THE sister of a man stabbed to death in Oxford has criticised the Government for stopping cash designed help cut knife crime in the county.

Karis Daniels, whose 22-year-old brother Blayne Ridgway was killed outside a city centre night- club, said money should be found to tackle knife crime in all cities, including Oxfordshire.

Her family pledged to highlight the dangers of carrying a knife since the former Peers School pupil and father-of-one died in May.

The then Labour government launched its Tackling Knives Action Programme (TKAP) in 2008, and dished out money to 10 police forces – including the Thames Valley.

Initiatives like policing key school routes and sending officers into schools to educate youngsters began in Oxfordshire.

But, in conjunction with the police, the new coalition government has pulled the plug on a new grant to fund anti-knife crime initiatives in Oxfordshire, opting to allocate £50,000 each to Reading and Milton Keynes instead.

Miss Daniels, 24, of Chillingworth Crescent, in Wood Farm, said: “If they haven’t got enough money they should make cuts on certain things, but something like this is serious. They need to spend the money here.

“If you look at the number of knife crimes there are, surely they would be able to see that tackling knife crime is one of many things that keep people safe?”

The 24-year-old said the Government needed to realise the seriousness of knife crime.

She said: “It does not make any difference whether you are in London or Oxfordshire, if you get stabbed and you don’t die, it does not get highlighted that much because you survived.

“It should be highlighted all the time because it’s a serious offence.”

Robin Gardner, tackling knives co-ordinator for Thames Valley, said: “The Home Office decided that the money should go to those two areas.

“Oxfordshire could have done with the money, but when you are going through cutbacks there is going to be winners and losers.”He added: “Many of the initiatives brought in under phases one and two of TKAP have now become part of day-to-day police activity.

“We now have neighbourhood teams regularly patrolling in schools, while the use of stop and search has also been extended throughout the force.”

Between April 2009 and June 2009 there were 210 instances of violent crime in Oxford among 13 to 24-year-olds.

Twenty of those involved the use of a knife.

In the same period this year, there were 139 instances of violent crime in the city among the same age group, six of them involving the use of a knife.

A 16-year-old is due to stand trial later this year charged with murdering Mr Ridgway outside Que Pasa in Oxford on May 8. The youth, who cannot be named, will stand trial at Oxford Crown Court on November 22.