Meet Sergeant Mohammed Waqas - a member of GMP's Operation Venture team

"I have been in the police force for about 10 years in total in a variety of different roles .

"To any young person who might be carrying a knife I would say very simply: don’t do it, it’s not worth it.

"If you’re caught carrying a knife, your life could change forever. You will be arrested if caught and you’ll then have a criminal record which could stop you getting the job you want or travelling somewhere.

"If you carry a knife, you are also more likely to use it or have it be used on you. You might be fatally stabbed, or you could end up spending the rest of your life in prison, having killed someone.

"Most of the stab wounds that I’ve seen have been one stab wound. They haven’t been stabbed repeatedly so it’s more likely that the person stabbed them impulsively. Sometimes the offender aims for a certain place on the body where they think they won’t do much damage.

"But there’s no safe place to stab someone.

"You can easily hit an artery and then the person you’ve stabbed bleeds out. You might not have intended to kill someone but they’ve died as a result.

"Our communities have been through enough and we need to start taking action because that’s what they want. We need to be robust and we need to do more – and that is exactly what this team is setting out to do working alongside the communities."