40 Youths have died from knife attacks this year …the most since 2008

BY Crime Editor

THE death of Ava White puts 2021 on course to be the worst year for fatal youth stabbings since 2008, figures compiled by the Daily Mirror reveal.

Ava, 12, was the 40th. If killings continue at the current rate, 2021 will top the 42 seen in 2008.

Yvonne Lawson, whose son Godwin, 17, was killed in Stamford Hill, North East London, in 2010, said the Government and communities need to take action.

She is due to collect an MBE next week for her work as CEO of the Godwin Lawson Foundation.

Yvonne said of our findings: “It’s disgraceful. It’s another premature death, another grieving family.

“What are we going to do to solve this problem? I really think we all have a role to play.”

Patrick Green, CEO of anti-knife crime charity, The Ben Kinsella Trust, said the Mirror figures reflect other crime statistics that show the problem is back to the levels of 2008, when Ben, 16, was murdered in Islington, North London.

Mr Green said: “We have to ask ourselves what was done in those 13 years to really address the root causes of knife crime.”

After a peak of 48 killings in 2007, the number of under-20s stabbed to death in England and Wales fell to 24 in 2013 only to rise to 39 in 2018 then 37 in 2018 and 35 in 2019.

Mr Green said the fall after 2011 may have been due to increased funding for urban areas following riots that spread from London that year. This tailed off in around 2014 when Tory austerity kicked in.

Police officer numbers also fell by 20,000 between 2010 and 2017.

Mr Green said the pandemic meant many vulnerable young people had missed the support of school and youth services. He said: “This has created a vacuum that the gangs have filled.”

Birmingham has a high rate of youth blade killings, with four victims this year. Among them were Dea-john Reid, 14, and Keon Lincoln, 15.

But West Midlands Police has axed the Safer Schools Partnership – a scheme introduced by Labour

PROBE in 2002 to tackle youth violence by assigning police officers to schools.

It was a national policy until the Tories stopped it in 2010.

Of the 40 killed so far this year, 25 were in London and the majority from BME backgrounds living in areas with high levels of poverty. All apart from Ava were male. She was murdered the day after Rishmeet Singh was stabbed to death in Hounslow, West London.

Six days earlier Jermaine Cools, 14, was fatally knifed close to West Croydon train station.

The National Police Chiefs’ Council said: “Earlier this month, police in England and Wales and the British Transport Police took part in the latest Operation Sceptre week – a regular police operation to crack down on knife crime.”

@tpettifor VOICE OF THE MIRROR: PAGE 10 Tell us what you think by emailing yourvoice@mirror.co.uk.

24 32 September 9: Rhamero West, 16, Old Trafford, Manchester 39 40

31 22 June 10: Denardo Samuels-brooks, 17, Streatham, South London

27 37 October 28: Kamran Khalid, 18, Ilford, East London

14 15 April 16: Joshua Hall, 17, Dursley, Gloucestershire 18 May 1: Delarno Samuels, 17, Birmingham

June 12: Benjamin Orton, 17, Swadlincote, Derbyshire November 25: Ava White, Liverpool city centre

9 March 3: Tai O’donnell, 19, Croydon, South London April 26: Abubakkar ‘Junior’ Jah, 18, stabbed & shot, East London

5 Feb 19. Drekwon Feb 26: Ahmed Beker, 19, Patterson, 16, Wembley, Paddington, North West North West London London

12 March 17: Hussain Chaudhry, 18, Walthamstow, East London

38 November 24: Rishmeet Singh, 16, Hounslow, West London

Jan 25: Romario Opia, 15, Archway, North London Feb 11: Hani Solomon, 18, Parsons Green, South West London

13 April 10: Levi Ernest-morrison, 17, Sydenham, South London

35 & 36 October 24: Charlie Preston and Frankie Gater, both 16, Brentwood, Essex

March 8: Nikolay Vandev, 19, Tottenham, North London

August 5: Dylan Holliday, 16, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire

34 October 12: Hazrat Wali, 18, Twickenham, South West London

28 July 5: Keane Flynn-harling, 16, Vauxhall, South London

November 18: Jermaine Cools, 14, West Croydon, South London

25 June 25: Tashawn Watt, 19, Sydenham, South London

33 October 10: Kian Tordoff, 19, Bradford, West Yorkshire

29 July 9: Damarie Omare Roye, 16, Thornton Heath, South London

10 March 6: Mazaza Owusu-mensah, 18, Abbey Wood, South East London

3 Jan 21: Keon Lincoln, 15, stabbed and shot, Handsworth, Birmingham

April 23: Fares Maatou, 14, Canning Town, East London

2 Jan 20: Anas Mezenner, 17, Tottenham, North London

21 May 31 Dea-john Reid, 14, Kingstanding, Birmingham

30 August 1: Stelios Averkiou, 16, Tottenham, North London

July 5: Tamim Ian Habimana, 15, Woolwich, South East London

20 May 25: Rayon Pennycook, 16, Corby, Northamptonshire

23 June 11: Jalan Woods-bell, 15, Hayes, West London

1 Jan 3: Oliver Stephens, 13, Reading

8 Feb 26: Luke Bellfield, 18, Leigh-on-sea, Essex

19 May 7: Daniel Laskos, 16, Harold Wood, Romford

26 July 1: Camron Smith, 16, Croydon, South London

11 March 7: Jack Barry, 19, Hamstead, Birmingham

Police where Ava was knifed

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