600 officers in schools

HUNDREDS of extra police are being sent to schools in London in a bid to stem spiralling knife crime.

Bosses hopes to raise the number of so-called safer schools officers from 420 to 600. The Met Police’s Schoolwatch programme includes supervising children as they walk home. Announcing the move to MPs yesterday, the Met’s deputy assistant commissioner Mark Simmons said the peak time for violence is ‘broadly between 3pm and 6pm’. He also said pupils should be stopped and searched in problem areas of the capital.

Mr Simmons said: ‘We absolutely believe stop and search is an important tool used in the right places, with the right intelligence behind it, and used in the right way.’