24 youths in court for carrying knives ... just one is given a jail sentence

More than a third of young people caught with knives are being sent to youth offender panels while most adults are being given suspended sentences or community orders.

The details were released by police after Met Commissioner Sir Ian Blair criticised London's courts for failing to jail those caught with weapons.

He revealed yesterday how in one week, out of 24 young people in court for carrying a knife, only one was jailed. Of 29 adults just eight were jailed, one of them for a day. The Commissioner described how in one week in June police arrested 103 people under the anti-knives initiative Operation Blunt.

Sir Ian then ordered his staff to monitor the individuals as they progressed through the courts system. They found that by 28 July, 53 individuals had been sentenced, 24 of them youths and 29 adults.

The others were awaiting sentence or trial for more serious offences than knife carrying.

Sir Ian said the figures meant 17 per cent - or fewer than one in five - of offenders were being jailed. Today details emerged of the non-custodial sentences handed out by the courts.

A total of 21 young people were referred to a youth offender panel where they are obliged to agree to a tailor-made contract. This can include meeting the victim and giving them a letter of apology or becoming involved in activities such as cleaning graffiti from estates or schools.

Nine adults were given community orders and three adults and two youths received reparation and supervision orders. These ranged from a 12-month reparation order to tagging and a curfew.

Two people, both adults, were fined. Six more adults received suspended sentences and one was given a conditional discharge.

Sir Ian stopped short of saying everyone caught carrying a knife should be jailed because the numbers were "inconceivable."

He also said the figures present an incomplete picture because the most serious cases are probably waiting to be dealt with at crown courts.

But he said: "I am not satisfied at the moment with the figures I have got that the courts are yet taking sufficient account of community concern around knife crime and it is a matter I will be raising with the London Criminal Justice Board."

He added: "I cannot criticise individual magistrates about individual cases because I do not know the facts. But the court needs to take sufficient account of community concerns and so far that is not showing through."

Senior officers have said teenage knife crime has overtaken terrorism as their priority in the capital.

Sir Ian and Mayor Boris Johnson have pledged to do everything they can to stem the tide of knife murders and attacks among young people. Almost 1,500 knives have now been recovered during Operation Blunt searches using portable metal detectors across the city.

Senior officers found that in knife crime hotspots around one in 50 people searched was carrying a weapon.

Officers also warned today that young people caught up in group violence could face a murder charge even if they were not holding a weapon.

Commander Rod Jarman said of 48 violence trials pending at the Old Bailey, eight involve four or more defendants. Two recent trials over the deaths of Kodjo Yenga and Paul Erhahon involved groups of defendants, not all of whom physically took part in the attack. Mr Jarman said a recent Ministry of Justice paper includes proposals to make the investigation of a "group enterprise" even easier.

He said: "Even if you are not the stabber, not the person who strikes out with the fatal blow, we will prosecute you and we will convict you for murder."