Knife and gun crime up by a fifth, driven by teen murders and robberies

KNIFE and gun crime in London both leapt by 20 per cent last year amid a surge in robberies, teenage killings and firearms offending, official figures revealed today.

- Martin Bentham

The Office for National Statistics said that 14,626 knife offences were recorded by police in the capital over the 12 months to the end of December. That was 2,481 more than the 2022 total and meant that an average of 40 blade offences were committed each day in the capital last year.

There was also a big leap in gun crimes with 1,208 such offences during 2023, up by nearly 200 on the 1,010 recorded by police a year earlier.

Both statistics will prompt significant concern with the rise in knife offending driven by a 34 per cent increase in blade robberies, which totalled 8,956 in 2023.