History > 2006 > UK > Violence (II)

Surge in knife attacks

defies anti-crime drive

· 60% rise in robberies in which a blade is used
· Expert says government campaigns are irrational

Wednesday August 9, 2006
Guardian
Alan Travis, home affairs editor

There has been a surge in knife crime over the past year including a 60% rise - 15,000 extra cases - in robberies in which a blade was used, according to a study out yesterday. The jump in the 12 months to April will alarm the home secretary, John Reid, as he struggles to restore credibility to the government's drive against crime.

Analysis of the latest British Crime Survey also shows use of knives in muggings was up 72% to 42,020 attacks. Assaults by strangers rose 55% to 51,780.

In total, knife crime rose to 169,400 incidents in 2005-06 - a 25% increase at a time when crime generally has fallen.

The author of the report, Chris Eades of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College, London, said government strategy for dealing with knife crime was incoherent and irrational, and the effectiveness of measures such as Dr Reid's proposed four-year minimum sentence for carrying a knife was unproven.

"There is insufficient evidence that knife amnesty or increasing sentence length for carrying knives will decrease the level of knife use and carrying. Due to the easy availability of knives there will always be opportunities to commit knife offences," Mr Eades said. "They are merely a tool used in violent crime. Success will only come in dealing with the underlying causes of violence, fear and insecurity."

The report says 28% of schoolchildren have carried some kind of weapon in the past year - even if it is only a "legal" penknife. The proportion carrying a weapon rises to 57% of all children excluded from school. A recent Youth Justice Board survey showed that 36% of schoolchildren who had been a victim of crime had "taken a weapon to school to defend themselves" compared with 18% who had not been victims.

The study stresses that although there has been "a significant jump" in some types of knife crime the long-term trend still shows a sustained drop, matching the fall in violent crime.

Violence involving knives hit a peak of 340,480 attacks in 1995 but was almost halved by 2001-02, before going back up to 224,160 in 2002-03. This increase triggered Tony Blair's street crime initiative, after which the figure fell to 135,650 two years ago before climbing again.

Domestic violence and "acquaintance violence" - involving someone known to the victim - where a knife was used continued to fall over the past year.

Stabbing murders have fallen as a proportion in the past decade. In 1995, 231 out of the 632 homicides in England and Wales involved a knife. In 2004-05 there were 820 murders, but the number using a sharp instrument was steady at 236.

Mr Eades said the increase in the past 12 months was significant and showed the government needed to tackle the root causes of knife crime. Amnesties would have little impact as long as unsliced bread existed, he said.

A Home Office spokeswoman said the summer amnesty had collected 90,000 knives in England and Wales and young people were being taught that rather than keeping them safe, carrying a knife made them more at risk because of the danger of having it turned on them.

    Surge in knife attacks defies anti-crime drive, G, 9.8.2006, http://society.guardian.co.uk/crimeandpunishment/story/0,,1840207,00.html

British Crack Case of Boy's 1967 Slaying

August 1, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:38 p.m. ET
The New York Times

LONDON (AP) -- Detectives using DNA evidence have arrested two men in the slaying of a 12-year-old boy who was stabbed with a kitchen knife and abandoned beside a bridle path in southern England nearly 40 years ago.

Police arrested a 55-year-old man from the northern city of Manchester and a 56-year-old man from the southern city of Brighton on suspicion of murder, Sue Heard, a Sussex police spokeswoman, said Tuesday.

The men were teenagers at the time 12-year-old Keith Lyon was killed.

Police also want to contact an English family who had a teenage son and that abruptly emigrated to Canada soon after the slaying, said Detective Inspector Tim Nunn.

''I believe there are people who know who committed this murder but have not had the confidence to speak to the police about it,'' Nunn said. ''Now is the time to do so, so that Keith's remaining family can finally understand what happened.''

The breakthrough in the investigation came when workmen stumbled on a locked storeroom at a Brighton police station and discovered key evidence and the knife used to kill the boy, Heard said. The evidence had been misplaced, he said.

The slaying caused shock across Britain -- in part because police quickly suspected that teenagers probably committed the crime. Police eventually took more than 5,000 fingerprints from youths.

Lyon left his home in Brighton to buy a geometry set on a Saturday afternoon in May 1967. He never returned.

He was found wearing his school uniform on a grass bank near a rural bridle path between the nearby villages of Ovingdean and Woodingdean, about 60 miles south of London. He had been stabbed 11 times in the chest, back and abdomen with a serrated kitchen knife.

Witnesses claimed there had been a scuffle between an older group of boys and Lyon, but no arrests were made. Police theorized that Lyon, a student at the posh Brighton and Hove Grammar school, was targeted by local youths because of his uniform.

Both suspects have been released under conditions that require them to return for more questioning on Nov. 14, police said. Neither man has been charged with any offense.

Lyon's brother, Peter, bemoaned the fact that his parents died before seeing anyone brought to justice.

''I have had to live my life with not knowing why my brother died for 39 years, but knowing that the person or persons who murdered him is living their life without being punished,'' he said in a statement.

    British Crack Case of Boy's 1967 Slaying, NYT, 1.8.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Britain-Boys-Murder.html

Drugs fuel big rise in organised crime

New report shows gangs enjoy easy access to guns and judicial corruption

Sunday July 30, 2006
The Observer
Mark Townsend, crime correspondent

Organised crime in the UK is increasing rapidly, with firearms and drugs easily obtained by underworld syndicates which are also moving into child pornography to swell profits, a government report reveals tomorrow.

The first analysis of the threat of criminal gangs to the UK by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) adds that corruption remains a problem in the criminal justice system and that, far from reforming offenders, prison now forms the 'basis for many later criminal collaborations'.

In an alarming picture of the influence of major crime networks, the report admits the internet and the skill of syndicates in keeping one step ahead of police and security services mean the threat of organised criminals to the UK is 'increasing in both scope and complexity'.

Set up last February to target Britain's biggest gangsters, Soca's assessment warns that UK criminals are 'unlikely to have difficulty in acquiring a firearm should they wish to do so'. It adds that demand for firearms remains high, with criminals able to procure weapons from the internet or through the post easily and with reasonable safety.

Although attempts to crack down on child pornography have intensified, the report concludes that the number of active sex offenders in the UK remains unknown. However, evidence suggests numbers are growing, with the internet 'increasing the scale and reducing the risk' to perpetrators.

As the market has grown, intelligence reports reveal that major organised criminal networks are starting to move into child pornography. Recent trends monitored by police include the growing use of 'morphing', where images of children are altered by computer technology, while advances in internet technology have allowed 'real-time video coverage of abuse shown simultaneously to a number of viewers'. The US remains the host country for most illegal websites, although in the past year Japan has witnessed a sharp growth.

