MORE knives were turned over to police in Lancaster than to any other division in the county during an amnesty which ended this week. A staggering 156 weapons, ranging from penknives to machetes, were dumped in Lancaster's four collection bins, compared with just 66 in Blackpool and a mere 25 in Blackburn. Even Skelmersdale, which had more than double Lancaster's number of collection points, only recovered 140 knives.

A police spokesman said: "Perhaps the people of Lancaster are more community minded than others in the county, and that would explain the result."

Lancaster's Mayor Shirley Burns commented: "There's two ways of looking at this, either it shows that there are a lot of knives out on the streets in Lancaster, or that people have taken notice of the police and handed them in.

"I would like to think it is the latter and that as a result there are fewer knives in the district."

Lancashire Police have reacted angrily to suggestions that they would be fingerprinting all the knives which have been handed in.

The police spokesman responded: "We have had several calls from members of then public who were worried about fingerprinting after they gave the knives in good faith.

"If we suspect the knife has been used in a serious crime we would have to fingerprint it - but that's the exception to the rule.

"The point of holding an amnesty is that there are no questions asked. It seems the Chief Constable's comments about fingerprinting a few knives if necessary has been blown out of all proportion."

In a press conference on Monday Chief Constable Pauline Clare hailed the amnesty a huge success.

She said: "We have had an extremely good response. It's not possible to say just who has handed them in because the main feature of the amnesty was anonymity.

Mrs Clare added that the number of knives recovered, 1064 in total, was evidence that this type of police campaign is effective.

She explained: "They are effective because the public responds to them. Knives represent a threat to our community. Anything we can do to protect life and property has to be welcomed."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.