Murders soar in London

THE capital is in the grip of a murder epidemic with a 44 per cent surge in killings over the last year.

Scotland Yard pledged to put hundreds more officers on the beat as it published new crime stats yesterday showing a big spike in knife crime, violence and muggings.

Figures released by the Metropolitan Police for the 12 months to the end of March this year show that the number of murders and manslaughters has shot up by 44 per cent. There were 157 killings in the last 12 months, including eight deaths in London’s terror attacks, compared with 109 in the previous year.

Knife crime offences are also up 21 per cent and violent robberies have risen by 36 per cent to 30,609 – or 3 a day, with many of those carried out by moped gangs.

There was also a rise in the number of sexual offences, up 11 per cent, with the number of reported rapes increasing by 1 per cent.