A yoga instructor injured protecting children in the Southport stabbings tragedy is calling for Britons to swap to blunt-ended kitchen blades - to stop more knife crime fatalities. And Leanne Lucas, 36, said she felt inspired to fight for the 'Let's Be Blunt' campaign after meeting the Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Kate.

Ms Lucas was critically injured in the 29 July 2024 attack that claimed the lives of three children - Alice Aguiar, 9, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and Bebe King., 6. She bravely fought off Southport killer Axel Rudakubana and sustained five stab wounds to her spine, head, ribs, lung and shoulder blade.

She has now launched a new campaign calling for a ban on pointed kitchen knives that can be used as weapons, as she described how the attack has affected her.

Ms Lucas said she felt "afraid" in her own kitchen, and has not cooked or used knives "since the summer" because of the fear she has been left with after the attack.

Now she wants to drive a cultural shift in which people swap their traditional pointed-tip blades with blunt-ended knives, which present a much lower risk of causing serious injury.

She explained: "When I'm maybe with friends or family and they're cooking away and we're having a conversation. I've noticed I'm watching what they're doing, rather than listening.

"When this idea about the blunt-tip knives came in I just thought 'this is a no-brainer, I don't understand why our kitchen isn't safer in the first place'."

Ms Lucas said she had read articles, quoting actor Idris Elba and celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, talking up the potential benefits of blunt-tipped knives.

Last year, Ms Lucas arranged the Taylor Swift-themed dance and yoga workshop for children during the summer holidays which was - for still unknown reasons - targeted by the then 17-year-old Rudakubana.

He was later jailed for a minimum of 52 years for the three murders, as well as the attempted murders of Ms Lucas, businessman John Hayes and eight other children who survived their injuries.

As the first anniversary of the attack approaches, Miss Lucas has announced the launch of the Let's Be Blunt campaign.

In addition to selling standard pointed-tip blades, manufacturer Viners has been selling blunt-tip knives since 2020.

Jamie O'Brien, chief executive of The Rayware Group which owns Viners, said: "Knife crime is obviously a very complex issue and a complex societal issue.

"Our product won't change that but what we believe is [that] design can make simple steps to dramatically improve safety, just as with seatbelts or with safety lids on kids' medicines."

Ms Lucas also compared her Let's Be Blunt campaign to previous widespread shifts in public behaviour like the ban on smoking indoors.

"I don't think it's something that would happen overnight," she said.

"There are barriers there - I'm very aware of that.

"But we just want to form that education. We want to bring that awareness to light."

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there were about 50,000 offences involving a sharp instrument in the year ending March 2024.

That is about 4.4% higher than the previous 12-month period, although just under 3% lower than in 2019-20.

"What worries me is we're in this form of epidemic, and we're not seeing it as an epidemic," Ms Lucas told the BBC.

"Knife crime is increasing year on year, and I don't see how we're going to get hold of it if we don't all work together."

Ms Lucas has been invited to a Parliamentary reception on behalf of knife crime charity the Ben Kinsella Trust whose CEO Patrick Green said hearing the voices of people like Leanne is critical.

He added: "It brings two things, it brings passion and determination to tackle knife crime, but it also brings something particularly when talking to young people about lived experience and the authenticity of those messages which cuts through statistics, which explains the horror of knife crime in a way nothing else can".