POLICE in North Flintshire are taking a zero tolerance approach to people carrying knives in public.

Knife crime is a ‘UK wide issue’ and recently North Wales Police launched Operation Branding to crackdown on those carrying offensive weapons.

Now, after reports of a small number of people could be carrying knives in the North Flintshire area that includes Deeside and Flint, Support Sergeant Matt Subacchi said officers were working to make sure knives weren't being carried on our streets.

He said: "We take knives very seriously. We don't want to have to tell a mother that her son has been stabbed. We want to prevent someone picking up a knife and thinking that it is ok to carry it out in pubic. We want them to know that they are taking a huge risk. They are putting themselves in an unsafe position and police will have zero tolerance.

He added: "Operation Branding has been going for a while and is not specific to North Flintshire, but we want people here to know that our stance on people carrying knives is that if you do carry a knife we will take positive action."

Knives don't have to be carried openly for the person to be committing an offence. They could be in their pocket or carried in a bag.

Sgt Subacchi said: "If we get intelligence that any individual is carrying a knife, we will pro-actively target those individuals. We will go out to specifically find those individuals we suspect to be carrying weapons and will push for real positive action to be taken against them."

"We will prioritise information that comes from the public, and we will actively look for that person and use our search powers to see if that information is correct."

"It's a serious crime to commit that can potentially lead to serious injury and serious consequences.