The report also notes with concern that the continued fall in the price of drugs indicates that measures to reduce the trade in illegal narcotics are failing. Average street prices of heroin have fallen from £70 a gram in December 2000 to £49. The cost of a gram of cocaine fell from £65 to £40 over the same period, while the price of ecstasy pills dropped from £9 to £4.

Over the past year, intelligence officials recorded a growing number of trafficked prostitutes from Lithuania and Africa, notably Nigeria, entering the UK. Street prices for illegally imported prostitutes are currently running at between £2,000 and £3,000. Elsewhere, attempts to smuggle illegal immigrants into the UK are still being made through the French ports of Calais, Coquelles and Dunkirk, with Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul, Sarajevo and the Balkans identified as key points en route to the UK. The number of criminal gangmasters involved in finding work for illegal immigrants in the UK stands at 10,000.

One of the most serious issues for Soca remains corruption, and it recorded 'a number of instances where UK law enforcement officers have acted corruptly and colluded with criminals,' although precise details are not given. Despite attempts to eradicate corrupt relations between serious criminal figures and figures throughout the criminal justice system, the report adds that syndicates remain adept at using the 'corruption of insiders ... to monitor law enforcement actions and techniques'.

Countries pinpointed as posing a particular threat to the UK because of their criminal interests include Turkey, which continues to play a pivotal role in the supply and processing of heroin. London-based Turks are responsible for disseminating the drug, which is mainly cultivated in Afghanistan, to secondary distribution centres, usually Liverpool and Birmingham. Most heroin arrives from the ports of south-east England such as Harwich, Dover and Felixstowe, with half of the UK trade shipped from the Netherlands after being driven overland from Turkey.

The Netherlands and Spain remain the main entry points to Europe for Colombian cocaine, again with most shipped into the UK via south-east ports.

Armed robberies seeking 'cash-in-transit' targets reached 837 last year with the most infamous occurring last February with the organised attack on a facility in Tonbridge, Kent, that yielded a haul of £53m.

    Drugs fuel big rise in organised crime, O, 30.7.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1833472,00.html

Police treat Asian man's murder as racist

· Eight arrested after fatal stabbing in estate brawl
· Killing of taxi driver may also have racial undertone

Monday July 24, 2006
Guardian
Riazat Butt

Detectives investigating the fatal stabbing of an Asian man during a mass brawl said yesterday that they were treating the investigation as a racist murder.

Shezan Umarji, 20, died after a fight broke out on a Preston estate in the early hours of Saturday morning. More than 50 people were involved, and witnesses have said that some were armed with baseball bats and knives.

Eight men were last night in custody. Two of them were arrested on suspicion of murder, and the others on suspicion of violent disorder.

It was not the only killing of the weekend with apparent racial undertones. In a separate incident, a taxi driver died on Saturday night after being attacked by a group in Huddersfield. Five teenagers were being questioned last night in connection with the attack on Mohammed Pervaiz, who was turning up for a fare when he was killed. Police said it was believed that "racist language" was used towards the victim at the time.

Detectives in Preston said the same thing about the Umarji killing.

"The extent of the abuse, who said it, and to whom, is by no means clear," said Detective Superintendent Graham Gardner, leading the investigation into Umarji's murder. "Nor is it clear at what point it was said. But witnesses have told us about the abuse, and it is incumbent on me to declare this a racial investigation. I'm not saying, however, he was killed because of the colour of his skin."

Det Supt Gardner added: "There were more than 50 people in that fight, but I've not had 50 people come forward. That might be because they don't trust the police or they're scared; but there will be people who have seen things or heard things, and I urge them to help us."

On Fishwick Parade, the litter-strewn crime scene, the Umarji family had tied a bunch of purple chrysanthemums to a tree, marking the spot where the former grammar school pupil died.

Although few could agree on the sequence or cause of events, it was accepted that Mr Umarji was well-liked, well-respected, and was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At a press briefing Shohel Umarji, his 26-year-old cousin, said: "Shezan was a good lad.

"He was respected himself and he respected other people, young and old. The family are not coping well at all. It's a sudden death, and they are going through a very hard time."

Mr Umarji worked for a Halifax call centre, attended the local mosque five times a day, and enjoyed playing football.

One neighbour said: "Last week Shezan's sister got married, it was a happy occasion for the whole family. This week, the family will have to go to a funeral."

The woman, who did not wish to be named, added: "I've lived here all my life. I have many friends here; but after Friday night, it's time to go. I'm taking my daughters, it's not safe."

There were mixed feelings, too, about the increased police presence on the estate. Some said they were reassured by the marked vans and mounted officers, while others were angry.

One young man in his 20s, who gave his name as Khalid, said: "It wasn't a racist area - but it will be now. You wait.

"The police being here will make things worse. They'll increase tension between the two communities until it kicks off, and then they'll come down on us real hard.

"I'm a brother to all the Pakistanis on this estate. They [the police] don't care about us, that's why they took so long to get here. Shezan could have been saved if the police and the ambulance had come quicker." Asked about the delay, Det Supt Gardner said: "I can't refute the allegations that there was a delay in the police response, because I don't know.

"We're at the very early stages of the investigation; it is something we will be looking into."

He said that the additional police presence on the estate was necessary and precautionary.

He said: "We have to be realistic. This was the murder of a young Asian man in a mixed race area, and the potential for reprisals is something we have got to be alive to - irrespective of the original motivation behind Shezan's death.

"We have to be alive to factions who know nothing about this incident trying to stir up trouble. It would be remiss of us not to cater for that. Certainly the Umarji family are reassured that we are there."

Backstory

In 2005 there were 333 racist incidents in Preston, 204 of which were racially aggravated crimes. Lancashire police attributed these figures to a backlash following the 7/7 terror attacks. However the rise in the number of racist incidents across Lancashire was higher than the national average. Home Office figures showed that in 2004-2005 there were 2,013 complaints compared with 1,923 the previous year, an increase of 9%. Nationally, for the same period, racist incidents recorded by the police went up from 54,286 to 57,902, a rise of 7%.

    Police treat Asian man's murder as racist, G, 24.7.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1827345,00.html

Fatal stabbing rocks troubled estate

Police play down talk of racial gang war after Asian youth dies in brawl

Sunday July 23, 2006
The Observer
Lorna Martin

Police and community leaders in Preston, Lancashire, appealed for calm last night after 20-year-old Shezan Umarji was stabbed to death amid running battles between white and Asian youths early yesterday.

The young man was attacked outside his home in Fishwick View, on the city's deprived Callon housing estate.

