Three-quarters of knife injuries among the young are not linked to gangs as knives are carried for protection and status, Met says

Most knife crime in London is no longer gang-related, as young people increasingly carry knives for protection, status and safeguarding “criminal interests”, the Metropolitan police commissioner has said.

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told the capital’s first knife crime conference, which was convened by the mayor, Sadiq Khan, that the trend was changing.

He said: “By and large, it used to be gang members, but that’s not the case now. We’ve seen an increase in the number of other young people carrying knives, young people with no links to gangs. So at the moment, some 75% – three quarters – of all knife injuries among the under-25s are not gang-related. The 25% that are – this is around 450 offences in the last year, so about one a day – tend to be more serious, and gang members remain the most dangerous knife carriers, but the changing trend is clearly a concern.

“The reasons, so far as we can determine by talking to suspects, are self-protection, status, protecting criminal interests – such as a drugs business – and a culture of fear. This can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, where young people equip themselves with a knife and in doing so significantly up the ante of their chances of becoming a knife victim.”



Hogan-Howe said that in London on Wednesday night there had been three knife-related incidents. One was in Greenwich, where a man was stabbed several times and suffered life-threatening injuries. Another was in Westminster, where a man was stabbed in the back as part of a serious assault, and a third was in Hackney, where there was an aggravated burglary. During that incident, a knife was held to someone’s throat and a dog at the address was stabbed.



“[The incidents] are quite different,” the Met chief said. “Often the difference between these incidents and murder can be a millimetre, or a very good surgeon. It’s not to do with the intent or the event itself, it can be down to chance.”

He urged the public to tell the police, teachers or religious leaders about others who carried knives. “The incidents like the ones I spoke about overnight are often because someone met someone else in an unplanned event. They had an argument on the street, the knife was available, and the fight became a stabbing. Without a knife in the situation it’s not as dangerous an event.”

Hogan-Howe’s comments came after an independent report on the death of Aberdeen schoolboy Bailey Gwynne this week concluded that the 16-year-old’s death could have been avoided had those who knew that his killer carried weapons in school reported this to staff.

In London, knife crime has risen by 16% in the past two years, with 13 young people under 25 being killed this year. In the 12 months to August 2016 there were 3,877 victims of knife crime who were injured, 1,749 of whom were under 25.



Khan told the summit: “The rising numbers are absolutely unacceptable to me as mayor, as a Londoner, and as a father of two teenage daughters growing up in our city.”

In the five months since he became mayor, Khan said, he had met many families devastated by knife crime. He added: “I’ve also met young people left physically and psychologically scarred by brutal knife attacks. There can be no hiding the fact that knife crime is a growing threat.”



Thursday’s summit brought together about 150 Londoners, including young adults, victims, police, community leaders, and health and education professionals, and aimed to devise a more collaborative and effective strategy for keeping young Londoners safe.

About 95% of knife crime offenders are male, 60% are under 25 and 59% are from black and ethnic minority backgrounds. Khan said it was crucial to understand why young people carried knives.



“Prevention must always be our first priority,” he said. “As mayor I want to ensure that everyone in our city has the confidence, the skills and opportunities to learn, grow and succeed. In some of our city’s most challenged areas, the reality is that deep-rooted deprivation and low educational achievement stifles the prospects of so many Londoners and significantly increases their vulnerability towards crime.”

While Khan praised the government’s ban on the sale of “zombie knives”, he called for better relations between police and communities to prevent crime despite the impact of public sector cuts.

“Over the last six years councils have lost almost half their funding … The Met police have lost £600m over the past six years. Money’s still tight, but prevention is better than the cure,” he said, adding that the average cost of keeping someone in prison for a year was three times the cost of a place at Eton.

Yvonne Lawson, who set up the Godwin Lawson Foundation in the name of her 17-year-old son who was killed in a knife attack in 2010, spoke about the emotions parents go through when they lose a child.

“I can’t seem to function as efficiently as I used to, and you just have to learn how to cope. Each time there’s another incident it takes you back to this memory, and you know another family has to endure this pain.”

She told the summit that Godwin, who grew up in Tottenham, had won a scholarship to play football at Oxford United and would return to London every fortnight.

“It all changed on … 27 March 2010,” she said. “My whole world felt dark, I couldn’t see any light anywhere. I was just wondering who had done this to my family, who had taken my baby away, and why were they carrying knives? To know he had taken his last breath on the streets was so painful.”

The mayor’s office for policing and crime funds £6.8m worth of services to address knife crime in London every year, including the Redthread youth violence intervention programme in all four of London’s major trauma centres.

Khan’s knife crime strategy is to form part of his police and crime plan, which is expected to be launched for public consultation later this year.