by Ayomide Alli, reporter

A national charity has attacked Operation Sceptre, Kent Police’s week-long crackdown on knife crime calling it futile.

The operation which started in late September to support a national Metropolitan police campaign led to 31 stop and search actions, 16 proactive weapon searches across towns in Kent and the outcome led to the recovery and surrender of twelve knives and swords.

Out of the 31 who stopped and searched there were two arrests made.

This has led Stop-Watch, a charity dedicated to promoting fair policing and stop and search alternatives to question the usefulness of Operation Sceptre.

Katrina Ffrench, the chief executive of Stop-watch said: “Stop and search is ineffective for knife and violent crime and worsens the relations the police have with the community”.

͟She also said a lot of the time the stop and search method lead to people being arrested for unrelated crimes.

83.42% of the stop and search that had a police outcome the case wasn’t linked to the purpose of the such according to the police.uk website.

Katrina also said: “It is worrying that the police are stopping people and then young boys getting charged for holding small amounts of cannabis.”

However, Kent Police held 11 community engagement events in September in Ramsgate as well as going into schools to talk about knife crime.

On the Kent police website, Detective Chief Superintendent Andrew Pritchard said: “Our proactive activity throughout the week revealed some good results and I’m                                                              pleased that we were able to take part and support this campaign.”

Furthermore, a Rainham church is also working towards reducing the number of young people carrying knives. St Margaret’s church in Rainham has been granted £20,000 to help tackle knife crime in the community.

They will be working with the police, schools and local charities.

The scheme which began late last month to provide mentoring and conflict management training to teachers’ and educating the community on gang culture and knives.

The project will be using the fund to promote bespoke training package to parents and delivering assemblies in secondary schools.

Nathan Ward, The Vicar of St Margaret’s church said he wants Medway to be reassured that there are steps in place to confront this issue.

In looking for alternative ways to solve knife crime, Labour group leader and Chatham central Councillor Vince Maple said: “there is no simple fix if not it would be gone by now.

͟Cllr Maple also said that funding cuts to extra activities had a huge impact on the rise of the crime.