Force action to stop these violent thugs
THIS morning I sat and watched CCTV clips of machete-wielding teenagers terrorising kids on an estate just down the road from my home.
You can tell from the build of the menacing boys in crash helmets that they’re not more than 16 – but with a knife in their hands they are acting as wannabe killers. Which, of course, is exactly what they are. Their victims meanwhile could easily have been my son playing in the park with his mates, or my daughter walking home from school. And there’s nothing unusual about this happening round my way – it’s happening all over Britain. And no one seems to be doing much about it. The number of moped gangs snatching bags and mobile phones has been a scourge on our streets for years now. Yet no one stopped them. Then they started carrying knives. And still no one stopped them from doing that too. According to a newspaper report last month the attackers were throwing away helmets as they made their escape, knowing it meant police were unlikely to give chase in case they caused a crash.
At the weekend this crime epidemic took an even more sinister twist with gangs dousing passers-by with acid out of Fruit Shoot bottles their mums had probably bought for their packed lunches.
A glance at yesterday’s news feeds showed story after story of knife and acid attacks.
All across Britain youngsters are going for a night out with their mates – and ending up in intensive care. Or worse.
In one week alone during April, six people aged between 17 and 48 were killed by knives in London.
Nationwide, knife crime offences in 2016 had risen to 32,448 from 28,427 two years earlier.
Meanwhile acid attacks doubled in the same period.
Now I’m not harping back to some golden era when youngsters did what they were told, respected authority and did their fighting only with their fists. Knives have been a problem on our streets before.
But this time they are back with greater brutality than ever.
And the wave of acid attacks is a whole new horror.
Some experts reckon kids are using acid as their weapon of choice because the penalties for carrying knives have increased. Perhaps – but I doubt the bozos carrying out these attacks are really thinking it through that far.
They like the terror that acid can bring. They like how cheap and simple it is to buy. And they clearly love how easily they are able to get away with their attacks.
For fear of causing death or injury, the police have failed to destroy the moped bandits.
Meanwhile they’re still reluctant to conduct stop and search to look for weapons, for fear of causing upset to people.
And to top it all, the rest of us are too terrified to even ask a teenager to pick up their litter – for fear they may turn on us.
The vast majority of young people are hardworking, law-abiding and contending with a future much tougher than anything you or I faced at their age.
But there is a violent, noisy, feral minority that are roaming – and ruling – our streets. And they must be confronted.
Yet it’s not the lack of law that’s the problem – there is perfectly good legislation to deal with people carrying knives or acid.
It’s a lack of gumption to brutally enforce those laws.
The public simply needs to decide if they are happy to have a police force which takes on the rulebreakers with force.
Or whether we are just happy to keep talking about the problem.
Acid is weapon of choice for teen moped gangs