PARENTS are kitting out their children in uniforms lined with body armour because of fears they will be attacked walking to and from school.

A company based in Essex that markets slash-proof clothes has so far sold blazers and fleeces lined with Kevlar, the material used for military and police protective vests, to about a dozen families.

Parents concerned at the increasing danger posed by street gangs to their children include Andrea Lovell from Dagenham, Essex, who has bought a £130 Kevlar-lined fleece for her son Liam McNeill, 14, as he starts term at the local Jo Richardson community school.

“With everything that’s going on in this country, I thought it would be safer for him to wear it and better for me knowing he was safe,” said Lovell. “There’s been no trouble [at the school] yet, but there’s always a first time. A lot of parents are thinking along the same lines as me.”

Liam will wear the fleece on the 15-minute walk to and from school. Despite being only 14, Liam is 6ft 1in tall and a rugby player, but his mother is worried that even someone as imposing as him may be vulnerable, particularly after dark.

“He has to walk back across the park. People have been raped there and they’ve had vandals. It will give me peace of mind,” she said.

Lovell paid £130 for Liam’s fleece, in regulation school uniform blue, from BladeRunner, based in Romford. “The clothes can be lined so the Kevlar can’t be seen,” said Adrian Davis, one of the company’s directors. “Some parents are genuinely fearful for their children’s safety.”

The move follows a spate of murders of teenagers this year.

Previously, some knife victims have died at or close to their schools. In 2003 Luke Walmsley, 14, was stabbed to death by a 16-year-old pupil in the corridor of his school in North Somercotes, Lincolnshire. Last year Kiyan Prince, 15, a youth team player with Queens Park Rangers football club, was stabbed to death outside his school gates in Edgware, north London. A 17-year-old was convicted of his murder in July.

Under government guidance published in the summer, head teachers and security guards are allowed to search pupils at the school gates without consent.

High-profile security measures are being introduced at some schools. In east London, Mark Perry, a police officer responsible for promoting safety in schools, occasionally sets up a mobile metal-detecting arch at Bethnal Green technology college without warning anyone except the head teacher.

As pupils walk through the arch, other officers keep watch outside for anyone dropping knives. Perry said improved security was one of the factors that had led to a recent fall in the carrying of knives in the area.

Phil Hearne, who was Kiyan Prince’s principal at the London Academy, said that when the school moved into a new building, the introduction of metal-detecting wands and security guards at the entrance had proved helpful deterrents.

Hearne said parents’ decision to buy Kevlar-lined clothes showed “there genuinely is concern about the breakdown of something in society and there is a natural desire to protect your own children”.

Kevlar linings that can be fitted to existing jackets or fleeces are also available. The fabric consists of densely packed threads of an artificial fibre invented in the 1960s. Depending on its thickness, it can protect against anything from a slash to a bullet.

The Kevlar-lined garments for school consist of thin layers designed to be unobtrusive. They are designed to protect against a slash, but would not stop a stab delivered with full strength, let alone a bullet.

They only protect the upper body and would not guard against a stab to the leg similar to that which killed Damilola Tay-lor, the 10-year-old south London schoolboy, in 2000.

Other measures being taken to turn school uniforms into security aids include the possible fitting of satellite trackers so parents can be sure of their children’s whereabouts.

Trutex, which sells more than 1m school uniform items every year, is considering the step after a poll found 44% of parents were worried about the safety of their children.

The devices, which the company, based in Clitheroe, Lancashire, says it is “seriously considering”, would allow parents to follow on a screen at home where their children were. The satellite transmitters could be sewn into waistbands or linings.

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