Shock, anger and threats of retaliation reverberated in the community yesterday. A close friend of Shezan's told The Observer: 'We have lost a very close friend. He was like a brother. We won't let this go. His dreams were to get away from the street. He was a funny, kind character. He had a normal life, playing football and cricket and chilling.'

The family released a photograph of Shezan taken last weekend at his sister's wedding. Around 40 men, some of whom were armed with knives, bottles and baseball bats, were involved in the fight at around 1.45am yesterday.

Witnesses said the attacks continued even when police and ambulance workers were trying to save Shezan's life, and told of vicious retaliation against the father and younger brother of a white man believed to have been involved.

They said a middle-aged deaf man who tried to stop the violence was badly beaten. Police confirmed four other people were injured but said they were all later released from hospital.

Around five streets of terrace houses were cordoned off yesterday as police conducted a search involving forensics officers and sniffer dogs.

Valli Patel, a county councillor who was with the young man's parents, brother and two sisters when they were informed yesterday morning, urged any witnesses to come forward. 'They are utterly distraught, it is a huge shock to them,' he said. 'The Asian community is close-knit and everyone will gather round to help and support them, but at the moment they are numb.'

Community leaders played down any suggestion the attack may have been racially motivated but police sources said it appeared the battle was between Asian and white youths, some armed with baseball bats.

Councillor Taalib Shamsuddin denied racism was involved. 'There were two groups. It was a hot night and there were people who were drunk. It's as simple as that ... The early indications are that this wasn't a systematic racial issue. It was a disagreement between two guys that got out of hand.'

Jeannie Goodwin, a 66-year-old who now lives in the Scottish borders but was visiting her daughter and granddaughter, said the area had changed beyond recognition over the years. 'I lived here for 30 years and I can't believe how much it has deteriorated,' she said. 'It's not quite the Bronx, but it's not far off it ... When I lived here we always had Asian neighbours and we all got on really well. We all used to babysit for each other, but in the last 10 years that has all changed.'

A young mother-of-two living across the street from the spot where the fatal attack took place described how police and paramedics had to fight through the rival groups to get to the dying man. 'Everyone was standing around him still screaming, crying and fighting,' she said. 'Someone said it was over drugs and about bikes ridden on the estate.'

Last night Superintendent Peter White of Lancashire Constabulary said around 80 officers were involved in the investigation. He said there would be a heavy police presence on the estate last night and over the next few days but stressed there was no evidence to suggest it was a racist attack.

    Fatal stabbing rocks troubled estate, O, 23.7.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1827001,00.html

Street crime surge dents Reid fightback

Home Office rescue plan launched as figures show rise in violent offences

Thursday July 20, 2006
Guardian
Alan Travis, home affairs editor

A surge in street robberies to nearly 100,000 a year is revealed in the annual crime figures published today, denting John Reid's hopes that a "rescue plan" will restore public confidence in his beleaguered department.

The 8% rise in street crime follows the ending of Tony Blair's 2001 initiative which pumped millions of pounds into fighting muggers after the prime minister took a personal lead on the issue.

Official Home Office statistics show violent crime rose 2% to more than 1.2m offences, though overall rates of crime remained stable. Drug offences also rose 23%, largely driven by an increase in cannabis possession offences, but government analysts put this down to an increase in formal warnings which police have been giving since the drug was downgraded to class C.

There was better news on house burglary, which fell 7%, and murder, which is at its lowest level since the 60s.

The Association of Chief Police Officers described the increase in violent crime as a concern, but its spokesman on crime, Ian Johnston, thought the overall outlook was positive.

Scotland Yard said the rise in muggings in London, a significant part of the overall increase, was down to growing numbers of young people carrying mobile phones and music players, and handheld computers. Commander Simon Foy said: "We had a consistent problem last year with robbery. We know we have got a problem and we have done quite a lot about it."

The figures come a day after Mr Reid announced radical plans for his department, and ahead of further overhauls of the criminal justice system due to be announced today. The home secretary will try to maintain the momentum by confirming a further 8,000 prison places to cope with record jail numbers. He will also try to meet public concerns over sentencing and released prisoners by insisting that all parole board decisions be unanimous and saying he will tackle problems thrown up by the Human Rights Act.

He will back the extension of the "community courts" based on the model in north Liverpool where a judge works closely with the local community. Mr Reid told the Commons he was determined to deliver a confidently led and well managed Home Office but conceded it would take "unglamorous hard work". That process began yesterday when he revealed proposals to revamp the department, including a purge of senior managers, with a quarter of them - 15 directors - being moved out of their jobs immediately.

His top 250 senior civil servants will have to go through skills assessments by September to see if they are up to the job.

The Home Office is to be slimmed down with 3,300 more headquarters jobs going by 2010 in attempt to turn it into a smaller, more responsive strategic centre, leaving decisions on operations and casework to individual services. The immigration service is to become a semi-independent agency. Mindful of the clashes between Michael Howard and his prisons boss, Derek Lewis, Mr Reid said it was impossible to completely separate policy and operations but he hoped ministers would resist the temptation to routinely interfere.

Shadow home secretary, David Davis, predicted the reform package was not up to the job: "The Home Office is a department in severe crisis as a direct result of government policy. The failures are multiple, massive and have serious impact on the public."

    Street crime surge dents Reid fightback, G, 20.7.2006, http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,1824716,00.html

Sister is stabbed to death for loving the wrong man

Children were made to watch an attack on a woman who was forbidden to marry outside her caste

June 17, 2006
The Times
By Steve Bird

A BUSINESSMAN is facing a life sentence for stabbing his sister to death in front of his two young daughters in a so-called honour killing.

Azhar Nazir, 30, and his cousin, 17, used four knives to cut Samaira Nazir’s throat and repeatedly stab her after she fell in love with an asylum-seeker from what they saw as an unsuitable caste.

Miss Nazir, 25, had rejected suitors lined up to meet her in Pakistan and had been summoned to the family home in Southall, Middlesex.

The father, also called Azhar, Nazir and the youth launched the attack and at one point dragged her by her hair back into the property.

Miss Nazir, a businesswoman described as “strong-willed”, was heard to shout at her mother, Irshad Begum: “You are not my mother any more.” She was then held down as a scarf was tied around her neck and her throat was cut in three places. Nazir’s daughters, aged 2 and 4, were screaming and were splattered with blood. Police fear that they were ordered to watch as a warning to them. Neighbours called the police after hearing the screaming.

Nazir was found guilty yesterday of murdering his sister; a day after his cousin, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted for his part in the murder. They were remanded in custody and will be sentenced at the Old Bailey in London next month.

The court was told that the 17-year-old believed that Miss Nazir had become a victim of black magic at the hands of Mr Mohammad, an Afghan asylum-seeker. Nazir denied murder but told police that his sister “had to be stopped”.

