Sword of justice

AT this time of year, when newspapers and television programmes are full of their reviews of the past 12 months, it is traditional for awards to be handed out to the great and the good.

So I would like to nominate my Tees Valley Woman of the Year. She is Barbara Dunne.

In 2003 in Middlesbrough, her 31-year-old son Robert was murdered by a youth with a Samurai sword.

To her great credit, Barbara, despite being consumed by grief, channelled all her energy into setting up Mothers Against Knives to campaign for bladed weapons to be banned and to raise awareness about the dangers of knife crime to MPs such as myself.

I admire her determination to make a positive contribution and to reduce the likelihood of someone else suffering the same fate as Robert.

And, four years on, she has succeeded. On December 12, the Government announced that it was banning the sale of Samurai swords.

Her logic is simple and unarguable. She said: "To me, there's no reason for them to be on sale. They don't do a job apart from harming someone or killing someone."

Barbara's campaign captured people's imagination on Teesside and across the country. What started as a local petition organised by a grieving mother became a national campaign supported by local and national politicians, including Middlesbrough Mayor Ray Mallon and Cabinet Minister Hazel Blears.

Eventually I presented the petition - signed by 5,000 people - with Barbara to Number 10 Downing Street.

I also raised it with Tony Blair at Prime Minister's Questions. He paid tribute to the work of Mothers Against Knives, and he also noted: "Its members are part of the interesting phenomenon throughout the country of people and families getting together to try to do what they can in their local communities."

With the growing tide of public cynicism about politics, the success of this campaign proves that a small number of people taking up a cause which they care about can make a huge difference to people's lives nationwide. I am confident that the streets of my constituency, and Britain as a whole, will be safer now that Samurai swords are to be banned.

Barbara has now taken her community involvement one stage further. In May she was elected - as an independent - to Middlesbrough Council. Although this was initially at Labour's expense, I am delighted that she has since joined the party and is now a Labour councillor. I am sure her campaigning zeal will be a great asset to the people she represents.

It is heartening to see someone like Barbara, who certainly doesn't conform to the usual mould of a local politician, in a position where she can continue to make a difference to people's lives.

I believe she will make an excellent public servant and people will really be able to relate to her.

She will find, as I do, that the concerns most commonly raised by ordinary people on the doorstep surround issues of anti-social behaviour and crime.

I believe that in a fair society it is absolutely essential that those few individuals who cause misery to innocent people should be reprimanded. Indeed, Robert's murder stemmed from his desire to confront the individuals on his estate of West Lane who were troublemakers.

Since it came to power in 1997, the Government has made tackling crime a priority. According to the British Crime Survey, crime has fallen by one third in the past ten years.

However, there is still a very real - and perhaps increasing - fear of crime throughout communities across the country and on Teesside. Violent crime is still a cause for great concern - there have, for example, been almost 100 incidents involving swords over the past four years in this country and six of them were fatal. So the Government must continue to make every effort to prevent such crimes happening.

The Government has, though, introduced a wide range of policies to make our streets safer.

By introducing neighbourhood policing teams in communities, it has increased police presence on the streets. There are now more than 16,000 Police Community Support Officers across England and Wales, who provide visible, accessible and accountable policing.

I believe that engaging effectively with local people is a key element of reforms to make the police service more focused on the community. This has been a great success with Cleveland Police, who have built a successful neighbourhood policing model which is making a difference in areas afflicted by crime.

The Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 gave police and local communities more powers to tackle alcohol, knife and gun crime. This included alcohol disorder zones, drinking banning orders and more use of fixed penalty notices to help to tackle alcohol related disorder.

The Act also raised the age at which a knife can be bought and introduced tougher penalties against those caught using bladed weapons.

In addition, the advent of the "knife amnesty"

has made a difference. During an amnesty, anyone who possesses a knife or a sword, be it an antique or an ornament, is urged to hand it in for safe disposal.

The idea of the weapons amnesty originated with Cleveland Police, who asked Barbara and Theresa Cave - whose son was stabbed to death in Redcar in 2003 - to help them launch it as they were leaders of the Mothers Against Knives. Now the idea has rolled out across the country and has removed from circulation hundreds, if not thousands, of potentially lethal weapons.

So that is one of Barbara Dunne's great successes.

The other is the ban that will come into effect from April of the import, sale and hire of Samurai swords. Anyone breaching the order will face up to six months in jail and a £5,000 fine.

The story of Mothers Against Knives and Barbara's fight to outlaw bladed weapons and make our streets safer is the perfect example of how the British system works. Despite the public cynicism about politicians and politics, with determination and hard work, real people can make a huge difference by taking positive action and raising awareness about an issue. The nature of a representative democracy is such that if we politicians don't listen to the voices of those who elected us, then we are not doing our job properly.

The changed law, and our safer streets, are a testament to the hard-work and the spirit of my nomination for Tees Valley Woman of the Year.

* Ashok Kumar is MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland.