A south-coast daily newspaper is taking on the battle to cut knife-related violence.

More than 600 people have already signed a petition run by The Argus, in Brighton, as part of its Knives Cost Lives campaign with the title featuring stories from local families personally affected by knife crime.

Figures obtained by The Argus, using the Freedom of Information Act, show a knife crime is committed every eight-and-a-half hours in Sussex.

A total of 1,050 were committed between June 2007 and May this year. In the past 12 months there have been four murders, one attempted murder, 18 threats to kill, six rapes and 210 woundings all involving the use of knives.

The Argus has a three-point charter demanding a minimum sentence of two years for carrying a knife without lawful reason, an end to automatic early release for anyone convicted of knife crime and greater education.

Spearheading the campaign is news reporter Andy Whelan who was inspired to launch it after covering two high-profile murder cases in Brighton last summer. One of the victims was just 15-years-old.

Andy told HoldthefrontPage: "It was something that we'd been looking into for a while after the two stabbings. We were waiting for the sentencing of those two crimes.

"They were very high profile and we were waiting for them to come back into the news to launch the campaign.

"I spoke to the families and saw the devastation it caused.

"Sadly, there are more and more cases coming up. It seems to be becoming a big problem with four murders in the last 12 months."

Since launching the campaign The Argus has been visited by knife-crime victims keen to tell their stories.

Andy said the Newsquest daily had been able to run features and stories almost daily that they would never have known about had the paper not started Knives Cost Lives.

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