Kettering police handed ball and chain weapon to get it off the streets

Officers from Kettering s police team had a shock when a medieval-style weapon was handed into officers on the beat on Saturday (June 5) by an unknown specialist collector.

Consisting of a heavy spiked globe attached by a chain to a wooden handle, the ball-and-chain flail - also known as a mace and chain - would have been a formidable weapon.

Tweeting from the @KetteringPolice account the officers, more used to knives being surrendered during knife amnesties, pointed out the danger the flail posed to public safety.

They said: "With knife crime a matter of priority for Northamptonshire Police, this item was handed in today to Kettering police, it is not a knife, but definitely more dangerous in the wrong hands.

"Now it will never be in the wrong hands. #matterofpriority #ketteringpolice."

A spokesman for Northants Police said: "The weapon was handed into officers who were on foot patrol.

"It came from an unknown medieval weapons collector who was planning on binning it, which if he did it may well have been collected sold on, and may have ended up in the wrong hands. Now it won’t."

In May, more than two-dozen knives were surrendered to police in Kettering as part of an amnesty day.A total of 25 bladed weapons are no longer on our streets after the day of action in the town centre, following a campaign on social media which urged people to hand them in.

They included folding knives and knives on a keychain, which will now not potentially be used for criminal activity.