THE family of Danny Fox want St Helens to be the flagship for an education programme on knife crime.

Dawn Jones, Danny’s auntie, gave an update to St Helen’s Council’s safer communities overview and scrutiny panel on the family’s #No More Knives campaign, which launched last December.

She said the education programme is at the “forefront” of everything the family want to do, and said it is important to educate children before they reach high school.

Mrs Jones revealed that she and other members of Danny’s family have been invited to the Ben Kinsella exhibition in London, with a view of “replicating” the programme in St Helens.

The interactive exhibition, which was set up by the family of murdered 16-year-old Ben Kinsella, educates young people about the consequences of carrying a knife.

She said: “The biggest thing we want to do is work in partnership with St Helens Council to aspire to do an education programme similar to The Ben Kinsella exhibition in London.

“We’re going to go down to London, see the exhibition and see what it’s all about, see what the education programme is down there and hopefully replicate that and bring it up to St Helens, and St Helens be the flagship for this exhibition.

“And this is to educate young people and adults from school age up to higher education to come to the exhibition and see what it’s all about, see the consequences not just to the victims but the families and the friends as well because this has devastated not only us,  but Daniel’s friends and the community.”

Danny died aged 29 when he suffered a stab wound in St Helens town centre in September 2016.

Leighton Holt, 21, of Stockbridge Vilage, claimed to have acted in self-defence and stood trial accused of his murder.

However, juries in the trial and subsequent retrial failed to reach a verdict and Holt was formally discharged with the judge ordering a verdict of not guilty.

Mrs Jones told councillors the family have been “overwhelmed” with support for its #No More Knives campaign since it launched in September.

“This is what people want, they’ve said enough’s enough,” she said.

She said that one of the other long-term aims the family want to achieve is to help make St Helens town centre a safer place.

Mrs Jones said: “We recognise that the economy of St Helens has dropped, and we want to make it safe to bring that economy back up again.

“We want people to be proud of St Helens, not to be frightened of coming here.

“We want to get rid of that fear and we want to get people back into St Helens.”