This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Violent crime in England and Wales is rising at an accelerating pace, according to police figures showing a 22% increase in knife crime and 11% rise in gun crime.

The figures for 2017 from the Office for National Statistics show overall crime has fallen owing in part to a 28% decrease in computer misuse offences.

Lordship Lane: the London road paying a heavy toll for gang warfare Read more

But violent crime is on the up. Police recorded 39,598 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument in the year to December 2017, a 22% increase compared with the previous year (32,468), and the highest number registered since comparable records started in 2010.

Gun crime rose to 6,604 offences.



The figures come amid mounting concern about a spate of violent crimes and the impact of cuts in police numbers.

In the year ending December 2017, there were 688 homicides, including 35 people killed in terror attacks in London and Manchester. This was a 15% increase, excluding the 96 homicides at Hillsborough in 1989, which were recorded in 2016 following the conclusion of inquest proceedings.



The police figure also showed a 9% year-on-year rise in burglary and a 17% rise in car crime.

In the overall category of “violence against the person”, there were 1.3m crimes were logged, a rise of a fifth on 2016.

Robbery, or mugging – a crime involving the use or threat of violence – was up 33%. But the ONS cautioned that some of this increase may be due to changes in the way such crime is recorded.

The figures on the high-harm violent crimes, such as knife and gun attacks, are more reliable. But the ONS pointed out that they are disproportionately concentrated in London and other metropolitan areas.

A third of knife and gun crime was recorded in London. Separate figures released by the Metropolitan police for the year ending April 2018 showed 157 homicides, an increase of 44%.

The Met also recorded a 21.2% increase in knife crime, but a 4.6% decrease in gun crime.

Commenting on the figures, the Met’s assistant commissioner, Martin Hewitt, raised the issue of funding cuts. “The Met continues to experience a very busy and challenging time against the backdrop of significant reductions in resources,” he said. “I am very concerned about the rise in crime in the capital, particularly murder, violent crime and knife crime.”

He added: “We are doubling our targeted anti-knife crime activity with hundreds more officers on visible patrols in affected communities. But despite our continued focus on reducing knife crime, prevention and diversion will always be key.”

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “These statistics show once again that crime, and violent crime in particular, is rising at an unacceptably high rate across the whole of England and Wales, including London. This is clearly a national problem that requires national solutions from the government.”

Louise Haigh, shadow policing minister, said the government was failing to protect the public. She said: “Whether it’s Windrush citizens or victims of violent crime, the home secretary has repeatedly refused to acknowledge the evidence staring her in the face.



“The Tories have axed 21,000 police officers, and neighbourhood policing, which helps to prevent crime, has been undermined. Our communities are now exposed and we have a government unwilling or unable to put it right.”

According to the crime survey, which the ONS says is the most reliable indicator of long-term trends in the most common types of offending experienced by the population, there were an estimated 10.6m incidents, a fall of 7% on the previous 12 months.

The number of violent offences as measured by the crime survey was unchanged, at 1.2m.

Alexa Bradley, from the ONS, put the national figures in context, saying: “For most types of offence, the picture of crime has been fairly stable, with levels much lower than the peak seen in the mid-1990s. Eight in 10 adults had not experienced any of the crimes asked about in our survey in the latest year.

“However, we have seen an increase in the relatively rare, but ‘high-harm’ violent offences such as homicide, knife crime and gun crime, a trend that has been emerging over the previous two years. We have also seen evidence that increases in some types of theft have continued, in particular vehicle-related theft and burglary.”

The data for 2017 has been published against a backdrop of mounting concern following a spate of fatal stabbings and shootings this year.



Earlier this month the home secretary, Amber Rudd, launched the government’s strategy to tackle serious violence. Underpinned by £40m of Home Office funding and a new offensive weapons bill, the strategy set out a range of measures to bear down on the use of knives, guns and acid in violent attacks.