The widow of Garry Newlove, who was beaten to death by drunken thugs, has called for an end to glamorising knife crime.

Helen Newlove, 46, watched as her husband was brutally kicked to death outside their home in Cheshire by three youths.

She said: "I don't think we will ever solve the knife crime problem - the best way forward is to stop glamorising it.

"We need to put young offenders in National Service - if they are frustrated and have all this anger, we need to put them into boot camps.

"If not we should have hard labour in prisons. I am having a hard time and so are my daughters who will never have a father to walk them down the aisle."

The mother-of-three spoke ahead of her appearance on the TV programme Disarming Britain, which is examining violent youth crime on the streets of Britain.

Mrs Newlove said it was difficult to meet families who had also lost a loved one.

She said: "It was the same routine in court, the defendants' friends were laughing and joking. Sitting there as an outsider I just thought it was a circus.

"I looked round and saw their laughing faces and thought what is the point in the court system?"

A group of teenage criminals, she said, had told her they thought prisons were too 'soft'.

"I spoke to some young offenders who said that they were frightened to go to prison at first but as soon as they got into the wings it is like being at Butlins," she said.

Mrs Newlove said children should be given a "more graphic" education about violent crime.

"With the stabbings which have happened this week, children don't know what it actually does to people. They think carrying knives is protection but it's not.

"If they saw the injuries that were caused to Garry they would feel the same pain as me.

"It's not just knives and guns, we carry weapons around with us every day - our hands and our feet."

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.