Knife offences up 30% in five years as crime wave sweeps Britain – see the worst violence hotspots

LEVELS of knife crime have soared by 30 per cent as a violent crime wave has swept Britain, new stats revealed today.

In the past year nearly 5,000 more criminals went through the courts after being caught with a blade than five years ago.

But only a third of them were sent to jail - with most getting away without a custodial sentence.

Big cities including London and Birmingham were named as the knife crime hotspots in official figures published by the Home Office.

A total of 21,066 people knife-wielding criminals went through the justice system in the year to June 2018.

That's a rise of 4.4 per cent on the previous year - and up 29 per cent since 2013.

The last time the level of knife crime dealt with the court was so high was seven years ago, the stats showed.

Of those found guilty of carrying or using a blade, just 36 per cent were sentenced to go to prison.

11 per cent of knife criminals got off with just a caution - with thousands more being given community service, a conditional discharge or a suspended sentence.

The figures show London way out in front as the place where more knife crime takes place than any other.

Nearly 5,000 people in the capital were convicted of an offence over the course of the year.

London is also most violent when you look at the number of knife crimes per head of population.

It was followed by Cleveland, West Midlands, Nottinghamshire, Merseyside and Bedfordshire.

The most peaceful regions were Gloucestershire, Surrey and Dyfed-Powys.

The Home Office stats, broken down by police force area, cover England and Wales and date back over the past ten years.

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