Knife crime in the London has hit a record-high for the second year in a row, official figures show.
In response to the spiralling figures, campaigners slammed mayor Sir Sadiq Khan as ‘not fit for purpose’ and accused him ‘undermining the Met Police at any opportunity’.
Former Met cop and knife crime campaigner Norman Brennan, who was 25 when stabbed in the chest and nearly murdered by a burglar while on duty, told MailOnline: ‘Under Sadiq Khan, London has no-go areas and the streets have become unsafe.’
Home Office data shows more than 16,800 knife crimes were recorded by the Metropolitan and City of London police forces last year, a 16 per cent rise on the previous record over 14,500 of a year earlier.
The highest number of knife crimes occurred in several central London neighbourhoods, focused around the high-end areas of Mayfair, Fitzrovia, Soho, St James and the Strand.
The 2023 data, as the Met stopped publishing data which breaks down weapons offences to this granular a level of geographic detail early last year. MailOnline has asked if the force intends to start publishing this breakdown again.
Number one was the neighbourhood – technically a ‘lower layer super output area’ (LSOA) named Westminster 013G – which features Regent Street, New Bond Street and a small section of Oxford Street.
This Westminster suburb saw saw 141 reported knife crimes in 2023, according to Met Police data. A near-600 per cent rise on 2012, where 21 knife-related offences were recorded.
You can see how impacted the areas of the capital you frequent are impacted by the rising epidemic with MailOnline’s new map.
Outside of central London, other hotspots include Shoreditch, Hackney; Stratford International Station and Westfield shopping centre; and the centre of Croydon.
Mr Brennan, who is campaigning for mandatory five-year sentences for knife possession, said the figures show ‘the streets have become lawless’.
He added: ‘Many people think they can carry a knife and face no consequences.
‘The courts offer derisory sentences. For carrying a knife you get the same sentence as a parking fine.
‘That’s how weak our criminal justice system is and all our criminal justice system does is make excuses.’
Referencing the fatal stabbing of father-of-two Blue Stevens, 26, outside the £1,650-a-night 5-star Park Tower Hotel and Casino, he said that his family and loved ones will now see ‘time freeze forever’.
Police are still continuing their manhunt, and have been pursuing multiple lines of enquiring, including whether the murder was a botched attempted Rolex watch robbery.
Mr Stevens, who is the grandson of a champion boxer, had been just been for a romantic dinner with his partner when the masked assailant struck.
The murder came hours after the mayor promised a police blitz on crime in the capital, including tackling knife crime and robberies.
Mr Brennan blames the rise in knife crime in the massive reduction of the stop and search powers in the last decade-and-a-half.
PCs in London stopped four times fewer people in 2023 as they did in 2009 – from nearly 790,000 to 180,000 – in the same period, knife crime has risen around 40 per cent.
However, Patrick Green, CEO of The Ben Kinsella Trust, said that while stop and search was a ‘important police tactic and tool the police need to do their job effectively, it is ‘not silver bullet often portrayed to be’.
‘If stop and search was the answer we’d have solved the problem a long time ago,’ he added.
Mr Green said: ‘It’s very disappointing to see that knife crime is going in the wrong direction in the capital.’
The trust he heads is named after Ben Kinsella, who was stabbed to death in a brutal attack in Islington in 2008.
On the way home from a night out with his friends to celebrate their GCSEs, Ben was chased and murdered by a group of older teenagers, entirely unprovoked.
Ben was the seventeenth teenager to be murdered that year. He was 16 years old.
Blue Stevens, 26, died after being knifed outside the £1,650-a-night 5-star Park Tower Hotel and Casino
Mr Green added: ‘Seventeen years after Ben’s murder it’s disappointing to see we’ve failed to address many of the key drivers that influence knife crime.’
He blamed the availability of blades to youngsters saying: ‘It’s never been easier for someone under the age of 18 to buy a knife, particularly online.’
The campaigner added that knife crime has been ‘glamourised and normalised’, and that young people have become ‘desensitised’ to it because of social media.
But he said that youngsters are ‘terrified’ of knives, with a recent survey showing 60 per cent were worried or anxious about the violent epidemic, and one-quarter thinking that carrying a knife yourself is the best way to protect yourself.
He also laid the blame at the gutting of police numbers by 20,000 under the coalition, as well as more than a billion pounds in youth service cuts since 2010, which allow criminals to fill the gaps left by a lack of positive role models.
A knife-wielding attacker was caught on camera threatening a young girl in Gladstone park, north-west London at the end of June.
The hooded perpetrator was filmed running up the the girl and lunging the large kitchen knife just inches away from her face.
Last week, the Met told MailOnline: ‘On Monday, 30 June at 22:03hrs police attended Gladstone Park, Brent having been made aware of a video on social media of a woman with a knife.
‘Officers saw no one who matched the description of the woman in the video. No one was injured, no weapons were found and no arrests were made.’
A spokesperson for the Mayor of London told MailOnline: ‘Making London safer is the Mayor’s top priority. The latest ONS statistics show that the rate of violent crime with injury in London is lower than in the rest of the country. Gun crime, burglary and knife crime with injury for under 25s have all fallen since Sadiq become Mayor. The number of homicides recorded in London last year was half the number recorded in 2003, and we had the lowest number of teenage homicides in the capital since 2012. Knife crime overall has also been falling over recent months.
‘But there’s clearly still much more to do to tackle crime. One death is one too many and the Mayor is determined to continue being both tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.
‘The previous government took a wrecking ball to policing budgets and youth clubs in London, which has had serious consequences. In contrast, the Mayor has doubled investment in policing from City Hall and created 500,000 positive opportunities to divert vulnerable young Londoners away from criminal gangs and crime and towards training and employment.’
A Met Police spokesperson told MailOnline: ‘Tackling knife crime is at the heart of our determination to protect Londoners.
‘Through stop-and-search and data-led policing, we are seeing results, with knife crime down this year compared to last. We have also seen an 18 per cent reduction in the number of victims injured by knives and sharp objects, and a 10 per cent reduction in personal robberies, including phone robbery, which makes up the largest proportion of knife crime.
‘We know we need to do more, which is why we will continue to work with our partners and communities to further drive down offending.’
