A boxing club is criticising the police for not supporting their effort to get knives off the streets.

Members of the Island’s Eastern Amateur Boxing Club have agreed to sign a pledge not to carry knives.

It is part of an initiative by Angels with Dirty Faces – a London-based organisation made up of former boxers whose aim is to reduce knife crime.

They are encouraging groups and clubs across the country to get their members to sign up to the pledge.

But according to Colin Dawson, secretary of the Eastern Amateur Boxing Club, based in Warden Bay, for the scheme to be successful it needs the backing of the police.

He claims several calls to Island police asking for them to support the scheme and attend a launch where the pledge will be signed have fallen on deaf ears.

He said: “If all the clubs in Kent can sign up imagine what that could do to help this problem. Anyone is capable of carrying a knife and the more people that pledge not to the more chance there is of getting rid of the problem. But we need the police to be interested and at the moment they have not shown any.

“We want them to come and be there at the signing of the pledge and show they are backing the scheme 100 per cent. We are going to go ahead even if we don’t have the backing of the police, but if you think recently there have been seven deaths in the country, it is a shame we are being ignored by the police.”

Sgt Neil Kimber, of the Island Neighbourhood Team, said: “I have since been in touch with Mr Dawson and we are currently in discussions to find out more about the scheme and will hopefully be able to support the launch and the signing of the pledge.”