A blunt instrument

SIR – In his valedictory address, Judge Nic Madge has called for kitchen knives to be ground down to remove the points (report, May 28).

He is clearly not a cook, since a knife without a point is, well, pointless. More worrying, however, is his suggestion that the way to tackle knife crime is to introduce a law that renders kitchen knives useless for the law-abiding population.

What needs to be addressed is inner-city gang culture. Banning pointed knives will not achieve this.

Dr Paul Turnbull

Alverstoke, Hampshire

SIR – In her criticism of the idea of selling knives without points, Xanthe Clay (Comment, May 29) has missed a lesson from history – naval history.

It’s said that one captain became so sick of his sailors attacking each other with their knives (vital tools for every sailor) that he took one such knife, stuck it in the mast and snapped the point off. This practice was adopted among crewmen worldwide, and led to the Royal Navy’s standard issue – a clasp knife with a blunted tip. (I still have mine.)

Surely minor inconvenience in the kitchen is a price worth paying to make lethal stabbing weapons less easy to acquire?

Rob White

London N3