CHILLING REALITY OF WILD WEST UK

New figures reveal violent crime up 50% in parts of Britain Two elderly women’s necks broken in vicious attacks And one image of a machete thug sums up ...

STRIKING fear into his victims, this machetewielding masked raider personifies Britain’s violent crimewave.

The swaggering criminal forced staff at a shop in Bury to hand over the takings before fleeing with an accomplice. The shocking image emerged last night as official figures revealed that violent crime is up in 42 of 43 police force areas – in some by more than 50 per cent.

As calls were made for ministers and police chiefs to get a grip:

Two elderly women suffered broken necks, one later dying

after being attacked in Derby and Birmingham, it emerged yesterday;

The mother of an Ipswich teenager who was stabbed to death said: ‘The violence has got to stop’;

An Australian TV presenter had a £15,000 camera ripped from her hands by a moped gang in London;

Home Office data showed nearly nine in ten violent crimes went unsolved.

The crime wave was brought into sharp focus on Tuesday by a series of moped raids across London.

These muggings followed a string of other shocking incidents in the capital, which has seen more than 70 killings this year already. And yesterday analysis of regional ONS figures suggested the crime wave is now a national issue.

Greater Manchester Police and South Yorkshire saw violence go up by 53 and 57 per cent respectively. But the biggest surge – of 58 per cent – was in Durham.

A record 1.3million offences of violence against the person were logged last year, the highest number since records began 15 years ago and up 1 per cent on the previous 1 months.

Yet separate figures from the Home Office show that detection rates have plummeted. Only 13 per cent of offences of violence last year were solved – compared with 3 per cent in 014.

Just over one in eight robbers were caught compared with 19 per cent in

014. And in the 1 months to last September, 78 per cent of burglary investigations were closed without a suspect being identified.

Yesterday Scotland Yard published figures showing that only one in ten knife robberies, and fewer than a quarter of violent crimes involving a bladed weapon, were solved last year.

Louise Haigh, Labour crime spokesman, said: ‘Threatened by overwhelming demand and shorn of the numbers they need to keep communities safe, the police have reached a tipping point where tackling surging levels of serious crime is becoming almost unmanageable. The Government must act to end the crisis they have created.’

Yvette Cooper, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons home affairs committee, said: ‘We need urgent action before it gets worse.’

A Home Office spokesman insisted the challenges ‘had been reflected in the most recent police funding settlement’.