Britain remains rife with knife crime and the epidemic of violence continues to plague the country, figures released today showed.
There has been a 'notable increase' in armed robberies involving knives over the last year, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) found.
Knifecrimeoffences also increased year-on-year but remained below pre-pandemic levels.
Some50,510 offences were recorded in the 12 months to March 2024.Attacks disproportionately affected young people, with teenagers in the UK now twice as likely to be fatally stabbed as they were 10 years ago.
Official statistics suggest knife crime has risen by 4 per cent in the last 12 months, but remains three per cent lower than the 51,982 offences reported in the year to March 2020.
The number of armed robberies rose to 21,226 in the last year (Source: ONS)
Ronan Kanda, pictured, was stabbed to deathin Wolverhampton, West Midlands, in 2022, as he walked home from a friend's house
Ronan was walking to a friend's house in Wolverhampton when he was attacked from behind on June 29, 2022
The number of armed robberies rose by 13 per cent in the last year, from18,787 in 2022/23 to 21,226 in 2023/24. Although the total is still lower than before theCovid-19 pandemic, with 22,727 recorded in 2019/20.
These figures do not include Greater Manchester Police, due to issues involving the supply of data.
Knife-enabled homicides stood at 233 in the year to March 2024, up slightly on the 226 in the previous year, but again lower than pre-pandemic figures (253 in 2019/20).
Some 5,411 offences classed as knife-enabled threats to kill were recorded in 2023/24, down seven per cent from 5,801 in 2022/23, but in both cases these figures are higher than those recorded before the pandemic (4,746 in 2019/20).
The number of offences classed as 'possession of article with a blade or point' stood at 27,470 in the 12 months to March 2024, down three per cent year-on-year from 28,391.
'This follows substantial increases in recent years, which may have been influenced by targeted police action to tackle knife crime,' the ONS said.
Labour has vowed to get 13,000 police officers back on the streets and previously announced a five-step plan to tackle the issue, including guaranteed sanctions for young people carrying knives.
Prime MinisterKeir Starmer said he would make it his 'moral mission' to tackle the issue at a meeting with victims' families and actor and anti-knife campaigner Idris Elba.
Pastor Lorraine Jones told Sir Keir, and actor and Elba, at a meeting in Hammersmith, west London, last month, that she saw her son, Dwayne Simpson, killed with 'one jab wound' that 'went straight through his heart'.
She said she had continued to live in Brixton, south London, since her son was killed ten years ago, because it is 'like a battlefield I can't retreat from'.
Knife crime offences also increased year-on-year but remained below pre-pandemic levels
She said: 'We want to be around the table with you, because we do have the answers right now. We've got patrols, Idris, volunteers that are patrolling before school and after school, because we haven't got enough police officers.
'We haven't got enough people in the community, we are desperate. And the most brutal thing is we're saying it's becoming the norm.
'We don't want it to become the norm.
'It's not normal for us to be burying our children, or five-year-olds seeing dead bodies and shrines in our neighbourhood.'
Pooja Kanda, whose son Ronan was stabbed to death in Wolverhampton, West Midlands, in 2022, as he walked home from a friend's house, said that if a ban on zombie knives had been introduced after Dwayne's death, it could have saved her son.
'If there was a ban two years ago my son would be living,' Ms Kanda said.
Mr Elba said in an Instagram video later that it was a 'very important' meeting families of victims and campaign organisations to discuss 'what we need to do as a country to fight this'.
He said it was a non-political issue.
Sir Keir said it was 'difficult to hear' stories from the knife crime campaigners.
He added: 'And it should be difficult to hear, and it's very important that it is heard from beginning to end.'
Police-recorded offences of possession of an article with a blade or point were 18 per cent higher in 2023/24 than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019/20 (23,265), and nearly double the figure for 2016/17 (14,450).
Of the 50,510 knife crime offences in England and Wales in 2023/24, 30 per cent (14,961) were recorded by the Metropolitan Police, 10 per cent (5,268) by West Midlands Police and five per cent (2,321) by West Yorkshire Police.
But when looking at the number of offences per population, West Midlands Police had the highest rate, with 178 per 100,000 people, followed by the Metropolitan Police (169 per 100,000), then Cleveland Police (137 per 100,000) and South Yorkshire Police (109 per 100,000).
