Priest latest victim of British ‘knife culture’

TRECYNON, Wales — A Church of England vicar has been stabbed to death on the grounds of his church in a village in Wales, an apparent victim of the so-called "knife culture" that has swept Britain in recent months.

Police said Paul Bennett sustained several knife wounds in the March 14 attack outside the 18th-century St. Fagan’s Church in the south Wales village of Trecynon, near Aberdare.

On March 16, a 23-year-old local man, identified as Geraint Evans, was charged with murder. Law enforcement authorities said the stabbing appeared to be the latest in a series of knife slayings that has erupted across the country. Police said Evans lived in a small block of apartments near St. Fagan’s Church and that they had recovered a knife at the scene of the slaying.