Ashlawn School students forged knives from Warwickshire amnesty bins into a sculpture shown at the High Sheriff's legal service in Warwick, police say. Their Cut the Cycle campaign now tours.
Knives surrendered to amnesty bins across Warwickshire have been melted down and forged into a sculpture by students at Ashlawn School in Hillmorton. Warwickshire Police says the piece was shown at the High Sheriff’s legal service in Warwick this week.
The sculpture is the centrepiece of Cut the Cycle, a campaign the force describes as student-led. Warwickshire Police published its statement on Friday 9 October.
How the project came about
According to the force, the project grew out of Warwickshire Crimebeat’s Young High Sheriff programme. Students identified knife crime as the issue they wanted to work on. The school’s Behavioural Sciences Society, a student group, led the work with the school’s careers and safeguarding teams.
Before the sculpture was made, a group of students spent time with a professional blacksmith to learn how surrendered knives would be melted down and reshaped. The force names the partners as:
- Warwickshire Police
- Warwickshire County Council
- Warwickshire Crimebeat
- the Warwickshire Police and Crime Commissioner
- Forge Hope
- O&Co. Blacksmiths
The school’s own Cut the Cycle page shows how the design was chosen. Students across the Transforming Lives Educational Trust, which runs Ashlawn, Houlton School and the two Henry Hinde schools, were invited to submit a sketch and a short explanation. The brief asked for designs that promote positive change, reflect “hope, unity and resilience”, connect to Rugby, and could realistically be made from surrendered metal. The winner got a £30 voucher and the chance to help the blacksmith make the final piece; two runners-up got £10 vouchers.
The school page says the finished sculpture would be displayed at Ashlawn first and then tour local venues. The appearance at the High Sheriff’s legal service in Warwick is the first stop outside the school that the force has described.
More than a sculpture
The force says the sculpture is one part of a wider campaign. Students have also:
- built a dedicated website
- produced a short film
- run awareness activities
- shared what they learned with pupils at other schools across the borough
Sergeant Guy Mountford of Warwickshire Police said, in comments carried by the BBC on Saturday: “What makes this project so impressive is that it has been driven by students themselves.” He said transforming knives from amnesty bins into “something tangible” gave the students “a lasting legacy and, more importantly, a powerful way of starting conversations about knife crime”.
Rugby schools have form in this programme. Warwickshire Crimebeat’s news page records that a team of four from Rugby High School came second in the National Crimebeat finals in London on 17 March 2026, a project that also began with the Young High Sheriff competition.
Knife offences in Rugby, by the numbers
Police.uk publishes every recorded crime by category and approximate location. For a one-mile radius around Rugby town centre, the “possession of weapons” category, which covers knives and other offensive weapons rather than violence itself, recorded 69 offences in the twelve months from September 2025 to August 2026. The monthly count ranged from one to nine.
The two most recent months, July and August 2026, show one and two offences. Police.uk data for recent months is routinely revised as cases are updated, so those figures are more likely to rise than to stand. The same data set recorded 292 crimes of all types in the same radius in August 2026, of which 110 were violent crime, the largest category.
What it means for you
- Amnesty bins are where this started. Every blade in the sculpture came from a surrender bin. The force’s statement does not say where its bins are, so check Warwickshire Police’s website before setting out with a knife to hand in.
- The sculpture will travel. The school says it will tour local venues after its display at Ashlawn. We will add dates when a venue publishes them.
- Schools can join. The design competition was open across the Transforming Lives trust’s schools, and the force says the students have already presented to other schools in the borough.
Rugby’s other recent youth-focused policing effort is the town centre youth hub, which we covered in September. The council’s listing of what is on for young people over the holidays is on our October half term page.
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