David Beckham has spoken of his personal experience of knife crime as he backed a drive to discourage young people from carrying blades.

The LA Galaxy winger joined fellow senior England football stars Rio Ferdinand and David James at a meeting with Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in support of the Government's "It Doesn't Have To Happen" campaign.

Beckham said a tragedy that shook his life when he was 13 had made him all too aware of the dangers of knives.

He recalled how a friend was stabbed in the back and left paralysed when he intervened in a street fight while on the brink of signing a contract with Leyton Orient.

Beckham said: "No one wants to see the devastation I saw my friend and the family go through.

"It is something that is very important and something that as footballers and people and as a team we can get involved in."

Met Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alf Hitchcock revealed almost 750 people have been stopped and searched every day since a knife crime blitz was launched in June.

Officers have stopped 55,000 people, arrested 2,500 suspects and seized 1,600 knives during operations in 10 hotspots in England and Wales, he said.

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