The father was also charged with the murder but fled to Pakistan, where he has gone into hiding. Charges against the mother were later dropped.

The court was told that Nazir and his father ran Rana Brothers, a successful grocery store on Southall Broadway. The son also owned a recruitment company, S & F Staffing, which supplied workers for the Hilton hotel chain and had made Miss Nazir a director.

She was articulate and well-educated and had studied travel and tourism at Thames University. She was described as the brightest in the family.

She clashed with her family when she told them that she wanted to marry Mr Mohammad, who become known to the family after he came to the country illegally.

After the couple fell in love,Mr Mohammad tried to ingratiate himself with the family by arranging to bring the 17-year-old cousin to Britain from Pakistan. Mr Mohammad and Miss Nazir kept their affair secret for years.

He told jurors: “We were as boyfriend and girlfriend for about five or six years. But we couldn’t tell her family because Samaira said her father was a very strict man who would not allow any female in his family to marry outside of his caste or tribe. We had discussed marriage. Samaira wanted to tell her family herself. Her father was very upset and said I was only after their money.”

When the couple announced their engagement, Mr Mohammad, who ran a stall selling phone cards, said the father went at him with a knife and threatened to kill him.

In April last year Miss Nazir was summoned to the home to be killed to protect the family’s honour. As she screamed for help one neighbour banged on the front door, but the father emerged claiming that his daughter was having a fit.

When police arrived they found a trail of blood from the front of the house to the back door and then to the hallway where Miss Nazir’s body was slumped in a pool of blood.

The amount of blood on the children suggested that they were only feet from the attack. A neighbour spotted Miss Nazir’s bloodstained arm emerge momentarily from the front door before she was dragged back inside and the door slammed shut.

She received 18 stab wounds and three cuts to her throat.

    Sister is stabbed to death for loving the wrong man, Ts, 17.6.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2229505,00.html

Youth, 15, fights for life after midnight gun attack

Monday June 5, 2006
Guardian
Alex Kumi and Riazat Butt


Detectives are hunting a masked man who opened fire on a group of youths, leaving one teenager fighting for his life and injuring another. A 15-year-old boy, who has not been named, is in a serious but stable condition after being shot five times in the attack, which took place in the Ardwick area of Manchester.

The boy was hit in the chest, back, groin, buttock and thigh and his 13-year-old friend was hit in the lower leg.

Police said a dozen youths were playing on their bikes shortly before midnight on Saturday when a silver car with up to five male passengers drew up. A man opened fire on the group after jumping out of the car.

The 15-year-old underwent surgery at Manchester royal infirmary. His friend's condition is not thought to be serious. Last night armed officers stood guard outside the hospital where the two youngsters were being treated.

Police have so far been unable to establish a motive for the attack. The youths were playing on a grassy pedestrian strip linking Billing Avenue, where the shooting took place, to another residential street.

Witnesses said the gunman, who wore a balaclava, was around 6ft tall, of muscular build and wore dark clothing.

"Early indications are that this is not a random attack, although we cannot say whether the youths who were hit were the intended targets," said Superintendent Gerry McGowan.

A Greater Manchester police spokeswoman said the 13-year-old "remains in a stable condition".

Officers were called to the scene by the ambulance service after the pair were found bleeding heavily. The 15-year-old is from Ardwick and is believed to live yards from the scene of the shooting. His friend is from Longsight.

Yesterday about a dozen abandoned bikes remained at the scene of the shooting, which had been cordoned off by police tape. A section of roadway was sectioned off before forensic tests.

Detectives have been unable to confirm the type of weapon used in the attack and said no firearms had been recovered.

Residents in the terraced housing near to the scene of the attack have remained tight-lipped as to the identity of the young victims.

Ardwick, which lies about a mile south of Manchester city centre, has been plagued by drug and gang violence in recent years.

The area is just east of the Moss Side district, which was riven by the gang warfare of the 1980s and 1990s and, owing to its notoriety, earned the city the nickname Gunchester.

Further to the east lies the district of Longsight, where the 13-year-old victim is from. It is also a battleground for turf wars between rival gangs.

Anyone with information regarding the shooting is urged to contact Greater Manchester police or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

    Youth, 15, fights for life after midnight gun attack, G, 5.6.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/gun/Story/0,,1790349,00.html

Knives rule the playgrounds as inter-racial violence soars

Pupils across the country are scared - scared of children from other ethnic backgrounds and of the blades that are now being used with terrifying regularity. Anushka Asthana and Mark Townsend report on the tensions that threaten to turn playgrounds into battlegrounds

Sunday June 4, 2006
The Observer


Fridays were the most scary. 'Twenty kids would wait for me at the school gates and beat me up. Once they put me on the floor and stamped on my head. It started when I was 12.'

A group of Somali boys were sitting outside a cafe on Stratford Road in Birmingham talking about their experience of school. Modqtar, now 17, was beaten up twice a day and picked on for having poor English. The perpetrators were often Asian gangs.

Five years after his family fled Somalia, the teenager was petrified about travelling around his adopted homeland. 'I have to get two buses here, and two buses back. That is four chances of getting beaten up every day. They shout at us to go back to where we came from. But they are not from here either.'

His friend Mustafa nodded sagely, adding: 'We get attacked by everyone in school - Asian gangs, white gangs, black Jamaicans. Everyone wants to fight us.'

Their group began laughing, yanking up hooded tops as they adopted the posture of a streetwise gang. 'This is our ghetto,' said one, lifting his hand and sticking out his index and little finger before collapsing in giggles. They were joking but there was some truth in it: 'If you get beaten up twice a day for years,' added Modqtar, 'you grow up to be aggressive.'

Across town, in Washwood Heath, three Asian boys whose families are from Pakistan were having a similar conversation. 'A small incident can set off a riot in school,' said the 16-year-old, who asked not to be named. 'There are fights every other day. If there is an Asian gang and one Somali boy, he is in trouble, but if there is a Somali gang and one Asian boy it is vice versa. Even the girls are at war. Parents are afraid to let their children out.'

It is not just fists. They talk about a Somali pupil who was a victim of a stabbing. Then, just over a week ago, 14-year-old Mohammed Ahmed Hussain was knifed in the stomach as he played football opposite his school gates around the corner. The teenager, known as Romeo because of his good looks, had arrived in Britain from Pakistan last year.

Open a newspaper, turn on the television or switch on the radio, and it is impossible to miss the spate of knife crime spreading across the country: Rudy Neofytou, 19, knifed trying to stop shoplifters; Tom Grant, 19, stabbed to death on a train from Glasgow to Paignton, Devon; Nisha Patel-Nasri, 29, a Special Constable killed on duty.

