Swindon woman gives out blunt-ended knives to prevent knife crime

A woman from Swindon is giving out free packs of blunt-ended kitchen knives in an effort to reduce knife crime, after her brother was stabbed to death in the town. Jordan Turner, who runs the campaign Change Lives, No to Knives, says the aim is to stop ordinary household knives being used as weapons, especially by young people.

Her brother Lee Turner was 33 when he was killed in a park in Swindon in 2021. The attacker claimed self-defence and was cleared of murder. Jordan said Lee had gone to meet someone and an altercation happened, with both men carrying knives. She described her brother as loving, caring and family orientated, and said the loss has left her family with a traumatic grief that will stay with them forever.

Since his death, Jordan has given talks in schools and prisons. Her latest initiative involves handing out packs of four blunt-ended kitchen knives. She believes these are less likely to be seen as weapons, and that parents with unsupervised teenagers can feel safer knowing a pointed knife cannot easily be taken from the home. She said: "If you have got unsupervised teenagers at home you haven't really got to worry about them looking at this life like a weapon because it hasn't got a point on."

The campaign comes as official figures for Wiltshire show a slight drop in knife crime between 2024 and 2025, but there were still 401 weapons offences recorded in that year. Jordan and her family fund the knife packs themselves, using their own money to try to bring hope from tragedy. The park where Lee was killed, Hawthorne Avenue park, remains a focus for her work.