50,000 KNIFE CRIMES A YEAR

Epidemic of record street violence sees a terrifying attack occur every 10 minutes

THE true scale of the knife crime epidemic was laid bare yesterday after figures revealed a record 50,000 offences last year.

The number of cases involving a blade rose 6 per cent on 2019, with police recording 50,019 in England and Wales – or 137 a day.

This equates to a knife crime roughly every ten minutes.

The grim milestone was the highest since comparable figures became available in 2011 – marking a 53 per cent increase in a decade. And the true number is thought to be significantly higher, as the figures lack any cases from the Greater Manchester area, which has recently become a knife crime hotbed.

Of the overall knife crime offences in the year ending March 2020, 22,012 (44 per cent) were assaults and 21,961 (44 per cent) were robberies.

The remaining crimes include threats to kill, as well as knifepoint rapes and sexual assaults. Separate figures yesterday also revealed violent crime overall had risen by 6 per cent year-on-year, with one in 63 adults falling victim.

The Crime Survey for England and Wales, which also factors in crimes not recorded by police, logged 1.2million violent incidents. Just under half (48 per cent) caused injury.

The number of murders and manslaughter cases rose by 7 per cent to 695 in the year to March 2020 – but this included the 39 migrants found dead in a shipping container in October 2019.

Curiously, NHS figures show the number of hospital admissions for stabbings fell by 8 per cent to 4,674 in the same period.

The Office for National Statistics explained admissions capture only ‘the most serious offences’, while in the ‘ large majority of knife offences recorded by the police the victim does not require hospital treatment’.

These figures, which cover up to March last year, do not reflect the dip in crime caused by lockdowns. But earlier this month, Boris Johnson said he fears crime could ‘rebound’ as restrictions are lifted.

While the use of other weapons such as shotguns fell, the illegal use of pepper spray surged by 88 per cent.

The CSEW figures also show singletons are three times as likely as married couples to be victims of violent crime.

This is due to the increased likelihood of married couples living in safer suburbs, as well as the average age of each person.

Policing minister Kit Malthouse said: ‘Too many young lives are being needlessly lost.

We are working closely with the police and others to stop this senseless bloodshed, particularly as Covid restrictions are eased over coming months.’

Patrick Green, chief executive of knife crime campaign group the Ben Kinsella Trust, said the figures were ‘horrifying’.

He added: ‘In the last decade, knife crime has grown by over 50 per cent. These figures show that knife crime has become embedded into our society affecting generation after generation... The Government needs to look beyond the quick fix solutions and political shortsightedness that fails to tackle the root causes of knife crime.’

Ben Kinsella, 16, was in Holloway, north London, celebrating the end of his GCSEs in June 2008 when he was stabbed 11 times in a fatal attack.