Oscar-winning director Richard Attenborough has hit out at the depiction of knife use in the film industry.

The 84-year-old has said the entertainment industry is partly responsible for making weapons such as knives almost an acceptable part of life.

He added that people have become desensitised to weapons being used.

Lord Attenborough played sadistic teenage gangster Pinkie Brown in the 1947 film Brighton Rock, based on Graham Greene's novel.

But he said he abhorred the pornography of violence in modern-day cinema.

He said: "Thirty years ago if Gary Cooper pulled out a gun, the audience would give a sharp intake of breath.

"Now the act of violence with a gun or a knife is the norm and we in the entertainment industry are partly responsible in making the presence of weapons such as knives almost an acceptable commonplace.

"So now knife crime is not thought of as something that is horrific and to be abhorred. It is part of normal existence."