FURY OVER ‘VANISHING’ KNIFE CRIMES
Police accused of ‘hiding’ problem
POLICE were last night accused of hiding the true extent of knife crime.
The claim came after a memo – showing that some knife crimes were being omitted from official statistics – was leaked to The Sunday Post.
The document – penned by a senior officer – urged police staff to change the way offences were recorded as the current set up “obscured” the real extent of knife crime.
A police source said the situation had meant some knife offences had “vanished” from figures while campaigners claimed records had been “manipulated”.
KNIFE offences vanished from official figures, a secret Police Scotland memo reveals.
Bosses have now ordered a U-turn in the way crime is recorded – to ensure the public is given a more accurate picture.
In a leaked memo, one of Scotland’s most senior police officers said recording of knife crime “obscured” the “real extent of knife/weapon crime” in the country and ordered it be stopped.
It has led to accusations from campaigners and politicians that crime figures were being manipulated.
Critics are calling for answers as to who ordered the recording system, which gives a false impression as to how safe our streets really are.
According to the Scottish Government, crime is at a 42-year-low. Justice Secretary Michael Matheson recently welcomed the progress Police Scotland has made, praising their “excellent” work to slash crime rates.
But today’s Sunday Post revelations scotch those plaudits.
Police Scotland’s figures show there were 1720 instances of people caught carrying offensive weapons, including knives, in the first half of 2016-17.
But the force’s statistical experts have been omitting some knife crimes from figures presented to the Scottish Government in a policy known as subsuming crimes.
One police source said: “It means where there’s been a crime – for example, an assault where someone was carrying a knife – instead of the crime correctly being recorded as assault with possession of a knife, it would just be recorded as an assault.
“The knife aspect of the crime effectively ‘vanishes’, allowing the police to present a sanitised version of events to politicians and the public.
“But it’s not right. At best it’s manipulative, at worst it could be seen as cold lying to make it look like a better job is being done than is really the case.”
Last night, campaigner John Muir branded the revelation a “disgrace” and proof that knife crime statistics had become a “political football”.
This July will mark the 10th anniversary of his 34-year-old son Damian’s death in an unprovoked and frenzied attack in Greenock, Inverclyde.
Maniac Barry Gavin – who was later jailed for a minimum of 15 years for the attack – had been on bail after committing a string of other savage assaults.
John, who received an MBE in 2015 for his work to tackle knife crime, said: “It’s horrendous to see the figures being manipulated like this.
“Each statistic and record relates to a real person and a family potentially ruined by knives.
“We can’t fix the problem of knife crime unless we know the full extent of it. We need to know why this has been going on and for how long.”
Subsuming was designed to make reporting crime stats simple.
According to Police Scotland, it’s a term “used to record a number of criminal acts as one crime”.
In essence, it was meant to end a situation where various criminal acts committed by one offender could be mistaken for a mini-crimewave committed by various yobs.
An example would be if a criminal tries to steal your car and, on arrest, it is discovered he also has a knife.
While he might face knife and car offences in court, only the more serious charge would be recorded by police.
So the record of the knife crime would simply disappear.
It’s not known when the practice was first adopted but there are claims it has become more prevalent since the creation of Police Scotland.
Former Shadow Justice Secretary Graeme Pearson said he had spent years trying to get to the bottom of how