Lancashire police seize zombie knives after Yvette Cooper speech

In August, Lancashire Police ran a four-week amnesty scheme where owners were offered financial compensation for handing weapons to police, local authorities and knife crime charities.

They were handed in at the designated police stations, with pre-existing bins also being monitored and emptied during this time.

Despite the period ending, they will remain in place across the county to provide a legal and safe way to surrender knives and bladed items, including kitchen knives which are no longer needed.

Sergeant Mick Johnson from Lancashire Violence Reduction Network said: “Before this law changing, if I was to walk into a house and see one of these, if it's inside of someone's private property I couldn't do anything about it. Even if I knew that it would potentially be a weapon of danger to somebody else.

"Now that ambiguity has gone, you can't have it and you'll get dealt with."

From Tuesday, September 24 it became illegal to own zombie-style knives and machetes with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper saying that street crime was “corroding the fabric of our communities.”

The ban is part of efforts to reduce knife crime, with campaigners including actor Idris Elba, pushing for the large blades to be outlawed as the Government plans to also ban ninja swords in the future.

Currently online marketplaces have little or no age verification and are selling the weapons for around £20 and can deliver purchases the next day.

Incidents involving machetes, swords and zombie knives doubled in the last five years (Image: Press Association Images/Press Association Images)

Sgt Johnson added: "The distance and the damage these things can do is unbelievable.

"Even to us, who are trained and with all of our equipment to prevent it - they're the sort of thing our equipment doesn't challenge.

"The weight of them alone would be enough to cause serious injury, the blades are incredibly sharp and you don't need any training to use a knife.

"You can hurt yourself, you can hurt somebody else, the sooner we get these things off the streets the better."

Data obtained by the BBC showed that incidents involving machetes, swords and zombie knives nearly doubled in five years, with more than 14,000 crimes recorded across England and Wales.

Chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council Gavin Stephens said: “We’re acutely conscious that bans and the legislation and enforcement are only one part of the equation, and we know that there’s a lot for us to do across the full range of our policing activities to deter young people from violence.

“We’re not going to solve the problem of knife crime just by one aspect of it.”