Knife point robberies in London have risen by more than a third in the past year, official figures revealed on Friday as overall blade offending in the capital also jumped dramatically.
The Office for National Statistics said that there 13,503 knife-enabled crimes in London in the year to the end of June, up 21 per cent on the comparable total of 11,197 for the previous 12 month period - representing an extra 2,348 offences.
A big jump in the number of knife-point robberies, which were up by 36 per cent to a new annual total of 7,996.
Rapes and other sexual offences carried out with a knife were also up, by 27 per cent, with 231 such offences recorded by police in London in the year to the end of June.
There was more positive news about knife killings, which were down by 16 per cent with 65 blade deaths in the latest 12 months compared with 77 in the previous year. But attempted murders with a knife rose from 53 a year earlier to 64 in the latest 12 months.
Further figures released today show that 9,065 rapes were recorded in London during the year to the end of June. That was 2 per cent fewer than the previous 12 months but still represented an 18 per cent increase on the equivalent total to the end of March 2020.
The latest rise in knife crime in London will add to concerns about the effectiveness of efforts by the Met and London Mayor Sadiq Khan to tackle the problem.
In its release today, the Office for National Statistics points out that the 21 per cent rise in knife offences in the capital comes despite falls in the West Midlands and Greater Manchester which together with London are the “three areas with the highest volume of knife-enabled crime” in England and Wales.
The statisticians say that there was a 5 per cent drop in knife crime in the West Midlands, where 4,724 blade offences were recorded by police, and an even bigger 16 per cent fall in Greater Manchester, which suffered 3,012 such crimes in the year to the end of June.
The rise in blade offending in the capital also means that knife crime is up 49 per cent on the 9,086 such offences recorded by police in London in the year to the end of March 2016, just before Mr Khan was elected to begin his first term as Mayor.
The latest total of 13,545 offence is also higher than the 11,231 knife offences in London in the year to the end of March 2017, although it is slightly below the totals for the following two years.
It is also below the pre-coronavirus peak of 14,714 knife crimes recorded by police in the capital for the end of March 2020.
Mr Khan has blamed government cuts for contributing to the knife crime problem but has been criticised by the policing minister Chris Philp for failing to ensure that such offending is tackled adequately through measures such as “hot spot” policing.
In his latest attempt to reassure Londoners, Mr Khan announced last week that all secondary schools would be offered the chance to be offered knife wand metal detectors in the wake of the killing of 15-year-old Elianne Andam in Croydon.
She was fatally stabbed as she made her way to school near the borough’s Whitgift shopping centre. A 17-old boy has been charged with her murder.
