Emergency £10m bid for extra police and tougher search powers to tackle stabbings

POLICE chiefs are drawing up plans to spend £10million on a surge of extra officers to tackle knife crime in target areas across the UK after a crisis meeting with Sajid Javid.

The emergency package will be submitted to the Home Secretary by tomorrow, with approval for the extra funding to be sought from Philip Hammond, the Chancellor.

Mr Javid is also proposing a rule change to make it easier for police to introduce emergency Section 60 stop and searches, enabling them to target suspects without specific grounds over 24 hours in knife-crime hotspots.

Mr Javid appeared to contradict The- resa May’s claim this week that there is “no direct correlation” between crimes and police numbers, when he said: “We have to listen to the police when they talk about resources.”

The moves followed a meeting with police chiefs at seven forces hit by spiralling knife-crime and calls by Sara Thornton, chairman of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, for ministers to show greater leadership to deal with a “national emergency”.

The extra money, if agreed, will pay for extra officers’ time, overtime and the transfer of police to hotspots from neighbouring areas until the end of the year rather than recruiting officers.

The Prime Minister also announced she would be holding two summits to explore “what more we can do as a whole society to tackle this problem”.

The news came as Thames Valley Police launched a murder investigation after the death of a 22-year-old man who was hit by a vehicle and then stabbed several times in Oxford.

A man in his mid-20s was also stabbed to death yesterday in east London. And a 15-year-old boy was arrested after a pupil was stabbed with a pair of scissors at a school in Surrey yesterday.