Soaring murder rate due to ‘feral youths wielding zombie knives’

LONDON’S murder rate is soaring because “feral” youths are stabbing people multiple times with “zombie knives”, making it virtually impossible for paramedics to save them, one of Scotland Yard’s most senior officers has said.

Martin Hewitt, Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, said the level of violence had become much worse over the past five years, with his officers now routinely administering “trauma medicine” on the streets of the capital.

Speaking at a knife crime summit, organised by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, Mr Hewitt said the trend towards using so-called zombie knives was making doctors’ jobs more difficult because of the seriousness of the wounds being inflicted.

He said: “The violence is getting greater. If I was stood here five years ago, I would probably be talking about knife offences where there was generally a single puncture wound. We are now routinely seeing multiple stabbings. That is one individual who stabs somebody multiple times.

“And increasingly seeing group offending as well. By that I don’t mean there’s a group and one person is stabbing, I mean there’s a group of people who are all using weapons.

“Some of the CCTV footage that we see is shocking and quite frankly feral when you look at a group of individuals bearing down on another person.” Mr Hewitt added: “You will have all spotted the other trend change, which is the nature of the weapons being used. These so-called zombie knives, hunting knives and machetes. We have all seen the imagery which, quite frankly, is shocking and horrific.”

There have been almost 80 murders in the capital this year, with more than half of them involving knives.

Highlighting the murder of 15-yearold Jordan Douherty, who was stabbed in Romford, east London, on Saturday night, Mr Hewitt said police were often met with a wall of silence when investigating the crimes.

He said: “The murder that took place over the weekend in Romford was outside a party where there were very many people, none of whom saw anything they were prepared to talk to the police about.”

Mr Hewitt said while knife crime had increased across the country, it was the nature of the capital’s attacks that was driving the murder rate up.

He explained: “I have large numbers of officers all over London who are routinely administering what you would call ‘trauma medicine’ on the streets to people who have been stabbed.

“But the more violent the offences, the more chance there is that somebody is going to receive a fatal wound and I think that is part of why we have ended up where we are with the murder rate.”