Not a shock that children carrying knives before teen years, says campaigner
Jordan Turner says she knows children as young as 10 to be carrying a knife
Last updated 4th Aug 2026
An anti-knife crime campaigner in Wiltshire says it's no surprise to her that children are picking up knives before their teenage years.
It comes as a campaign is beginning across the country to warn parents of the danger that knives are being carried at younger and younger ages.
Posters are to be put up in advertising spaces depicting cut and bloodied childhood toys, including images of a rubber duck, teddy bear, and doll with knife wounds.
In 2024, 264 knife-related incidents were recorded in Wiltshire by Police.
Jordan Turner, from Swindon, set up Change Lives, No to Knives in the aftermath of her brother's fatal stabbing in 2021, and told us she knew of children as young as 10 carrying a knife.
"There is no education or awareness in place for them," she said, saying education programmes that are currently being delivered to secondary school age children need to be extended to primary schools.
"If they're carrying a knife at the age of 10 or 11, what are they going to be doing at the age of 15, 16 and 17? How far down that line are they going to go?" she said. "That's where prevention comes into it, there needs to be more put in place before these children do take that step with the education, if we're educating them, they're going to be more likely to have the awareness on that situation and not take them steps."
For Jordan, the primary school age group is the one to target, as she feels the transition from primary to secondary school leaves children vulnerable.
She said: "When your child is leaving primary school and transitioning to secondary school, that is the most vulnerable place for them because you're giving the child a bit of freedom. They're going to secondary school, they're meeting new friends, they're taking a new route to and from a new school."
With her organisation, Jordan is visiting schools to deliver a clear message about the harm knife crime can lead to.
"I'm quite honest and real when it comes to this situation," she told us. "I've simply been given the message to them, if you're going to carry a knife, you're going to end up in a prison yard or the graveyard. They're the only two outcomes that come from carrying a knife."
She wants the public to "wake up" about knife crime, telling us hearing about it has become "normalised" within society and a more regular occurrence.
And almost five years on from her brother's death, she said the pain doesn't go away: "It's a grief and a trauma that I will, we will never ever get over that. Unfortunately, we just have to learn to live with it."