Children 'feel safer if they carry a knife'

A top-level report found that many children were still "very worried" about being bullied and were afraid of being on their own in public areas.

Up to one in 10 of the most vulnerable youths said carrying a weapon made them feel safer. Many also called for tougher prison sentences for criminals, the study said.

The warnings came just 24 hours after 14-year-old David Idowu became the 19th teenager to be killed in London this year.

The joint report from the chief inspectors of schools, police, healthcare and prisons, among others, said: "Children and young people are still very worried about their personal safety and bullying. This is more so in certain schools, children's homes and youth offender institutions."

Ofsted research found that many of the most vulnerable young people wanted tougher penalties for offenders to make them feel safer in the streets.

The report continued: "It was alarming that 11 per cent of young people who responded also said that they felt safer when they were carrying weapons such as guns or knives. Feeling safe in their environment is one of the things children rank as being most important to them."

But while 95 per cent of children who took part in an Ofsted survey said they felt safe at school, just 68 per cent felt equally secure travelling on public transport.

Chief Inspector of Education Christine Gilbert said there had been some improvements in safeguarding children since the last joint report three years ago.

But she added: "The position is still not good enough to give our most vulnerable children and young people the support they need.

"I hope the recommendations from this report accelerate the pace of change so that these children thrive and are more able to lead productive and fulfilling lives."

The report came as Tessa Jowell warned today that knife crime was damaging London's international reputation. The Olympics Minister said that tackling the spate of violent killings was "the most urgent" issue facing the capital. Ms Jowell admitted that people's perception of knife culture in the city could keep people away from the 2012 Olympics.

She spoke out after the gruesome murder of two French students in South-East London sent shockwaves across the international media about the dangers of the city.

Ms Jowell said dealing with knife crime would be "incredibly important" to the success of the 2012 Games.

"There's four years between now and the Games and I think that we have to see tackling the deaths of young people through knife crime as the most urgent challenge facing the city," she said.

"This is an issue also for how London is seen. Is London a safe place to come? The answer lies in part in Government action, getting very clear laws in place that are tough enough. But also it's a responsibility of local authorities, communities and families."

Ms Jowell, also Minister for London, called on young people to "lay down their knives" and reject the culture of violence that has engulfed the city.

"The real lead, the real breakthrough, will come from the concerted uprising by young people themselves, saying, 'We're going to stop this and we're going to exert peer pressure, we're going to lead a different kind of culture,'" she said.

Her warnings follow the announcement of a dedicated police taskforce that was deployed on Friday to tackle the escalating problem of knives. The 75-strong team, which is part of Operation Blunt 2, the Metropolitan Police's crackdown on knife crime in the capital, will be focused on the areas of London most affected by knife crime.

Last week, the Mayor and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner announced that 1,214 arrests had been made during Blunt 2. During just six weeks of the operation, between 19 May and 29 June, a total of 26,777 searches were conducted and 528 knives recovered.