Knife crimes rise in outer boroughs

KNIFE crime is rising in some suburban London boroughs despite a major police operation to tackle stabbings, new figures reveal today.

Met statistics obtained by the Evening Standard show that knife crime is falling overall in London by nearly 13 per cent. However, in six outlying boroughs the number is rising.

The figures released under Freedom of Information rules show knife violence has fallen significantly in areas where it has been targeted by police. In the 11 months to February this year, it fell in all but seven London boroughs.

Boroughs with high levels of knife crime,
including Hackney and Brent, showed falls of between 10 and 30 per cent. In Newham offences fell from the highest at 904 to 633 — a 30 per cent decrease — and in Southwark from 771 to 660, a 13 per cent fall. Camden saw the biggest fall, with 35 per cent.

But there were increases in Islington, Bexley, Bromley, Hillingdon, Kingston, Redbridge and Sutton.

In most cases these were relatively small rises, apart from Bromley, where the number of offences rose from 243 to 300, a 23 per cent increase.

Police said that the rises may be in part due to knife-carrying criminals travelling out to the suburbs, and officers were being deployed to counter the problem.

Superintendent David Chinchen, who leads day-to-day operations for Operation Blunt 2, said: "Some of the outer boroughs are more spread out so they are more difficult to deal with."

The total number of knife victims in the period fell from 13,715 to 12,024.