West Midlands Police Federation chair Rich Cooke has repeated his calls for a tougher approach to knife crime after the Government announced plans for a crackdown which would see more machetes and zombie knives banned in England and Wales

Rich said police forces should take a harder line on anyone caught carrying a weapon and urged the courts to use their maximum sentencing powers.

He told TalkTV, he said: “We’ve got to cut the crap really. There’s been too much messing around with mantras like ‘let’s not criminalise young people and children’ for the last 10 years.

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