Stabbing deaths reach highest on record

Campaigners for victims demand tougher sentences and say families fear to let children out after dark

Fatal stabbings have reached the highest level on record, according to figures revealing the scale of Britain’s knife-crime crisis. The number of young people killed by knives increased by nearly 50 per cent last year, Home Office analysis showed. Victims’ campaigners said the numbers were “horrifying” and claimed that parents no longer felt it was safe to allow their children outside after dark.

FATAL stabbings have reached the highest level on record, according to figures revealing the scale of Britain’s knife-crime crisis.

The number of young people killed by knives increased by nearly 50 per cent last year, Home Office analysis showed.

Victims’ campaigners said the numbers were “horrifying” and claimed that parents no longer felt it was safe to allow their children outside after dark.

The figures have been released as police forces across the country struggle to cope with a rising tide of violent crime. Last night police leaders accused ministers of “failing a generation” by cutting the number of officers on the streets.

In the year to March 2018, there were 285 homicides in England and Wales in which the method of killing was by a knife or sharp instrument, the Office for National Statistics said. It was an increase of 73 compared with the previous 12 months, and the highest number for such a period since records began at the end of the Second World War. The previous high was 268 in 2008.

Overall, the murder rate rose by 15 per cent from 606 to 695, the fourth successive year the number has risen.

There were 179 white victims of fatal stabbings, nearly two thirds of the total, while 70, almost a quarter, were black – the highest proportion of black victims ever.

Rises were most pronounced for male victims aged 16 to 24. Convicted killers were most likely to be from the same age group, the figures showed.

Ministers and police have come under sustained pressure to get a grip on serious violence following various high-profile killings.

Last week, Nedim Bilgin, 17, was stabbed to death in a north London street with a so-called “Rambo” knife because he refused to give up his bicycle. His grieving parents later described him as their “wonderful boy”.

Sajid Javid, the Home Secretary, last week announced plans for new knife crime prevention orders that could be imposed on suspects aged 12 or over. Police voiced support for the powers, but critics warned they risked unnecessarily criminalising young people.

Harry Fletcher, director of the Victims’ Rights Campaign, said a lack of action by police and the courts allowed violent criminals to “laugh at the law”.

“These are horrifying figures. People are now really reluctant to let their children out after dark,” he said.

“But quick fixes won’t work. We need to offer these young people an alternative to gang behaviour, and we need the courts to enforce sentences that fit the crime.”