Knife crime. That’s what happens to other people, right?

‘My daughter was frozen to the spot as the other mugger frisked her’

nife crime. Terrible, isn’t it? A big problem in some communities. Something really should be done about it. That more or less summed up my attitude to knife crime up until Sunday evening.

I had a general awareness but, truthfully, not much interest; it just wasn’t relevant to my world. My community. And then on Sunday evening my 15-year-old daughter was mugged at knifepoint. Not on a edgy housing estate. Not in a dark alley. A stone’s throw from our home, on a road where the Victorian terrace houses sell for seven-figure sums.

She was walking her 16-year-old boyfriend back to the railway station after he’d come round to “meet the parents” over Sunday lunch. He was charming and thoughtful, mature and sweetly attentive to my daughter. After a classic roast and a plum crumble made with frozen fruit from our tree, they listened to some music and then it was time for him to go home.

They left the house holding hands, talking about the week ahead. They took the usual route, passing through tree-lined residential streets, when two bigger, older lads, reeking of weed and menace, stopped them in their tracks.

The muggers skilfully separated them. The first clamped his arm around the boyfriend’s shoulder and walked him off.

He turned round to check my daughter was all right and tried to shrug the mugger’s hand off. With terrifying swiftness, his assailant pulled out a nine-inch serrated hunting knife and pressed it against his stomach by way of warning.

My daughter’s boyfriend immediately surrendered his new phone. Meanwhile, my daughter was so frozen to the spot she couldn’t speak.

The other mugger frisked her to find her phone. Fortunately it was in the pocket of her hoodie: easy to find. I shudder to think what might have happened if she had stuffed it deep into her jeans pocket.

Her mugger seemed detached, almost bored, she told us later. He asked if she had any money. She shook her head. His facial expression didn’t change. OK, he responded.

The first mugger released the boyfriend and ordered him and my daughter to walk down back the road and take the first turning on the right.

They were told not to stop or they would be knifed. Not to look around or they would be knifed.

Five minutes later they were at our front door. Shaken. Pale. Appalled.

We telephoned the police. Then my daughter’s boyfriend called his parents, who said they would come and collect him.

Before the conversation was over, the police had arrived. Just two minutes had elapsed; they had been very close. The two officers interviewed our teenagers, radioing details to their colleagues who were already driving around the area looking for the muggers. The officers were superb; thorough, sympathetic and they took the incident very seriously indeed.

In person and the next day on email, they commended our kids for their calm response to the attack; handing over the phone is always the safest, best possible option.

But they were also honest about the vanishingly remote chance of catching the perpetrators. The phones had been switched off so they couldn’t be traced. Within hours they would be wiped of all their data and most probably have been sent abroad to be sold.

After they left, a calm descended. And then a fear gripped me as I obsessively ruminated about all the possible scenarios: what could have happened if they’d tried to run for it or if the knifeman had simply stabbed them just because he could?

Was my daughter lucky to have survived unscathed or unlucky to have been attacked? What could I have done if I had been there? I’m not sure I would be much of a deterrent to skunk-smoking muggers.

Earlier this week a US study of more than 1,000 psychiatric patients showed that cannabis use isn’t just linked to violence, but is a cause.

The researchers concluded that the link between cannabis and violence was not two-way but “uni-directional” and, contrary to claims that violent people were drawn to use cannabis, they found “it was cannabis use that predicted future violent behaviour”.

Weed is the drug of choice and in towns and cities the length and breadth of Britain knives are the weapon of choice. Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that last year 32,448 knife crimes were recorded – an increase of 14 per cent on the previous year. The figure for London rose by 24 per cent.

Pick a city, any city. A passer-by stabbed in the leg at random, a passenger wielding a meat cleaver on a bus, a park-goer slashed with a scalpel; all in a single month in Northampton.

In Southampton, police have instigated another knife amnesty. Last year among the weapons handed in were a Wolverine-style claw, axes, kitchen blades and a ninja throwing star. Every day three people are killed or seriously injured by knives in London; last year, 60 people were fatally wounded. So far 2017 has seen 24 people under the age of 25 stabbed to death.

Youths in gangs carry knives routinely. Others arm themselves for self-defence or to threaten and mug young people just like my daughter and her boyfriend.

With a knife the pettiest of arguments can easily escalate to become a violent assault. A minor altercation quickly then becomes a severed artery.

Any one of us, any one of our children, can fall victim. It is terrifying. And I feel ashamed that until my own daughter was mugged I didn’t really register the level of threat and danger.

A few days on she seems fine, if wary; happy to walk around the streets alone. I, of course, am less happy about letting her. But I have no choice.

There was no loss of life. No loss of limb. But as a family we have been robbed of a lot more than a phone.

No insurance policy can replace my peace of mind.