The new knife design is less likely to inflict a serious wound, the council says

A new design of kitchen knife could "significantly reduce" deaths and injuries from stabbings, Staffordshire County Council has said.

The knife, commissioned by county trading standards, was unveiled with a report on reducing knife crime.

The knife is fully functional in the kitchen but requires nine times more force to be used in order to inflict a serious wound, the council said.

The council is to present its recommendations to the Home Office.

Many knife crimes are committed using ordinary kitchen knives, the council said.

Student killed

Councillor Carol Dean, cabinet member for safer and stronger communities, said: "We can certainly make it more difficult for people to inflict serious injuries and commit knife crime through the introduction of a safer knife and our other recommendations."

The new knife was designed by the Cutlery and Allied Trades Research Association (Catra).

The council's report calls for more work with manufacturers and retailers to introduce other "safety knives" to replace the traditional long-pointed ones, to help save lives nationally.

Recommendations in Getting to the Point, Preventing Knife Crime, also call for more training for retailers of knives and for their online sale to be banned.

The new design was backed by the campaign group, Mothers Against Knives.

Some friends and family of Luke Campbell, a 20-year-old student stabbed to death in Boscombe, Bournemouth, were also at the launch.