Huge sculpture made from 100,000 street knives goes on display in Bradford

• Video report by Jonathan Brown

A giant sculpture made from over 100,000 knives in tribute to victims of knife crime has arrived in Bradford.

Known as the Knife Angel, the 27 foot statue has been touring the country for 6 years in an effort to encourage people to stop carrying knives on the streets.

It is made from weapons which were handed in to police during amnesties, with messages from bereaved families engraved on the blades on the wings.

The angel has been put in Bradford city centre, where it will stay for a month before moving to its next location.

"It's a very common conversation where you speak with an offender who has no idea of the impact they've caused," said Caroline Rountree, who runs the restorative justice programme in West Yorkshire.

"I think it's really important people see something like a visual representation because they think of this as being quite a small crime but then you see something like this and you realise that it's huge massive," she said.

"All of those knives, that's just the top of the iceberg."

The angel weighs three and a half tonnes and was formally unveiled on Monday.

Bradford is the 36th place to act as its host since it was created by the British Ironworks Centre in 2018.

"It really is dreadfully traumatic for any community to have death or stabbing," said Clive Knowles, who came up with the idea for the Knife Angel.

"The number of people affected by it is exponentially huge."

Its arrival in Bradford comes after 502 knife crime offences were recorded in the city last year - a figure that is actually down from 565 in 2020/21 (565).

But across West Yorkshire as a whole there's been a five per cent increase during that period - last year alone there were 2,325 incidents.

After a series of high profile stabbings in the region in recent months, the Knife Angel will form the centre piece of a month-long campaign against knife violence, featuring school visits, assemblies and a conference.

Alison Lowe, the deputy mayor of West Yorkshire for policing and crime, says "all of us" need to work together to end knife crime because "police are at the end".

"We want to prevent this happening in the first place," she said.

"That means all the partners and stakeholders working together.

"Please work with us because this has got to stop."

The Knife Angel will be on display in Centenary Square in Bradford until May.

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