A regional newspaper has joined forces with the mother of a man who was stabbed to death to launch a campaign to prevent knife crime.

The Burton Mail’s Safer Burton campaign was launched this month and  has been backed by Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke.

The campaign will educate children not to carry weapons, resulting in a knife-free zone ,and will see Yvonne Upton  – the mother of 21-year-old Connor Upton who was stabbed outside a Burton nightclub – take the message into schools.

Mail editor Kevin Booth said there was not a major problem in the town centre with knives but that the death of one young man in 2010 was a tragedy they never wanted to happen again.

Said Kevin: “There is a message we want to get out there, and Yvonne’s heart-breaking account of events surrounding her son’s death is a very strong, powerful and emotive story to help us start to put it across.”

This week the Mail reported that Burton MP Andrew Griffiths asked the Lord Chancellor in the House of Commons what steps he was taking to increase prison tariffs for people sentenced for carrying knives.

He took a copy of the Mail, with a front page story relating to a serious knife incident in Burton, and asked if the Secretary of State would back the Mail’s campaign to help make Burton a knife-free zone.

Mr Clarke told the House: “Sentencing guidelines provide that the starting point for an adult convicted of knife possession is a custodial sentence.

“Where immediate custody is given, the average sentence length increased between June 2010 and June 2011.

“We are creating new offences so that those who carry a knife in a public place or school, and go on to threaten and cause immediate risk of serious physical harm to another, can expect to face at least a minimum custodial sentence.

He added: “I wish my honourable friend every success in working with his constituents to try to reduce the scourge of knife crime in Burton.”