Southport stabbings survivor reveals she hasn’t used a kitchen knife since

The yoga instructor who survived the Southport stabbings has revealed she has not used a kitchen knife since the attack.

Leanne Lucas said she was left so ‘afraid in my own kitchen’ by the ordeal of having to fight off Axel Rudakubana that she has not cooked since the atrocity on July 29 last year.

As the anniversary of the atrocity approaches, she is calling for a ban on pointed kitchen knives to reduce the risk of them ever being used as a weapon.

Ms Lucas launched Let’s Be Blunt to coincide with a national knife crime awareness week, during which the Government has also announced a new knife amnesty taking place in July.

Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme on Wednesday, Ms Lucas said: ‘I don’t understand why I’ve got a pointed tip knife in my house that somebody could potentially use as a weapon if they would like to.

‘I know people say it wouldn’t happen to me, my child wouldn’t do that. We all believed it wouldn’t happen to us, but I think we’ve just got to open our eyes to the real world.’

Alice da Silva Aguiar, nine, Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, were murdered and eight other children and two adults – including MNs Lucas – were injured in the attack in Southport in July last year, carried out with a knife bought on Amazon while the killer was underage.

In the aftermath of the attack, Ms Lucas said she had read articles quoting actor Idris Elba and celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall discussing the potential benefits of blunt-tipped knives.

‘You normally hear of the zombie knives, machetes, things like that,’ she told Sky News.

‘They sound dangerous but really, when you look at the figures, the highest figure is the domestic kitchen knife, which we have all got in our kitchen, which we use daily.

‘Obviously, people can hurt people in many ways. It’s about reducing that opportunity to cause life-damaging, life-threatening injuries that can take people’s lives.’

The Let’s Be Blunt campaign is set to be launched at a parliamentary reception on Wednesday evening.

Actor Idris Elba has also called for a move away from pointed kitchen knives, and initial research by forensic scientist Leisa Nichols-Drew with a team at De Montfort University suggests that they may be safer.

The researchers found that 10 different rounded knives did not cut everyday clothing such as cotton t-shirts and denim jeans in tests with 1,200 repeated stabbing motions, whereas two pointed blades did.

News of the campaign came as the Home Office unveiled plans for knife crime activist Faron Paul to travel across the country in an amnesty van.

The campaigner will tour London, the West Midlands and Greater Manchester in July to help get rid of dangerous blades.

The Home Office is also funding 37 new surrender bins, made by charity Word 4 Weapons, across the same locations where 45% of knife crime in England and Wales takes place.

It comes as a ban on ninja swords campaigned for by the family of murdered teenager Ronan Kanda is set to come into force from August 1.

It will be illegal to possess, sell, make or import the weapon as part of anti-knife crime measures introduced under Ronan’s Law.

Ronan’s mother Pooja Kanda has campaigned for a law change since the death of her 16-year-old son, who was yards away from his Wolverhampton home when he was murdered with a ninja sword in 2022.

Anyone handing in a ninja sword can claim compensation of £5 – the wholesale price of the weapon – if they return it to a designated police station.

The new surrender bins have been purpose-built to cater for larger weapons such as ninja swords, and 33 will be placed across London, two in the West Midlands and two in Greater Manchester.

It will be illegal to have a ninja sword after August 1, and anyone caught with one could face six months in prison, set to increase to two years under plans in the Crime and Policing Bill.

Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said: ‘This Government is taking a different approach to tackling knife crime – one rooted in partnership with those who have first-hand experience of this devastating crime.

‘We know that young people involved in crime can have complex pasts and often deep-rooted mistrust in authority, and I truly believe it’s this kind of collaboration that will save young lives.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.