Suffolk Teenager Starts Campaign

24 September 2010, 05:30

A 17-year-old who's brother was killed last year after getting stabbed is starting a campaign to get knives off the street.

Lewis Watson was just 23 years-old when he was stabbed in Sudbury and now his sister Holly wants to make sure there is more awareness about knife crime.

Police have already held a successful knife amnesty in the town and now Holly wants to carry on with similar work in future. She told Heart: "It has devastated our family and it's been a very hard thing to deal with but now it's all about out of this negative if the only positive we can draw is bringing awareness and making sure no other family has to go what we've been through."

She added: "It's my top priority at the moment to make sure that it doesn't happen again and even if one knife is taken away from a person that's one person's that's life that is saved. The families, the friends - so many people that will in the long run thank everyone that is doing their bit to try and bring knife awareness."

Martin Barnes Smith is from Suffolk Police and told Heart: "I will be looking to contact Holly because I think that someone who has lived through the nightmare of a crime is the best person - if they feel they're able to - to try and actually deliver that message because people actually then do start changing their behaviour. Any knife crime as serious as it was for that family is a knife crime too much. Suffolk is a safe county. Knife crime is few and far between, however, when it happens it can be serious which is why we won't be complacent which is why we will be looking at ways we can reduce knife crime."

Holly has joined a project on a website called Battlefront Two. It allows young people to turn their ideas and issues into a campaign. If you win it you get £300 funding, access online and access to people to get advice and help with the campaign. Holly is hoping to win the whole project.

To vote for Holly's campaign just follow the link. The deadline for votes to be made is today.