It's time to get knives off our streets for good
London's latest machete attack resulted in the death of a 14-year-old boy. When will it end?
The dreadful sword attack that ended the life of 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin in London this week has highlighted once again the menace of Britain’s growing knife crime problem, and the impunity with which bladed weapons are being used on our streets.
The incident, which left four other people hospitalised, was not typical of the weekly bloodletting our towns and cities endure. The majority of knife crime victims are teenagers and young men senselessly killing one another over drugs and petty gang grievances.
While still under investigation, Tuesday’s horrifying scenes appear to have been random. But CCTV footage showed the alleged attacker marching around Hainault wielding a giant sword with impunity, before being tackled to the ground by police.
For those of us who could stomach watching it, it was like a scene from a horror film.
How could this man have obtained such a ghastly weapon? Unfortunately, a quick Google search reveals dozens of similar knives, machetes and swords available for online purchase and delivery for as little as £48.
And so the story goes: Buy a knife online. Choose the day. And unleash hell onto a public that is terrified they or their loved ones could be the next victims.
When will it finally end? Maybe this week’s random stabbings will finally make our chattering classes – loath to take the issue seriously, given their chances of falling victim are generally low – take this more seriously.
But I won’t hold my breath.
The time has now come to spell out the solutions to our ruling elite.
Firstly, they must act to get all ninja knives, swords, and machetes off our streets. There is no reason for anyone to own such ghastly weapons, and current legislation doesn’t go far enough. The Government’s ‘Surrender’ programme, which invites anyone in possession of one of these types of weapons to voluntarily place it in a knife surrender bin, before their complete prohibition in September this year, is insufficient.
Such a plan is too reliant on the goodwill of people who have anything but goodwill.
These weapons must be banned and, where required for industrial or domestic use, heavily regulated and licensed with formal tracking numbers etched onto them so purchasers can be identified and prosecuted in the case of their entering criminal markets. Suppliers, too, especially online sellers, must take responsibility for the accessibility of their goods or face the music.
Secondly, we need to bring back community policing with some teeth. Trust in the police has been undermined by racial tensions and suspicions.
The solution isn’t to roll over and play nice. It’s to equip forces with the resources needed to reinforce trust within their communities and breach the barriers between young people caught up in gang culture and those who are meant to protect them.
This type of policing cannot work in isolation. It needs the full weight of the law supporting it – the carrot and the stick. You need a carrot that will entice would-be perpetrators into the fold, and a big enough stick to keep them in line.
Let’s have no more talk of community centres and “talk to me nice” shrinks. Enough of soft touch “group therapy” sessions and any other initiatives with no threat of punishment.
The way to stop machete-wielding barbarians is not to ask them nicely. It's to show them that we – the decent, law-abiding members of society in the majority – mean business.
That means tough new sentencing powers, too.
With 82 per cent of teenage murders involving a knife, it’s time we ditched the “public health” argument flogged by those do-gooders uncomfortable with seeing criminals in jail and use common sense instead.
We have a penal system for a reason and it’s high time we used it.
Finally, we must ignore the PC nonsense and bring back stop-and-search. It’s one of the most effective methods of keeping knives off our streets, with one in five searches resulting in action. London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who has historically opposed stop and search, doesn’t seem to have a grasp on the current situation.
If reelected today, he must make it a priority.
What other solutions are there when teenagers are still over twice as likely to be fatally stabbed than they were 10 years ago?
And it’s not just in London, either. The West Midlands has recently overtaken London with the highest number of offences in England and Wales.
Enough is enough. How many more young people must die before we take bold action?
I welcome more creative solutions, like the Government fast-tracking new technologies that can help to detect knife-carriers in crowded places.
But until we see a decline in knife crime numbers, nothing should be off the table.
AS SEEN IN THE DAILY EXPRESS
Mandatory curfew for underage teenagers in the highest crime areas would decrease the number of stabbings
I have a sword, it was carried into battle by a member of my family, it is my history. Why should I as an Englishman have to give up my history because people imported into England have low impulse control? I shouldn't and I won't, as the Americans like to say, from my cold dead hands.