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ITN
Beckham backs knife campaign
Beckham backs knife campaign
David Beckham has spoken of his personal experience of knife crime as he backed a drive to discourage young people from carrying blades. The LA Galaxy winger joined fellow senior England football stars Rio Ferdinand and David James at a meeting with Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in support of the Government's "It Doesn't Have To Happen" campaign. Beckham said a tragedy that shook his life when he was 13 had made him all too aware of the dangers of knives. He recalled how a friend was stabbed in the back and left paralysed when he intervened in a street fight while on the brink of signing a contract with Leyton Orient. Beckham said: "No one wants to see the devastation I saw my friend and the family go through. "It is something that is very important and something that as footballers and people and as a team we can get involved in." Met Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alf Hitchcock revealed almost 750 people have been stopped and searched every day since a knife crime blitz was launched in June. Officers have stopped 55,000 people, arrested 2,500 suspects and seized 1,600 knives during operations in 10 hotspots in England and Wales, he said.
ITN | August 18, 2008
