MORE than 2,000 flick knives, samurai swords and various other lethal bladed weapons were surrendered in Hertfordshire during this year's national knife amnesty.

Police collected 553 in the Western Area - which takes in Watford, Three Rivers and Dacorum.

This included 192 in Watford, 23 in Rickmansworth and seven in north Watford.

Manager of the County Community Safety Unit, Roy Aldwin, said: "This amnesty has been a tremendous success and every one of the 2,198 weapons handed in will now never be used to injure someone or be used in a crime.

"We appealed to the conscience of everyone who has access to bladed weapons. We asked them to surrender them for destruction and this plea seems to have had a profound effect. We have had a large number of weapons handed in and raised awareness of the terrible consequences of using bladed weapons."

During the amnesty - which ran from May 24 to June 30 - people were asked to surrender their weapons. Anyone carrying a knife during the amnesty was protected against prosecution for possession of an offensive weapon' provided that they were taking it directly to a police station for destruction.

Mr Aldwin added: "Over the next few months we will be concentrating on education and enforcement in a bid to remove knives from the streets and warn youths about the dangers of carrying knives.

"If you carry a knife out of self-defence, you run the risk of having it turned on you. Carrying a knife is illegal and will not be tolerated. It could land you a lengthy prison sentence. The message is simple a knife in someone's hand could possibly be a life in someone's hand, so don't carry a knife."

As well as a selection of domestic and non domestic knives, police collected some more unusual items during the amnesty including cavalry swords, samurai swords, fantasy knives and flick knives. People also handed in weapons that are not classed as knives, such as a knuckle duster and baseball bat.