Worse are the daily reminders of violence and death among young people. Mohammed Ahmed Hussain survived the attack in Birmingham but others were not so lucky. Last month 15-year-old Kiyan Prince, a promising footballer, collapsed, dying 50 yards from his school gates in north London after he was stabbed.

This week a 14-year-old girl will appear in court charged with knifing Natashia Jackman, a fellow pupil at Collingwood College in Camberley, Surrey. Jackman had a pair of scissors repeatedly punched into her face, head, chest and back.

In the last month alone there has been a plethora of violent or threatening clashes between school pupils across the country. Just an hour after Kiyan Prince fell to the ground, another boy was seriously wounded in a knife attack in Hendon, also in north London. Nine boys were excluded from Downend school in Bristol after two fights during which one of the teenagers was found to be carrying a knife. In Cornwall an investigation was launched in a primary school after allegations that a 10-year-old was threatened with a knife by a classmate.

Back in Birmingham, stories about violence in school come as no surprise to Modqtar and Mustafa, nor to their Asian counterparts. Their school lives have been punctuated with fights and aggression, some involving knives, many more without. Often gang clashes are sparked by unfounded rumours. One 'riot' began because of a whisper that a Somali boy had beaten up an Asian girl.

This is not just indiscriminate violence between frustrated youth. It is a new form of vicious racism that breaks down the traditional notion of white on black violence. Now there is hate and distrust between ethnic groups: white, Asian, Afro-Caribbean, African and those from the Middle East.

Comments once associated with far-right white groups can now be heard among the long-established immigrant communities. They fear the new arrivals in the same way they were once feared. Those feelings permeate down to their children.

A hard-hitting documentary made for teachers will be broadcast tomorrow, revealing the true level of inter-racial tension inside the school gates. Dealing with Race - on Teachers' TV - will show how small altercations can spark mass fights.

In one scene an assistant headteacher from John Kelly Boys' Technology College in London talks about a battle where up to 100 pupils ganged up on a few Afghan boys. 'A group of people were fighting each other almost indiscriminately,' says Richard Ockan.

To help newer groups of immigrants to integrate, John Kelly Boys' has started running Saturday sessions for local families. It has already been successful in helping Somali youth integrate, and now the school is hoping it will do the same for the new Afghan population.

Nooralhaq Nasimi, spokesman for the Afghan Community Organisation of London, said youngsters needed to be given more protection by the police and the Home Office, adding that they were constantly being singled out for attack by more established ethnic minority groups. He said that schools had become increasingly dangerous.

'We need a safe environment in our schools in order to tackle bullying and conflict among ethnic minorities,' he said, adding that the knife culture was terrifying parents.

Senior police officers who are monitoring inter-community tensions are increasingly aware of an evolving hierarchy of violence between ethnic groups. Rob Beckley, the spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers on police and faith community issues, said that a form of inter-ethnic violence had developed, with newly arrived immigrants the most targeted and most vulnerable.

'There is at least one incident a week of serious disturbances based around schools among groups, sometimes inter-ethnic, sometimes gangs. It is an issue significant enough to merit substantial police intervention on occasion.'

Beckley, also assistant chief constable of Hertfordshire, said that some school-based gangs were adopting an aggressive stance based on religious and cultural identities.

In the past month police have responded to four major outbreaks of violence in Britain's inner cities involving young people from differing backgrounds. 'These are significant incidents that might set a trend in the surrounding community,' said Beckley. 'The carrying of knives is causing problems and carries big consequences.'

The most senior police officers monitoring Britain's complex and constantly shifting race relations say that the Somali community, in particular, has been subject to violent attack by other ethnic groups.

'Disturbances affecting the Somali community have been recorded from Plymouth right up to Glasgow,' said Beckley. 'A lot of the Somali families came over in the early Nineties, compared to some of the Asian and black communities who are now third generation and well established. There is a real vulnerability about the most newly arrived.'

The myths about the new communities are perpetuated across the country. In Washwood Heath, young Asian people talk about perceptions of the newcomers that were once used to alienate them.

'They are taking all our housing,' said one boy. 'They fill them with kids,' added another. 'They smell.' A nearby park has been labelled 'Somalia village' and is avoided by youths of other ethnic minority backgrounds.

But they too are victims of crime. 'It is complicated - there is not one pattern, not one trend and not one answer,' said Simon Blake from the National Children's Bureau. 'But we have to bust these myths about who gets the best housing and how resources are allocated.'

He said he had been in a school recently where African-Caribbean boys were picking on African boys. The first group, he argued, had 'currency' because of the credibility around their clothing and music. However, Blake praised pro-active action across the country.

The Washwood Heath Youth Inclusion Programme (YIP) is running a conference to tackle the problem at the request of three schools. 'Hear my Voice' aims to promote inter-ethnic dialogue.

'This issue arises because it is a high density area,' said Farrukh Haroon, a project worker at the YIP. 'Communities are scrapping for scarce resources and due to an irresponsible media misperceptions are bred.'

Three teenagers, Usman, Yasser and Iksar, all 16, are helping to organise the conference. All three see fights daily in and out of school but want to help the two communities to get on. 'The religion may help as we are all Muslim,' said Yasser. 'I hope that things change in the future.'

Other parts of the country already have well-established projects in place. In the aftermath of clashes between Muslims and Sikhs in Slough, Berkshire, in the Nineties, a group emerged called Aik Saath (Together). It sends young people into schools to give workshops on conflict resolution. Here too Somali, Afghan and Polish children are the new targets.

Some schools are facing up to the problem head-on. Sir Robert Dowling, headteacher at George Dixon School in another part of Birmingham, keeps the tensions outside the school gates by talking about it openly inside. In the opening scene of the Teachers' TV documentary, his voice booms as he takes a microphone and talks to the whole school about a recent incident in which Somali students were attacked by African-Caribbeans.

'This school will be safe. And anybody who gets involved in the thuggery that happened on Friday - you have no place in our family and we will root you out.

'There is a tiny group throwing their weight around and they want you to admire them - don't.'

It is not only those throwing punches who are responsible for the fight, he adds. 'You must take your share of the guilt too. Those of you who hang about, those of you who watch, those of you who don't interfere, that say it was nothing to do with me, I was just there.'

But while Dowling admitted he could not eradicate the problem, he insisted he was 'winning' inside the school. He operates a buddy system that pairs students with older pupils of different cultures and he ensures that there are mixed classes to help integration.

'In this school we've got youngsters who will have been through enormous suffering, enormous hurt, and yet we come together here and we hope,' Dowling says in the programme. 'The answer is tolerating each other a bit more every day.'

Back in Washwood Heath, there is a little picture of hope. In a playground three children, all around 10, play and laugh together as their mothers watch. One is Asian, one is Afghan and one Somali. With the support and backing of teachers and community leaders, the three might just grow up to be friends.

