A CAMPAIGNER and rapper has spoken out after it was revealed a knife bought in a Southend souvenir shop was used as a murder weapon... after he had personally pleaded with the owner to stop selling them.

Sonny Green approached the owner of Gaiety Bazaar, on Pier Hill, Southend, during a protest march in May 2018, after Fabian Kacica, 19, was stabbed to death by The Forum, Southend.

 

Echo:

On sale - the murder weapon was bought from Gaiety Bazaar

He spoke out yesterday after learning how seven months after the protest a man was killed using a knife bought from the Southend shop.

The 25-year-old told the Echo: “We said that this was going to happen, we knew it was going to happen, and now this is proof his weapons are murdering people on the streets.

“Surely enough is enough now.

“He needs to take all the weapons - and knives and guns off the shelves and stop selling them on the seafront.

“If he doesn’t, more people are going to die.”

In December last year, a machete was obtained by 17-year-old drug dealer, Kieran Hayward, from Gaiety Bazaar and used by him to kill Daniel Saunders, 32, just 24 hours later, in Ipswich.

Hayward was said to have travelled almost two hours from his home in Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk, to Southend, to obtain the foot-long blade.

Gaiety Bazaar has been trading for more than 40 years selling a range of quirky items, from joke toys to sticks of rock.

However, the shop also sells a large range of knives, including hunting knives and flick knives, as well as air rifles and ammunition advertised as “real bullets”.

There are even knife key rings available for as cheap as £3.

Shop owner Adrian Wood told a reporter from the Daily Mail last week he had removed “larger knives and certain items” from sale due to concerns about knife crime generally.

The Echo attempted to contact Mr Wood without success, and visited the store which was closed.