Stabbings of children soar in knife crime ‘emergency’

Number treated in hospital up 93 per cent amid calls for more police resources and action on county lines

THE number of children arriving at hospitals with stab wounds has soared by 93 per cent in five years, according to a new investigation.

As two more families suffer the consequences of an escalating crisis, researchers found that the number of children being convicted of knife crime offences was rising rapidly.

Knife crime was also found to be twice as high outside London as it is in the capital, according to analysis by Channel 4’s Dispatches programme. The findings chime with warnings of a “national emergency”.

Yesterday, a man in his 30s was arrested in connection with two stabbings in central London, while Tam Dean Burn, the Scottish actor, revealed he was recovering at home after being stabbed in a street in Edinburgh after speaking at an event. A 42-year-old man was arrested in connection with the latter incident.

Lord Hogan-howe, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner who fronted the latest investigation, warned that more resources needed to be ploughed into less affluent areas and attention focused on the exploitation of children by adult drug dealers.

“We need to increase police numbers in these areas and reduce the drug supply into the UK and its distribution, including by county lines,” he said. “Something law enforcement and government have failed to do.”

New analysis of NHS data revealed a 93 per cent rise in the number of children aged 16 and under being treated for assault by a knife or other sharp object over five years, increasing from 180 in 2012-13 to 347 in 2017-18.

Freedom of Information requests sent to police forces in England and Wales also provided fresh insight into the rising number of children involved.

Since 2016, the number of people aged under 18 found to have committed murder or manslaughter rose by 77 per cent, according to the responses.

The number of young offenders who committed rape or sexual assault using a knife rose 38 per cent and the number of teenagers linked to robbery offences with a knife by more than 50 per cent.

Two thirds of knife-related injuries treated in hospitals were outside London, a figure that will come as little surprise to many people living in cities such as Manchester and Birmingham, which have witnessed an explosion of violence.

David Jamieson, the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, last week described the spate of stabbings in Birmingham and the capital as a “national emergency”, after three teenagers died in Britain’s second city in a fortnight.

Birmingham has seen 97 stabbings since the start of this year.

Despite the fact that 2018 was the capital’s bloodiest year for a decade,

‘One of the big challenges is the reality that for too many young people carrying a knife now feels normal’

Birmingham’s murder rate per capita was even higher during the six months between April and September.

Nick Hurd, the minister for policing, tells tonight’s Dispatches: “This is a massive challenge for our policing system and therefore a big priority for me, as policing minister, to make sure that our police system has the resources to invest in upgrading our technology.

“One of the big challenges underpinning [this] is the reality that for too many young people, particularly in our big cities, carrying a knife now feels normal.”

He said an extra £460 million of public money was being ploughed into the police system, funding the recruitment of at least another 2,500 police officers.

Lord Hogan-howe has called for a knife-crime tsar to help tackle the epidemic. It follows the fatal stabbings of two 17-year-olds, Jodie Chesney and Yousef Makki, in separate incidents in London and Manchester.