    Knives rule the playgrounds as inter-racial violence soars, O, 4.6.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1789973,00.html

Street cred, money and fear - the forces driving knife culture

As a spate of stabbings prompts ministerial meetings, young Londoners say weapons are easy to buy, and are everywhere

Saturday June 3, 2006
Guardian
Esther Addley

Daniel Dutt-Hemp was last robbed at knifepoint last week, inside a fried food restaurant in Streatham. Three boys took his wallet from his pocket as he paid, then threatened him with a knife before fleeing.

When he asked the shopkeeper if he could use the phone on the counter to call the police, the 18-year-old says, he was told to use the phonebox down the street. The pair had a bit of an argument, "and the guy comes round the counter with a knife, a proper big long thing! Like he was sweating and he needed me to get out the shop." He laughs at the memory, twisting his baseball cap back on his head.

"I think [people] rob for money and for the sick satisfaction that they get out of it when they see the fear in the person's eyes when they're taking the money off them. I think they get kind of a little rush or a buzz off that. You can see their eyes light up, seriously. I've been robbed loads of times and you can see when their mates are round them, 'Yeah yeah yeah!' They get proper uplifted from that."

A week after the government launched its first knife amnesty in more than 10 years, which has already resulted in hundreds of weapons being turned over, Britain appears seized by an epidemic of knife crime. At least 15 serious stabbings in the past week have seen a teenage sales assistant in a north London shop stabbed seven times after confronting shoplifters (a 16- and a 17-year-old were arrested yesterday in connection with the attack), a 40-year-old woman stabbed to death and her body abandoned behind a row of garages in south London, and a 29-year-old stabbed to death in Bristol in front of his three-year-old daughter. The fight is thought to have started because the dead man would not give his attacker 40p.

In Handsworth, Birmingham, a 26-year-old man was stabbed to death outside a nightclub and in north-west London a 32-year-old man was left with knife wounds after being attacked by a gang of youths on a bus after asking them to stop smoking. Meanwhile, the families of Kiyan Prince, 16, attacked last month outside his school in Edgware, north London, and Tom Grant, an undergraduate killed a week ago on a train in Cumbria, are preparing to bury their loved ones after two equally senseless attacks.

On Thursday, as more than 100 officers lined the funeral route of Nisha Patel Nasri, a 29-year-old special constable killed last month outside her north London home, the home secretary, John Reid, was meeting his ministerial team to discuss the measures proposed by the violent crime reduction bill, which will raise the age at which one can legally buy a knife from 16 to 18. Campaigners argue that the maximum sentence for those caught carrying a knife should also be raised from two to five years.

But in south London yesterday, the politicians' attempts to deal with the problem were met with scorn by a group of young people for whom the weapons are far from unfamiliar. They are not themselves involved in crime, but they spoke passionately about the need to tackle the issue and provide alternatives for those who do carry knives. But as they describe the lives that they and their friends lead it is clear that for some communities in Britain's cities, deadly weapons are an almost casual normality.

Daniel is a student and, like the other young people, works at Live, a not-for-profit organisation which publishes a quarterly magazine written and edited by 12- to 21-year-olds in Brixton. He says he has "done a little bit wrong in the past, but admits he is scared by the omnipresence of knives and other lethal weapons where he lives. "I do get scared. I get stopped all the time by little youths just thinking they are big on the streets cos they are in a group. I've seen people as young as 13, 14 carrying knives. Most young people these days do carry knives, or say they do, if they are going out to make trouble."

Craig Brown, 17, says he has seen eight- and nine-year-olds carrying knives. Why do they do it? "The main reason I think they carry them is because their mums don't give them money and they're too young to get a job or whatever. They think that's the way to try to make money. The other one is petty arguments. Start arguing, beefing, and if they're not strong enough to fight they'll carry a weapon. First it was hammers, then it moved into knives, bricks, everything." They get them from home, he says, taking a knife from the kitchen if they need to.

"You get more street cred if you've got a weapon, don't you?" says Kalise Cross, 20. "People will respect you, people won't touch you. That's the way it is.

"But they're scared though," adds 20-year-old Shola Aleje, "you can see it. When they pick up a gun or a knife you can tell they're scared shitless."

Daniel says: "The young ones ... they don't know the meaning of life yet so they don't mind taking it away. They don't know what it is."

They describe the spiral of knife possession: children desperate to hang out with bigger kids are persuaded to carry drugs or weapons for the gang as they are less likely to be stopped by police. Gradually they become more confident and begin to brandish or even use the knives. And other young people, intimidated or bullied, start to carry their own to make themselves feel more secure.

These young people are themselves astonished by the easy availability of weapons in the areas they live. They talk with amazement about a shop in south London selling guns, samurai swords, knuckledusters, baseball bats with spikes, flick-knives. All of them, at present, could legally walk into the shop and buy a knife.

So will longer sentences deter youngsters? Kalise is certain they will not. "I know a boy who was 15 or something and he went to prison for carrying a gun. And because he went in for that, his name has just blown up in the area. As soon as he comes out he's going to be back up where he started, but bigger. His name's big now."

Shola says: "I think rather than such harsh jail terms, maybe enforce harsher community service things, things that will actually shame you. Like building, sweeping the road."

A perceived police attitude to young people which Kalise describes as "them versus us" does not help: "If they do arrest a young person who has got a weapon, give them some proper information to get a better life. Don't treat them like a criminal if they're 10, 15. Let them know this is bad, but there is another way."

Both Kalise and Daniel say they have carried knives in the past, both because they were being badly bullied. Kalise says she has thought about getting another, "because I live by myself and when I'm walking home there's all these young people hanging around and I get scared, I really do. And I think, if I had a knife when I was walking home I wouldn't be scared."

But they all say the problem is getting worse, year by year. "Definitely, and it's going to keep getting worse," says Kalise. Craig says: "I just say wait for the summer. That's when everyone's off school and has nothing to do. They're restless. That's when you'll see it."

The numbers

Number of homicides in 2004-05 caused by a blade or sharp instrument: 236

Number of people who were victims of knife crime in 2005: 2,859

Proportion of schoolchildren aged 15 and 16 who admit to routinely carrying a knife: 1 in 4

Percentage of schoolchildren who carry knives and admit having used them against people: 16%

Number of knife offences, including possession, recorded by police last year: 4,900

Percentage of those convicted of possession of knives who were jailed in 2004: 14%

    Street cred, money and fear - the forces driving knife culture, G, 3.6.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1789624,00.html

Ministers discuss longer sentences for knife crime as two more stabbed

· Woman dead, shop worker injured in new attacks
· Reid poised for about-turn after rejecting Tory calls

Friday June 2, 2006
Guardian
Steven Morris and Tania Branigan


Home Office ministers yesterday discussed the possibility of imposing longer sentences for knife crime, as the recent spate of high-profile stabbings claimed two more victims. A 40-year-old woman was found stabbed to death behind flats in a quiet street in south Croydon. In north London, a teenage shop assistant was in hospital after being stabbed in the back as he tackled a gang of shoplifters. Rudy Neofytou, 19, had been working at a designer outlet store owned by the Moss Bros Group at Wood Green Shopping City.

