PM: KNIFE CRIME NOW A DISEASE

As hooded thug stabs four at random and 10 others knifed in just five days, May reveals radical rethink

KNIFE crime must be treated like an infectious disease killing our children, Theresa May and Sajid Javid say today.

Unveiling a radical shift in policy, the Prime Minister and Home Secretary will hand hospitals, schools and social services a legal duty to protect youngsters.

Casualty staff and GPs will be obliged to flag up knife wounds or other suspicious injuries so children can be referred to ‘violence reduction units’. Mentoring and education will be used to stop them being dragged into crime and the gang culture.

Teachers and social workers will also be obliged to report danger signs such as truancy and serious misbehaviour. The aim is to intervene ‘long before’ young people ever pick up a weapon.

The move comes amid intense public concern over knife crime. Ten separate stabbing incidents have been reported in the past few days, including one in which a hooded attacker knifed four victims at random during a 12-hour rampage in London.

Today, the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary will host a major Downing Street youth violence summit with experts, police chiefs and victims’ families.

In a joint article for the Mail, they say that the loss of lives is horrific, senseless and

destructive. ‘This cannot be allowed to continue,’ they write. ‘We must and will use every tool and tactic at our disposal to deter young people from carrying knives. We must treat the threat which knives pose to our society like a disease.’

The new ‘public health’ approach will see Mr Javid launch a consultation today that would impose legal duties on public bodies such as schools and hospitals. It would be very similar to the system in Glasgow, formerly the knife crime capital of Europe, where stab wounds have halved in 12 years.

It also mirrors the anti-terrorism Prevent strategy, set up in 2006, which is used to identify youngsters at risk of being sucked into extremism.

Under the Glasgow model, gang members and those at risk of joining