Metropolitan Police officers carried out 9,599 stops in the year to April, up from 1,836 the year before

Scotland Yard increased the use of stop and search powers in violence hotspots by more than 400 per cent last year.

Sir Steve House, deputy commissioner of the Met, said that as searches rose, killings in the capital dropped by 30 per cent and knife injuries among the under-25s fell 20 per cent.

Officers in the capital carried out 9,599 stops in the year to April under powers that allow them to search anyone in designated areas even without “reasonable suspicion”. The figure was up from fewer than 1,836 the year before, a rise of 423 per cent.

Authorisation for designated areas under Section 60 of the Public Order Act rose 219 per cent in the same period, Sir Steve told the mayor’s office for