Five fatal stabbings every week despite Labour’s knife-crime ‘crackdown’
Seized knives at New Scotland Yard in London, this May. Police are directing their action plan to ten areas where knife crime is the most serious problem
Richard Ford, Home Correspondent
Fatal stabbings have reached a record level in England and Wales this year, with five people a week being killed with a knife or sharp instrument, according to figures published today.
The surge in fatalities comes despite a drive by the Government and police to reduce attacks involving knives, particularly in large urban areas.
In London alone the number of knife fatalities this year has jumped to 86 - a rise of one quarter on the figure for 2007.
Today’s figures from all except one of the police forces in England and Wales show that fatal stabbings have risen by almost a third since Labour came to power.
James Brokenshire, a Conservative home affairs spokesman who received the figures under freedom of information laws, said: “Knife crime is a scourge which claims too many lives and ruins countless others.
“Yet under Labour it has soared. The Government’s only response is short-term, ad hoc police operations, the results of which they spin and manipulate anyway to try to get a good story.”
He added: “Combating knife crime requires concerted action in the long and short term, not just spin. As well as deploying our police on to the streets as the norm we would introduce an automatic presumption of jail for knife possession. This may be harsh but it is absolutely necessary.”
Overall there have been 277 fatal stabbings in England and Wales so far this year - equivalent to five a week - and an increase of 19 on the total figure for last year. When Labour came to power, fatal stabbings were running at an average rate of 3.8 a week.
Over the past year there have been increases in the number of stabbings in London, Northumbria, West Yorkshire and Lancashire. In Northumbria and West Yorkshire fatal stabbings rose by a half to 15 and in Lancashire they more than trebled to 13.
In spite of the increases, as a proportion of all homicides, deaths caused by a knife or other sharp instrument have remained broadly stable for the past 30 years. Thirty-three per cent of homicides in 1977 were a result of stabbing compared with 35 per cent this year. The proportion peaked at 39 per cent in 1986.
CONTINUED…….Times Online
