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One of the country’s leading knife manufacturers has welcomed a ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ Leicester (²ÝÁñÊÓƵ) researcher to its headquarters to talk to staff there about her work. 

Leisa Nichols-Drew, Associate Professor in Forensic Biology at ²ÝÁñÊÓƵ has carried out some of the most comprehensive research into the safety of round-tipped knives compared to pointed blades, finding them far less likely to penetrate materials. 

Her work has been widely cited in the media and she has formed an association with Liverpool-based company, Rayware, a leading housewares supplier of some of the UK’s best-known British brands including Viners.  

Viners specialises in cutlery and kitchen knives and currently makes some of the only commercially available round-tipped knives. 

Because her work has shown just how much safer round-tipped knives are, Rayware invited her to meet with staff and discuss her work, as part a special event which featured a knife amnesty, where staff could swap pointed knives for safer round-tipped ones. 

Leisa said: “It was honestly such a good day, I’m so grateful to Rayware for inviting me. I heard of so many positive projects, organisations which are adopting round-tipped, safer knives. 

“And the opportunity to talk to staff and be part of their knife amnesty was a real privilege.” 

Earlier this year, Leisa partnered with yoga teacher Leanne, who was critically injured in July 2024 when she was stabbed during the Southport knife attack that claimed the lives of three children - Alice Aguiar, Bebe King, and Elsie Dot Stancombe.   

Together, they helped launch the Let's Be Blunt campaign, in association with the Ben Kinsella Trust, calling for the widespread adoption of rounded-tip kitchen knives. The event took place at Portcullis House, in Westminster. 

The campaign has drawn on Leisa’s studies, the first of which, in 2020m rigorously compared 300 repeated stabbing motions on everyday clothing such as cotton t-shirts and denim jeans and found a range of round-ended knives did not penetrate the fabrics at all, while sharp-pointed knives did.  

A second set of tests conducted in 2024 looked at the damage caused by a similar range of bladed articles to special forensic simulant materials beneath fabrics. The preliminary findings of the study, which is yet to be published, support the previous peer reviewed work and show a clear connection between the shape of the tip of a blade and resulting clothing damage.  

Leisa has long been involved with efforts to improve knife safety and is member of the Safer Knife Group, a collaboration of experts including a forensic psychiatrist, a trauma surgeon, a former member of the judiciary, the CEO of the knife crime prevention charity, the Ben Kinsella Trust, and Andy Slaughter MP.