Boris Johnson: Met records big increase in young people injured by knives on his watch

The numbers of crimes recorded by the Metropolitan Police where the victims were teenagers or young adults and injured by a knife rose by just over 30 percent in the second and third years of Boris Johnson's mayoralty compared with his first. The figures, which the Met has provided me with, show that "notifiable" offences of that type where the victim was aged between 13 and 24 totalled 1,594 in the financial year 2008/09, which coincided almost exactly with Boris's first year in power, then jumped to 2,076 in 2009/10 and remained at (precisely) that number in 2. The majority of victims in all three years were teenagers, accounting for between 55 and 60 percent of each of the annual totals.

The Met's statistics for 13-24 year old victims of all types of knife crime during the three years in question, which include those where no injury was caused, also show an increase since the end of 2008/09. This category documents offences where the perpetrator was seen by the victim to have a knife or where possession of a knife was intimated. There were 5,923 such offences recorded by the Met against 13-24 year-olds in 2008/09, 6,460 in 2009/10 and 7,231 in 2010/11 – an increase of over 20 per cent. In each of the three years over 60 percent of these victims have been teenagers.
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