Scourge of the child thugs

Police chief superintendent claims youth violence stats don't even scratch surface

- BY MARY WRIGHT

ALMOST one in five violent crimes in Scotland involves a child - a number which still underestimates the scale of Scotland's youth violence crisis, a senior officer warned.

Chief Superintendent Rob Hay, president of the Association of Scottish Police Superintendents, said official data did not “reflect reality on the ground”.

He claimed the increased prevalence of young and child offenders involved in serious violence is “particularly worrying” and argued several factors are causing the issue to be under-recorded.

Hay also said the steady erosion of police numbers — including the loss of community officers and school-based campus cops - combined with the closure or reduced hours of dozens of police stations - have undermined both the prevention and investigation of youth crime.

The claims come as Police Scotland revealed there was a small reduction in the level of violent crime involving children between April and June, with 1914 incidents recorded compared with 2301 in the same period last year - a drop of two per cent to 17.5 per cent.