Bleed kit to be installed near scene of fatal stabbing in Chippenham
Last week, a 16-year-old charged with killing Shayne Hambakachere – also 16 – was found not guilty of both murder and manslaughter
A bleed kit is to be installed close to the scene of a stabbing in which a teenager died.
Last week, a 16-year-old charged with killing Shayne Hambakachere – also 16 – was found not guilty of both murder and manslaughter.
Shane was stabbed in an alleyway off London Road, near Royal Oak Close in Chippenham, on January 31 and died in Southmead Hospital the following day.
Now Wiltshire Council have granted Swindon-headquartered building society Nationwide permission to install a defibrillator and a bleed kit on the outside wall of their Chippenham branch – less than a mile from where Shane was stabbed.
Nationwide’s roll-out of life-saving equipment is not connected to any particular incident.
But bleed kits are intended to help people respond to catastrophic bleeding before emergency services arrive, and supporters argue they can save lives in some stabbing incidents.
In June, Nationwide announced the UK’s largest combined rollout of public-access defibrillators and bleed control kits across a banking network. The society said it would install the equipment at all 605 Nationwide branches, with installations taking place throughout 2026.
Around 4,000 staff are receiving training from St John Ambulance.
Nationwide had to apply to the council for Listed Building Consent as its branch at 50 Market Place is Grade II listed and built in the early 1800s.
The building society had to go through the same process for its Trowbridge and Warminster branches, but its branch in a 1970s building in Marlborough presented no such issue and life-saving equipment is already in place.