Public security

Weapons in schools: 'I used anything I could get'

More children are getting caught carrying knives and makeshift weapons - including rolling pins and beer cans - police in England and Wales say. Here, one woman explains why she took weapons to school as a child.

"I used anything I could get my hands on," says Bali Rodgers, from Dartford in Kent, who had been arrested three times by the age of 11.

"I didn't take knives but used fists and other things," she says.

She recalls using a shiv - a type of improvised blade - to harm other pupils, and put pins in another girl's shoes.

"To think now about [what I did then] frightens the life out of me," she says. "I was in total denial at the time."