A 13-YEAR-OLD schoolboy was the first to use Southend’s new permanent knife amnesty bin after he found a knife in the street on his way home from school.

Police and charity workers hope the bin, which was installed earlier this week outside Southend police station, in Victoria Avenue, will soon take thousands of deadly weapons off the town’s streets.

Caroline Shearer, of the weapons awareness charity Only Cowards Carry, said the bin is the eighth to be installed in Essex.

She said: “We have collected over 7,000 knives in nine months. It’s about keeping the area safer.”

Mrs Shearer, whose 17-year-old son, Jay Whiston, died after a stabbing in Colchester in 2012, said the bin is for surplus kitchen knives as well as street weapons-.

She said: “This is going to be an appropriate place where people can put their dangerous knives and sharp weapons.

“When you look at stabbings, 53 per cent are caused by weapons from people’s kitchens.

“It’s an encouragement to get people to look at the knives they have in the kitchen and make sure they are aware of how many they have and where they are.”

Sgt Kayleigh Webster, of Southend police, was the driving force in getting the bin installed and got in touch with the charity after attending several distressing knife crimes in the town.

She said: “I have had the benefit of attending incidents and have seen the impact of knife crimes, it’s not nice at all.

“I knew they would be able to reach out to our community in a way that we would not be able to.

“This is about having an appropriate and anonymous place to put knives.”

Sgt Webster said a stop and search operation by Southend officers in knife crime hotspots such as York Road and Sutton Road, has taken 200 knives off the streets since January.

She added: “This 13-year-old boy found a knife on his way home from school and came and handed it in. That gives me hope that the message is getting out.”