Rudd orders web firms to delete knife gang videos

SOCIAL media companies will today be told to remove gang videos that lure youngsters into the world of drugs and violence. between 2014-15 and 2016-17, killings where either the victim or suspect were known to be involved in using or dealing drugs rose from 50 to 57 per cent. Miss Rudd will announce a raft of measures to tackle gun and knife crime, which rose more than 20 per cent in the past year. She will promise an Offensive Weapons Bill, which will ban online knife sales to under-18s by making it illegal to deliver them to homes. It will make it illegal to sell acid to under-18s.

Speaking today, she will say: ‘We will take the comprehensive approach necessary to make sure that our sons and daughters are protected and our streets are safe. As a government, we will never stand by while acid is thrown or knives wielded. We must do whatever it takes to tackle this so that no parent has to bury their child.’

The wave of violence has sparked fresh scrutiny of falling police numbers. But Miss Rudd said figures suggested the number of bobbies on the beat and instances of violent crime were not linked.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, she said: ‘In 2008, when knife crime was far greater than in 2013/14, police numbers were close to the highest we’d seen in decades.’