Boy, 15, arrested after six acid attacks in shopping centre

Legislation could stem the increase in this type of violence before it becomes a real epidemic

♦ A 15-year-old boy has been arrested following a suspected acid attack in which a noxious substance was thrown on six victims at the Stratford Centre in east London.

Three of the victims needed hospital treatment after they were hit with the substance during an “altercation” between two groups of males at the busy shopping arcade.

Onlookers reported scenes of panic in the aftermath of the incident, which was first feared to be a series of random attacks. One witness described seeing a young man screaming in pain as his friends shouted “it is an acid attack, he is burning”, while others rushed to wash the substance from their skin.

A 15-year-old boy has been arrested on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm in connection with the incident. Scotland Yard said the altercation took place inside the shopping centre shortly before 8pm.

When I walked the beat as a police officer in south London, up until a little over a year ago, the violent or fearful might reach for the kitchen drawer on their way out of the house. They might stash a steak knife in their waistband, or in the pocket of their car door.

Today, an increasing number are instead topping up their drinks bottles with corrosive chemicals. An innocuous bottle of Lucozade or Coke, when filled with drain cleaner, can quickly become the weapon of choice.

This weekend another suspected acid attack took place in east London, with six victims. The backdrop was not a long-forgotten, urine-soaked stairwell in a council block, but a shiny monument to capitalism: it happened by Westfield in Stratford. The enormous shopping centre stands among a sea of disadvantage, deprivation and one of the most diverse populations in London, if not the world. It’s in a borough defined by multiculturalism and increasingly by the growing proliferation of the acid attack.

This is a phenomenon more commonly seen overseas. Just as we Brits have adopted foreign food as though it were our own, so some of those intent on violence and intimidation in Britain have adopted acid throwing. It has a notoriety, thanks to the horrific impact on victims, that can make it all too appealing.

Acid is easy to obtain, easy to transport and easy to hide – any branded drinks bottle will do. The risk of being caught – which we know deters more than any sentence – is lower. It is better than a knife in that you can use it from a distance – and, like the submachine guns that wannabe gangsters dream of, you can “spray it and pray”.

British law simply hasn’t kept pace with this mostly, but not exclusively, cultural import. If you are caught with a knife in public, police and prosecutors don’t have to prove an intent to use it as a weapon for you to face a criminal sanction. Not so with acid. If you are caught in possession of an illegal firearm, you face a minimum of five years in prison. Not so with acid.

It’s time – as Stephen Timms MP has said – for legislation to be brought up to date to tackle the acid throwers, to deter them, to disrupt them and to prevent the misery being inflicted on their victims.

Tightening up regulations on the purchase and sale of acid and other corrosive substances would help reduce supply and stem alarming contagion. What’s more, we need a renewed focus on proactive and preventative policing methods to tackle crime, including acid attacks.

It is good to hear London’s police cars are being equipped with kits to help reduce the extent of injury. But the odds of perpetrators being stopped and searched in London have fallen dramatically, reflecting a shift in emphasis from proactively preventing crime to reacting only after it has happened.

It is a passive approach to policing, fuelling a sense of lawlessness FOLLOW Rory Geoghegan on Twitter @Rorygeo; READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion and contributing to vigilante-style retaliations.

If we are serious about tackling the acid attack phenomenon before it really does become an epidemic, the Government will need to act soon. It requires legislation – making the carrying of a corrosive substance without reasonable excuse an offence and introducing exemplary sentencing for those caught with such items.

But we must go further still. Beneath all the talk of knife crime, gun crime or acid attacks is the fact that this and future governments must do more to tackle the violence and lawlessness that particularly affects the poorest and youngest.

It may be too easy to point the finger at cuts to police budgets or the enormous reductions in stop and search, but something is driving the rise in knife, gun and acid attack crimes. And the fact that the victims and perpetrators of violence are disproportionately drawn from the poorest in society makes tackling the disease of violence – whatever form it takes – a social justice issue.

Rory Geoghegan is a former police officer who is head of criminal justice at the Centre for Social Justice