Grandmother of murdered teenager Liam Taylor finds ten knives in sweep of an Essex park

- Watch Natalie Gray's reportA grandmother whose grandson was stabbed to death said she recently found ten knives in an Essex park. Julie Taylor's teenage grandson, Liam Taylor, was killed in a brutal attack outside a pub in Writtle in 2020, and since then, she has been campaigning to get knives off the streets. Ms Taylor told ITV News Anglia: "So I’ve found a sword. I’ve found a dagger. Lots and lots of kitchen knives. "I found ten knives just doing a sweep of Melbourne Park in Chelmsford."

"The damage that these things can do - even a small knife like that - it doesn’t matter if it’s two inches long, or eight inches long, or it’s two foot long. "Two of Liam’s wounds were through his heart. They were two centimetre wounds that went into his heart and that’s what killed him."

Three young men have been jailed for her grandson's murder. Today, a new ban on zombie knives and machetes has come into force.

It means that it is illegal to own any blade longer than eight inches with a plain cutting edge and a sharp point - plus either- a serrated edge- more than one hole- or multiple sharp points.

The government said these types of knives have no legitimate purpose in the home, or on the streets.

For the last four weeks, there has been an amnesty and now anyone found with such a weapon will face four years in prison. Ms Taylor welcomes the zombie knife ban, but said that education is key to stopping violent crime.

She said: "Education starts in the home. Check your children, check their friends, check their habits you know, look after your children. Be a proper parent. "Education in school that is definitely needed and if they still insist on carrying these knives and doing these horrendous crimes then the prison is the only place for them."

This week, knife bins outside 15 police stations in Essex will be cleared.

Last time they were emptied, there were 15,000 knives inside. Detective Chief Inspector Ian Hughes at Essex Police said: "It’s really important that we’re really getting the message across to our young people that carrying a knife is not the right thing to do, that it’s a bad choice, and that we dispell some of those myths that make people think that carrying a knife protects themselves because actually it’s putting them at greater risk."

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