A knife attack every 4 minutes; 130,000 per year - but ministers still insist crime rates are falling

More than 350 people are the victim of knife assaults every day in England and Wales, the latest crime figures have revealed.

Last night a teenager in Lambeth, London, became the latest victim of the stabbing epidemic, dying in hospital after a frenzied attack.

Almost 130,000 attacks involved knives last year  -  equivalent to one every four minutes  -  according to the annual British Crime Survey.

This figure does not include the tens of thousands of assaults against under-16s. However, unlike the police records published yesterday, it does include crimes which are not reported to the authorities.

The police data revealed 22,000 serious knife assaults  -  including 231 attempted murders  -  were reported to the police last year.

There were also almost 14,000 reported robberies and more than 8,000 woundings.

As the Daily Mail revealed exclusively yesterday, the forces' data, which was gathered for the first time this year, starkly illustrated how knife crime has spread beyond the major cities into the shires.

The British Crime Survey figure of 130,000 knife attacks is substantially higher than the police's figure. This is thought to be because many victims never report being threatened with a knife  -  and even assaults needing hospital treatment go unrecorded.

The phenomenon of 'hidden' knife crime has led senior doctors to call for new rules making it compulsory for hospitals to record knife injuries.

The British Crime Survey, based on interviews with thousands of households across the UK, showed overall crime down 10 per cent to 10.1million offences.

Police figures, which typically capture only around half of all crime, showed a similar trend.

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve pointed out that the police figures showed violent crime up nearly 80 per cent since Labour came to power. The BCS trends were more positive.

He said: 'Our police have been tied up in so much red tape that they can only spend 14 per cent of their time on the beat fighting crime.

'Our porous borders have allowed too many weapons and quantities of hard drugs to simply flow into our country, fuelling violent crime.

'Labour have also failed to address family breakdown which does so much to set young people on to a path of crime.'

Ministers were keen to point out that the Survey showed a 9 per cent drop across all categories of crime last year.

They claimed the recent steady downward trend was the most impressive in modern times  -  including a 12 per cent fall in violent crime.

But Police Minister Tony McNulty acknowledged public concern over knife crime following a spate of horrific murders in recent months.

Firearms offences recorded by police rose 2 per cent last year to reach a total of 9,803, while murders were up 3 per cent to 784.

Domestic burglary and theft from the person showed no change, according to the BCS, but there were falls in vehicle thefts (11 per cent) and criminal damage (10 per cent).

Overall there were 2,164,000 violent assaults last year according to the BCS, of which around 6 per cent involved knives.

Doubts remain over the how complete the Home Office figures are, particularly as the Survey counts only crimes which have an adult victim.

This means it ignores huge swathes of youth offending and drug crime.

Officials announced yesterday that from next year the BCS will be expanded to include under-16s for the first time.

The figures are now presented independently of the Home Office after accusations of political interference in previous years.