Thousands of weapons have been handed in to police since the launch of a nationwide knife amnesty last year, but the initiative has been overshadowed by recent crimes.

The home secretary and other ministers discussed the government's drive in tackling knife crime amid speculation that John Reid wants the maximum jail term for carrying a knife to increase from two to five years. He voted against introducing a maximum five-year penalty when the Tories sought to amend the violent crime reduction bill six months ago, but a Home Office spokesman said: "The government is determined to tackle the devastation of knife crime. With the violent crime reduction bill going through parliament, the opportunity is there to look at ways of strengthening the law on knife possession."

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "The fact is the government voted against us when we tried to raise the maximum sentence for carrying a knife."

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "We want the maximum penalty for carrying a knife to match that for a gun. Whether you are stabbed or get a bullet through the chest does not make much difference."

The pressure on the government was led by Jan Berry, chair of the Police Federation, who gave her support to the idea of mandatory jail sentences for those carrying a knife without good reason. She highlighted a recent federation survey of 140,000 police officers, in which almost a third said they had been threatened with a knife in the past two years.

"It's imperative that judicial sentences reflect the gravity of the offence of being found in possession of a knife without good reason, which is clearly not the case at the moment."

In Essex, a young mother, Anne Marie Cuffy, 26, was in a "serious condition" after being knifed in the stomach when she and her sister Kimberly, 18, tried to help a male friend who was being assaulted outside a pub in Purfleet.

In Bristol police were yesterday questioning a 30-year-old man in connection with the stabbing of Barry Wilson, who died on his doorstep on Tuesday afternoon in front of two young daughters, allegedly after a row over money.

In north London, more than 100 police officers lined the streets yesterday for the funeral of special constable Nisha Patel-Nasri, who was stabbed when she went to investigate a disturbance outside her Wembley home. Her killer is still at large.

    Ministers discuss longer sentences for knife crime as two more stabbed, G, 2.6.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1788599,00.html

Carrying a knife is no longer the exception - it's the rule

Filed: 01/06/2006
The Daily Telegraph
By Shaun Bailey

Nisha Patel-Nasri, Kiyan Prince, Tom Grant, Ian Montgomery, Ahmed Hussein… the recent spate of knife attacks has shocked the nation. It hasn't shocked me.

Where I work, in the estates of west London, youngsters as young as nine or 10 talk to me about "shanking" each other over any kind of "beef". "Shanking" is stabbing. "Beef" means to have a problem or misunderstanding with someone.

To believe that this knife culture is an isolated issue is mistaken. It is not only a problem of knives: it is also a problem of a violent society. We live in violent times, and people feel increasingly endangered.

I have seen a change in people's attitudes towards violence over the years, especially among young people. Intimidation and bullying are tools they use all the time. Knives are just a part of that intimidation. Serious bullying is on the rise, and starts early. Children are starting younger and going deeper.

Most worrying of all, it's become acceptable to hit a woman. When I was growing up, you were considered a coward if you did that. Now boys say: "She did this or that, so I gave her a slap." Girls themselves, not surprisingly, are becoming more violent as a result.

Ultimately, this is a cultural problem. Young people today are exposed to violence very early. The perpetrators of such behaviour have become their role models: 50 Cent, Eminem, and elements in the "grime" music scene. This music doesn't just glorify violence - it breeds resentment and jealousy. People who are doing well - and Kiyan Prince, the young QPR footballer killed last month by a school bully, was doing really well - attract hatred because they've risen above the level of everyone else. The culture loves and hates success in equal measure.

We need to look at the material that youngsters have rammed down their throats every day. Magazines such as Zoo, Nuts and MaxPower. Programmes and films such as World Wrestling Entertainment, Get Rich or Die Trying, and MTV, City Gangster flicks and the whole music culture in general. If we want our youngsters to stop being violent, we need to stop showing them violent material, especially so early in their development. As a colleague said to me, the music industry is "peddling death to our children".

I said that this is a cultural problem. It is also a moral one. I recently spoke to a 20-year-old man who had done some truly horrible things - stabbings, battery and so on. I simply said, among some ruder language: "What you've done is wrong."

He looked at me and replied: "You're the first person who has ever said that to me."

Why are knives increasingly being used and killings more and more common? Simple. It's an arms race. A small but increasing number of people carry knives for what they believe is self-protection. They have knives for defence, and have no intention of using them.

But when they are confronted and pull out their knife, they force their attacker to pull out a knife as well. Many people who are stabbed are stabbed with their own knife, as their tool of self-defence is turned into a weapon against them. The tragedy of Nisha Patel-Nasri, the special constable killed outside her house last month, is that she took a knife from her kitchen when she heard an intruder.

Other people carry knives because they intend to use them, for robbery or for survival in their criminal world. These people aren't scared of the police, because the chance of detection is low and the potential penalties are no deterrent.

Police need tools - including searches - to catch people. The objection made in the Macpherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence - that the stop-and-search policy was racist - is misguided. It is young black people who would be the biggest beneficiaries of proactive policing, because they are the people who are most likely to be attacked. In Kensington and Chelsea, a new policy of using a metal-detector "wand", rather than an intrusive clothing search, has made searches much more acceptable.

The fact is that young people aren't scared of the police. I know most policemen and women are committed and energetic officers. But the system in which they work doesn't help. The message needs to go out that the job of the police officer is to prevent crime by being visible - and, if necessary, being tougher than the criminals he meets. The police are too politicised: they need to be left to get on with their job.

But the real fault lies with the judiciary. I've lost count of the number of stories I've heard about a criminal caught by the police who is later freed because of a technicality or "mitigating evidence". Even when they're convicted, they just get a community punishment, for which they don't even turn up.

The criminal justice system should send a strong message that carrying a knife is illegal and will not be tolerated. Five times more people die from knives than from guns. One reason for that is that the penalties for gun possession are far higher, and people know it. We won't prevent people carrying knives - even those who don't intend to use them, but tragically often do - unless they think it's not worth the risk.

Young people need to be educated so they don't see the carrying of a knife as normal. Education needs to be carried out not only by government institutions and programmes, but also by parents and peers.

