Police team uses metal detector in crackdown on knife crime in Sheffield suburb

Members of the Sheffield South East neighbourhood policing team are using metal detector wands in Darnall looking for those carrying weapons in public.

The work forms part of Operation Sceptre, which is a national drive to reduce knife crime and was first launched by The Met in 2015.

South Yorkshire Police is taking part in national week-long crackdown on knife crime, under the Operation Sceptre umbrella, next week.

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A force spokesman said: "We've taken a few knives off the streets this year to make the streets safer for you."

Knife crime is on the rise in South Yorkshire and a weapon surrender scheme in November was organised in a bid to prevent blades and guns from falling into the wrong hands.

Figures released by the Office for National Statistics earlier this year revealed a 46 per cent increase in possession of weapon offences recorded in the county.

There have been a number of serious knife attacks including a brawl at Crystal on Carver Street on New Year's Day in which six men from Birmingham were stabbed or slashed when violence flared.

On Saturday, December 23 a number of men were also found with stab wounds in the Wicker area.

On September 30, last year, three men were stabbed in another attack on Carver Street and one hour later that day three other men were stabbed in Division Street.

That same weekend two men were knifed in the Area nightclub on Burgess Street, near Barker's Pool.

Anyone with information on the stabbings should call South Yorkshire Police on 101.