Knife crime offences recorded by police in England and Wales have reached the highest level on record.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics showed knife crime was up 7% on the previous 12 months.
Police-recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument rose to 45,627 for the year to December.
This was 49% higher than when comparable recording began in 2011 and the highest number on record, according to the data.
The figures do not include Greater Manchester Police, which records data differently.
For the year ending December 2019 in England and Wales (excluding GMP) these data show a mixed picture, with:
- a 3% decrease in recorded offences involving firearms
- a 2% increase in the overall number of homicides; this includes a single incident with 39 homicide victims, which if excluded shows a 4% decrease overall
- robberies soared 12% to 83,930, and the number of homicides rose by 2% to 670.
But burglary was down 7% to 366,718, while theft dropped 9% to 3,402,000.
The report added that many violent offence are concentrated in metropolitan areas such as London, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire.
Commenting on today’s figures, Joe Traynor from the Office for National Statistics Centre for Crime and Justice said:
“Information collected prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic from the Crime Survey for England and Wales estimates a fall of 5% in crime for 2019.
"It is not possible to say whether this would have come to represent a change from the flat trend in recent years, as it is likely that the current lockdown will have an impact on the level of crime in 2020.
“The 2019 data revealed different patterns for specific types of crime, for instance, robbery increased but burglary decreased, while fraud and lower-harm violent offences remained stable.
"Although the number of homicides where a knife or sharp instrument was used fell across the country, it increased in London.”
