PRESS RELEASE

March 31st, 2009

Ministers must listen on knife crime

Greenock and Inverclyde MSP Duncan McNeil has called on the Scottish Government to listen to the people and get tough with knife offenders.

After attending the recent Inverclyde Knife Crime Conference in Greenock Town Hall, the MSP has written to Justice Secretary asking him to come to the area.

And he is calling on him to take notice of the findings of the summit – that people want tougher and more consistent punishments for knife users.

He said: “I am all for early intervention, for looking at underlying alcohol abuse, for making it harder to get knives, for education, for offenders being made to confront their victims and all for the Medics Against Violence initiative going into schools.

“But of you carry, or use, a knife you should expect to face the full force of the law.

“We can’t just have all the other things in place and ignore the sentencing aspect.”

He continued: “Hopefully Mr MacAskill will take the opportunity to come to our community at the earliest opportunity and engage with people about how they feel about knife crime.”

Mr McNeil held up young Jason Trotter, a knife victim who bravely took part in the conference, as an example of how to deal with the scourge of knife crime.

He said; “Although Jason’s attacker may have hurt and scarred him, he clearly hasn’t broken him.

“As a community we are not broken either – people came to the knife crime conference because they know things can get better.”

ENDS