Rishi driven by daughters to blitz crime
RISHI Sunak wants more criminals caught and jailed as he revealed fears for his daughters’ safety.
The Prime Minister spoke of his horror at the case of nine-yearold Olivia Pratt-Korbel, who was gunned down in her home in Liverpool in the summer.
Mr Sunak said: “I want to reduce crime. And that means I want to make sure that we catch criminals.
“A logical consequence of catching more criminals is going to be part of that, which is why we’re building 10,000 more prison places over the next few years.”
Mr Sunak and wife Akshata Murty have two daughters, Krishna, 11, and Anoushka, 10. They have moved back into the smaller flat above No10, where the family lived when he was Chancellor.
Hopes his eldest could walk on her own to school in the last term of primary were frustrated for “lots of other reasons”.
He said: “That brings it home to you as a parent and again over the summer the awful things that we read about with the young girl Olivia, which we’ll all remember.
“I want to make sure that my kids and everyone else can walk around safely. That’s what any parent wants for their children.
“So tackling that and making it safer for people is something that’s just personally quite important to me.”
The Prime Minister insisted tackling crime was part of his mission to level up the country.
Another 5,000 new police officers will be recruited under the plan to reach 20,000 and forces will be given “the powers they need to do their job”.
Mr Sunak said the Government was “making good progress” on crime, with robbery and burglary figures falling.