CHORLEY Police collected more than 79 knives from the public in a month-long amnesty to try and wipe out street violence.

The lethal weapons were anonymously placed in the police station's knife bin as part of the countywide amnesty prompted by the death of London headmaster Philip Lawrence who was stabbed outside his school.

Chorley's Det Insp Terry Richardson said: "We had a very good response here. Chorley is not a violent town - judging by the number of knives handed in it seems people have a guilty conscience about owning such things.

"They have had the common sense to hand them in - 79 weapons off the streets is another step forward in crime prevention."

Across the county more than 1,000 weapons were handed in, including 51 machetes, 34 bayonets and two air pistols.

Lancashire's Chief Constable Pauline Clare described the public response as "extremely good". She said: "We have to discourage the growth of a knife culture which makes people - especially young people - believe they need to carry knives for self-defence.

"This amnesty is now over and we are grateful to the public of Lancashire for supporting it. But the campaign to rid our streets of danger goes on."

During the address, Mrs Clare praised the citizenship and public spiritedness of people and cited the case of a pensioner who spotted a knife at a car boot sale and bought it for £8 specifically to take it off the streets and hand it over to the police.

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