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120% rise in child knife attack victims at A&Es
Paul Waugh, Deputy Political Editor30.03.09
The number of child knife crime victims in London has shot up by 120 per cent in four years, figures reveal today.
The Tories called on ministers to take urgent action after a survey found that more teenagers are being admitted to London Accident & Emergency wards with violent stabbing injuries.
While the Government's British Crime Survey suggests that knife crime has fallen over the past two years, the new figures - uncovered by shadow minister for London Justine Greening - show that the problem is rising.
Hospital records are seen by some campaigners as a more accurate measure of knife attacks, as many crimes go unreported and do not show up in police statistics. The figures show that in London there were 34 emergency hospital admissions of children aged under 16 with stab wounds in 2003/04. This figure rose to 75 admissions in 2007/08.
Teenagers aged 16-18 were also increasingly the victims of knife crime in the capital, with hospital admissions up from 129 in 2003/04 to 238 in 2007/08 - an 84 per cent increase. The increases in London are far higher than the national average, which shows an 80 per cent rise in under-16 victims and a 41 per cent increase in 16- to 18-year-old victims.
Ms Greening said: "These figures show the truly shocking extent of the rise of teenage knife crime in London, presided over by both the Labour government and former Labour mayor Ken Livingstone. Since May 2008, Boris Johnson promised to make this his number one priority, and his Operation Blunt 2 initiative has seen thousands of knives lifted off the streets of London."
In December, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was forced into a climbdown over claims that knife crime was falling, after the UK Statistics Authority criticised the Government's use of "selective" figures.
Reader views (5)
As an ex-pat brit living in Canada, there has been a marked in crease in police officers leaving the UK and relocating over here. The nightmarish stories they tell of ever-increasing crime (London is now more vioent than New York), not to mention the eleven hours of paperwork it takes to process one criminal, simply beggars belief. What on earth has happened to Britain? Indeed, hopw did this happen? The Calgary City Police Service is now 10% British. Now that more and more coppers are leaving Blighty and heading for Canada, Australia and New Zealand to continue their careers, its time to start worrying.
- Bill Gibbons, Calgary, Canada
Yes Ethan. Thatcher's Britain is largely to blame for this increase
- Keith Price, Luton, England
What a tragedy - and the failure of the present government to 'tell the truth' is astonishing - providing inaccurate crime figuers does not assist anybody. I am also surprised that our Home Secretary has time to supply her husband with blue movies - with todays serious problems I would have thought they would have other things on their minds such as protecting our communities from violence.
- Ken Rogers, Wivenhoe, UK.
Can we have the annual figures for the last fifty years as a valid comparison?
- Ethan Keates, Weybridge, England
British Government has to tell the true, nothing is fallen but is rising.
- H. Balow, Eindhoven Holland
