Luther star Idris Elba has made an impassioned plea to halt knife crime in the UK, saying "you're going to kill your future, you're going to kill someone else's future, and it's dumb".
The actor posted the video on his Instagram page after a spate of knife attacks in UK. He also included statistics of knife-related crimes in his native London.
Elba began by saying: "Knife crime is not new. I grew up in the Eighties and there was knife crime back then, between blacks and whites.
"And now it's definitely between young black men in small, tiny communities. And it's affecting everyone, we all look stupid."
He said people carrying knives were "just going to stab your future if you go and stab someone else".
"You become a murderer, you go to prison, you ain't got ****. For what?" he asked. "For some beef that lives within your community. You need to see past that."
Elba also appealed to his fellow entertainers to join him in his bid to stop the knife attacks.
He said: "We have to say something about it as well, entertainers that are out there. There's young people that look up to us, man. We need to just vocalise this. Send a message out saying, 'Put the knives down. It's dumb. It's dumb'.
"We don't need to be killing ourselves. We have so much more we can offer. And you're going to kill your future, you're going to kill someone else's future, and it's dumb.
"Entertainers, do me a favour, man: put out similar videos, let's try and put out something and say that we care for our communities. Stop the knife crime, please."
