Former EastEnders actress Brooke Kinsella opens new anti-knife crime centre

A former EastEnders actress whose brother was stabbed to death has opened a new anti-knife crime centre in Nottingham.

Brooke Kinsella's brother, Ben Kinsella, was stabbed to death in Islington, north London, by three male youths in June 2008, a tragedy which led to a string of anti-knife crime demonstrations.

Since then, Ms Kinsella's become an active campaigner against knife crime. She told ITV News that early intervention is the key to tackling the issue.

Ms Kinsella, who played Kelly Taylor in EastEnders in the early 2000s, opened the exhibition highlighting the dangers of knife crime at the National Justice Museum on Thursday.

One of the rooms at Nottingham's National Justice Museum, Nottingham, shows a mural dedicated to Ben Kinsellaat. Credit: PA

Other members of Ben's family, as well as crime minister Victoria Atkins, also attended the launch of the "Choices and Consequences" exhibition.

Speaking at the launch, Ms Kinsella said: "It's 11 years to the week since we lost Ben and my family and so many other families have been tireless campaigning to try and make any kind of difference.

"The Ben Kinsella exhibition is my family's way of carrying on Ben's legacy."

A room showing the laws regarding knife crime at Nottingham's National Justice Museum, Nottingham. Credit: PA

She continued: "After Ben died we looked through all of his belongings to find any new memory we could of him, and we came across his English coursework book.

"In that book was a letter that he wrote to the Prime Minister, then Gordon Brown, in which he said he was 16 and how worried he was about the state of our society and the violence amongst young people."

The new exhibition is the first of its kind outside of London and aims to warn children about the dangers and consequences of carrying a weapon.