Recently, in a courtroom in Aberystwyth, a local teenager was found guilty of being in possession of a lock knife on the town’s promenade in mid February.

The 18-year-old was fined £1,000 by magistrates and ordered to pay costs of £85 as well as the standard’s victim surcharge of £34. Hopefully it is a lesson the young man will remember for the rest of his life. He should consider himself luck to be spared jail.

It is not normally the remit of this newspaper to pass editorial comment on those who appear before our courts, but the nature of the stiff fine handed down to this defendant warrants an exception.

The imposition of a £1,000 fine is certainly to be welcomed, so too the other surcharges and financial penalties that must be paid by this defendant.

There is no reason why anyone should carry a knife on the streets of our communities, and those who do — as Aberystwyth magistrates have correctly considered — need to face similarly stiff fines and incarceration when appropriate.

Police in England and Wales have had to deal with 221 murders involving knives or sharp instruments in the 12 months ending last March. Similarly, our police forces have had to deal with more than 46,000 knife-crime events over that time.

Over the past year, there has been a 29 per cent increase in knife crime in England and Wales comparing this to last year.

There are too many families who are mourning too many loved ones who have been stabbed to death by teens who turn to knives — just as there are many families now forever broken by having young family members behind bars for long stretches for their impulse in using a knife.

Across the UK, 28 per cent of those who use knives are jailed, while Dyfed-Powys records a 30 per cent imprisonment rate. Before the pandemic hit, 37 per cent of knife crimes resulted in prison sentences here.

There are campaigners who work hard to educate young people on the dangers of carrying knives, reaching our through schools and youth groups and across social media platforms.

Sadly, there are those who fail to get the message. Until such a time as the sentences passed down by our magistrates get through to these elements, knives and those who carry them will be amongst us.