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Brutal Tory cuts to youth services have fuelled knife crime in Liverpool according to campaigners.

In the last ten years, under Conservative leadership, the city has lost 84 council employed youth workers - cutting from 110 to just 26.

The youth service budget was also slashed by more than two thirds from £6,431,000 in 2009 to £2,023,000 in 2019.

Austerity cuts have now been linked to hundreds of incidents involving knives across Liverpool after an investigation by Mirror Online .

According to government figures, the number of incidents involving knives across Merseyside have risen by 130% since 2010.

Last year police dealt with 1,404 incidents involving blades or sharp objects.

Since these cuts to youth services and police were brought in, just some of the young people stabbed to death on the streets of Merseyside include James Halewood , Sam Cook , Adam Ellison , Daniel Gee-Jamieson, Fatah Warsame , Hassan Ahmed Mohamoud, Daniel Fox and Sean McHugh,

Merseyside's police and crime commissioner, Jane Kennedy, is in no doubt that austerity has played its part.



(Image: PA)

Ms Kennedy, who served as a Labour MP between 1992 and 2010 before quitting the party earlier this year, said: "I have no doubt that having fewer police officers available to protect the public has led to an increase in crime, and of knife crime in particular.

"I can't prove categorically that it's linked to the loss of police officers, but common sense said it is."

And Anna Smee, who was chief executive of UK Youth for five years, said: "We've been saying for years that we need to invest in youth services, and we're starting to see the correlation between cuts and serious violence."

Labour has promised a £1bn boost to youth services if it wins the general election - which includes building up to 500 youth centres across the country.

Patrick Green, chief executive of the Ben Kinsella Trust - which was set up in memory of 16-year-old Ben, who was stabbed to death in North London in 2008 - said: "I think there's no doubt amongst everybody that works in this sector that the fact youth services have been decimated is a contributor to the increase in knife-related violence.

"What your research is highlighting is that when young people don't get the support or the diverting activities they need, it makes it easier for gangs to recruit disaffected young people."

Javed Khan, chief executive of children's charity Barnado's, said the cuts have created a "poverty of hope".

He told Mirror Online: “These figures are disheartening but sadly not surprising. Young people are being left out in the cold by cuts to youth services, contributing to a ‘poverty of hope’ among those who see little or no chance of a positive future.

“Recent figures show that as funding for councils has reduced, real-term spending on youth services has fallen by an average of 40% over the past three years. Over the same period police in England and Wales recorded a 68% increase in knife offences.

“Youth workers and community services are a lifeline for young people, providing them with safe spaces and role models which help to restore their sense of hope."

Some other areas of the country where youth services were decimated and have since seen a rise in knife crime are Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, London, Bradford, Leeds and Cardiff.