The Daily Telegraph

Khan dismissed knife crime fears a week before sword rampage

- By Charles Hymas, Ben Butcher, and Genevieve Holl-allen

SADIQ KHAN played down fears over “gangs running around with machetes” just a week before yesterday’s sword attack in Hainault, north-east London.

Challenged by Susan Hall, his Conservati­ve rival in the London mayoral election, over gangs running rampage at night, the Labour Mayor told her she should “stop watching The Wire – we’re not living in Baltimore, USA, in the noughties”. Although there are no official figures for machete attacks, Office for National Statistics (ONS) data show knife crime in the capital has hit a record high, beating the previous peak in 2019 when there was also a surge in murders.

The ONS reports 14,577 knife crimes were recorded by the Metropolit­an Police last year, equivalent to nearly 40 a day and up more than 20 per cent on the previous 12 months.

It surpassed the 14,552 incidents in 2019, when homicides rose to a 10-year record of 147 recorded deaths, predominan­tly the result of a rise in knife and gang-related violence.

The capital accounted for 29 per cent of all 49,489 knife-related offences in England and Wales last year. The Met Police’s year-on-year increase was the fourth highest of all 43 forces in England and Wales, compared with the City of London (up 88 per cent), Avon and Somerset (up 24 per cent) and South Wales (up 22.5 per cent).

In Redbridge, the borough in which a 14-year-old boy died and four others were injured in yesterday’s sword attack, there was a 15.2 per cent increase in knife crime – just under the city average – but with 409 crimes, the highest rate since 2018.

Nationally, knife crime rose 7.2 per cent to 49,489 offences, just behind the previous record of 51,202 in 2019. It reflects a trend that has been upwards since the empty streets during Covid lockdowns brought knife crime down from its record highs in 2019.

Critics of Mr Khan have linked the upward trend to the decline in the Met’s use of stop and searches, which have fallen by 23 per cent from 177,490 in 2022-23 to 137,035 in 2023-24. This was the lowest number since 2017-18 and the second lowest on record.

It contrasts with the rest of the country, where the use of stop and searches and arrests from them have increased. Until last year, the Met had consistent­ly accounted for the most stop and searches of all police forces, but it has been overtaken by Greater Manchester Police, which performed 22 per cent of stop and searches. Mr Khan has been a sceptic of the stop and search tactic since entering City Hall and pledged to “do all in my power to further cut its use” amid fears that it was disproport­ionately used against ethnic minorities. He said overusing the power undermined public confidence in the police. Others have blamed the demise of neighbourh­ood policing, which was cut savagely in the early to mid 2010s, and which Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commission­er and a pioneer of the approach at his former constabula­ry in Surrey, is trying to revive. Peter Bleksley, a former Met Police detective, said there was not sufficient “patrolling presence of police on the streets” to tackle knife crime, adding: “Neighbourh­ood policing has been decimated in recent years.” A Survation survey for the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) found that more than one in five Londoners – 22 per cent – had been attacked or threatened in the past five years.

Nikita Malik, a CSJ researcher, said: “The public want the police to be more visible and more proactive – conducting stop and search, involved in schools, clubs and communitie­s.”

A spokesman for Mr Khan said: “Sadiq was challengin­g some of the misinforma­tion being spread by some of his opponents about London, including footage of an attack in New York to try and paint a very bleak picture of London. Keeping Londoners safe is Sadiq’s number one priority, and he is investing a record £151 million in this year’s budget for policing and crime prevention and tackling the causes of crime by investing in youth clubs, against a backdrop of massive cuts by the Tory Government.”

 ?? ?? Sadiq Khan has come under fire after yesterday’s attack
Sadiq Khan has come under fire after yesterday’s attack

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