Knife crime in England and Wales at record high after deadly 2019

KNIFE crime offences recorded by police in England and Wales last year were the highest on record, the Office for National Statistics said.

Police recorded 45,627 offences in 2019 - which was a jump of seven per cent on the previous year.

But the true total is likely to be significantly higher because the figures do not include Greater Manchester Police due to IT issues.

The areas with the highest rate of knife crime were London, West Yorkshire and the West Midlands.

Offences included in the figures were homicide, attempted murder, threats to kill, assault with injury, assault with intent to cause serious harm, robbery, rape and sexual assault.

Knife crime on the streets of Britain was at its bloodiest ever last year.

There were 149 murder probes in London in 2019, which was the highest total since 2008. Of those stabbed to death, 23 were teens, up from 16 in 2018.

The youngest teen victim of London's knife-crime epidemic last year was 14-year-old Jaden Moodie, who was hunted down and stabbed to death over a drug feud in Leyton, East London.

In another stabbing that rocked Britain, Jodie Chesney, a 17-year-old girl scout, was stabbed in the back by drug dealers in a park in Harold Hill, east London, in March.

On May 1, 15-year-old Tashaun Aird, an aspiring music producer, was knifed to death in Hackney. His death made him the youngest person to be killed by a blade attack after Jaden Moodie, 14, was murdered in January.

The youngest victim of the violence was only four days old. Riley Fauvrelle's mother Kelly Mary Fauvrelle, 26, was stabbed to death on June 29 in Croydon.

She was eight-months pregnant and her baby miraculously survived after paramedics carried out an emergency c-section. But the baby boy died in hospital four days after his mother.

Javed Khan, boss of Barnardo's, Britain's largest kids' charity, called for "urgent action" by government to "break the spiral of violence".

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has pledged to put 20,000 more police officers on the streets.

The Met Police said tackling knife crime was its "number one priority".

One of the reasons why violence in the capital has spread is because of the brutal “county lines trade” where urban dealers force children and other vulnerable people to take drugs to customers in more rural areas.

In London itself, gang warfare is increasingly being driven by a ruthless battle to control the drugs market in a move away from “postcode wars”.

Richard Taylor, father of Damilola Taylor, who was 10 when he was stabbed to death in 2000, said: "This is nothing but a national crisis. Some teenagers see either being murdered or killing another person as a rite of passage when that used to be getting a job or going to university."

Ben Bradford, a professor of global city policing at University College London, who is working with the Met and MOPAC, said drugs, austerity and an escalation in violence in youth cultures were key factors.

He said: "The top two or three explanations have something to do with [firstly] trends in the drugs market – there has been an increase in competition. There is definitely something going on around 10 years of austerity. It can't be a coincidence that the generation of boys who were eight, nine or 10 in 2010 is coming to fruition after cuts.

"There is a group of young people who are just more ready to use knives then they would've been in the past.

"There is anecdotal evidence of people carrying to protect themselves. We need to look at the demographic of the individuals and the areas they come from. It is telling that certain parts of London, certain neighbourhoods, have been more prone to violence. They are poor, neglected and left behind."