene earlier than that to try to prevent it happening in the first place."