Young people must feel safe enough on the streets to avoid carrying knives. And we must all work to change our culture so that youngsters don't think using knives is normal. That's not the police's job - it's ours.

- Shaun Bailey is the director of My Generation, a charity working with young people in west London and the author of No Man's Land: How Britain's Inner-City Young Are Being Failed, published by the Centre for Policy Studies
- Boris Johnson is away

    Carrying a knife is no longer the exception - it's the rule, DTel, 1.6.2006, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2006/06/01/do0101.xml

Q & A: Knife crime

The recent spate of fatal stabbings points to a growing culture of knife crime, James Sturcke examines what is being done to combat this menace

Thursday June 1, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Why are knives in the news?

There has been a series of high profile fatal stabbings in recent weeks that have highlighted the number of people routinely carrying knives and put pressure on the government to tackle what many believe is a growing knife-culture.

The killings include the murder of special constable Nisha Patel-Nasri, 29, who bled to death after being stabbed in the leg with a kitchen knife on May 11. A week later Kiyan Prince, 15, was killed outside his north London school on May 18. They have been followed by, among others, the stabbing to death on May 27 of the 19-year-old university student, Thomas Grant, who was killed after he tried to break up a dispute on board a train.

On May 29, police revealed that an array of vicious bladed weapons were among a haul of 90 weapons seized from carnival-goers at the end of the May bank holiday. They were discovered after British Transport police set up airport-style metal detectors at Luton station to stop people on their way to the town's international carnival.

The Independent reported that there were at least 51 knife attacks in Britain and Northern Ireland over that bank holiday weekend.

Is knife violence out of control?

The spate of stabbings has led to fears in the press that knife crime is spiralling out of control. However, this is difficult to measure because the Home Office keeps no statistics on stabbings. A Home Office spokeswoman said that was because there is no specific offence of stabbing. Instead, attackers are charged with a variety of offences such as murder, wounding or grievous bodily harm.

Ian Johnston, chief constable of British Transport police and a spokesman on knife crime for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said on May 31 that there was "no evidence to suggest it [knife crime] is a growing problem" but admitted that it was "a significant problem".

An ACPO spokeswoman said knife crime was "a complex picture" and the problem was a cultural one. "We have not seen an upsurge in knife crime in recent weeks," she told Guardian Unlimited.

However, it is clear that more people are killed by knives in Britain than any other weapon. More than 230 murder victims were stabbed to death with a sharp instrument in 2004/05, 29% of those deliberately.

How many stabbings are there a day in the UK?

A Guardian Unlimited analysis of the British Crime Survey figures suggests there are around 100 violent incidents against adults involving knives every day in England and Wales.

The crime survey recorded 2,412,000 violent incidents against adults in 2004/05. Weapons were used in a quarter of those incidents and 6% of those weapons were knives, according to the figures.

However, the crime survey does not cover knife crime among youngsters, the very age group that many fear is primarily responsible for an explosion in the use of knives. A survey by the Youth Justice Board in 2003 found that 29% of young people in London schools admitted that they had carried a knife. That figure rose to 62% among excluded students.

What is the law on knife carrying?

Under current legislation, it is an offence to carry a knife in public without good reason or lawful authority, with the exception of a folding pocket knife with a blade less than three inches in length. Possession of an offensive weapon without lawful authority or reasonable excuse carries a maximum penalty of four years' imprisonment.

Should we be concerned about knife crime?

"The level of knife carrying is frighteningly high, given the lethality of these weapons," Roger Matthews, a criminologist at London South Bank Univerisity, told Guardian Unlimited. "If people are carrying blades, arguments don't finish with punches but with stabbings. This has been waiting to happen.

"What level does it need to get to before someone says we must take this more seriously? Every time there is an amnest,y some say "wow" about the numbers of weapons but do people have to carry them in their teeth before the public wakes up to the problem?"

What is the Home Office doing?

A nationwide knife amnesty began on May 24 and will run until June 30. It is the first countrywide amnesty since 1995, when more than 40,000 potentially lethal weapons were handed in. Secure bins have been placed in many police stations. The Metropolitan police said that by the end of May, 360 weapons had been surrendered, including a samurai sword and a 2ft machete.

Once the amnesty ends, police forces have promised to "robustly" defend the law.

Additionally, the violent crime bill, currently passing through the House of Lords, contains measures to increase the lower age limit for buying knives from 16 to 18 and create an offence of using another person "to mind a weapon".

Will the amnesty work?

Many question whether the amnesty is likely to do anything other than scratch the surface of the knife problem. Prof Matthews said it was "a waste of time" given the number of knives in Britain.

Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, said it was little more than a PR exercise.

"The Victims of Crime Trust supported the 1995 amnesty. However, since then fatal stabbings have spiralled out of control. It is very clear to those bereaved through knife homicide that amnesties do little or nothing to protect the public from a knife-wielding culture".

Marion Fitzgerald, a former Home Office criminologist, told the BBC that although amnesties do raise awareness, more needs to be done to address the reasons that many people carry knives.

Many people carry knives for self-defence, despite Youth Justice Board research indicating that 65% of young people carrying knives have had them used against them.

What else should be done?

Prof Matthews wants schools across the county to implement a zero tolerance approach to knives and pupils found carrying them to be immediately excluded, in some cases permanently. He also called for random testing in schools.

A parent group has recommended that schools teach self-defence classes to pupils so they do not feel the need to arm themselves with knives. The chief constable of British Transport police, Ian Johnston, has indicated he supported the suggestion.

He told Sky News: "I think that could be worth trying. Something that gives young people the ability to defend themselves without hurting others is a good idea."

    Q & A: Knife crime, G, 1.6.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1787451,00.html

Police hunt killer who stabbed father in front of his two daughters

· Men had been taking part in safer community event
· Knife attack witnessed by girls aged three and 10

Thursday June 1, 2006
Guardian
Steven Morris

Police are searching for a man who may be being sheltered in the Bristol area where he stabbed a father to death in front of his two young daughters after an argument over money believed to be as little as 40p.

The row broke out during a police community event aimed at making their neighbourhood safer.

Barry Wilson, 29, was attacked at the end of a day spent cleaning streets alongside other volunteers and socialising with neighbours at a family fun afternoon. It is believed that the row between the father of three and another man began as the fun afternoon drew to a close.

The man is said to have followed Mr Wilson back to his house in the south Bristol suburb of Knowle West, and the pair scuffled. The man returned to a house nearby, armed himself with a kitchen knife, and stabbed Mr Wilson through the heart and neck.

Mr Wilson's daughter Letisha, three, was with him, while a second child, Jasmine, 10, watched from a bedroom window. The attacker is said to have calmly walked away as Mr Wilson's girls fled their home shouting: "Daddy has been stabbed, daddy has been stabbed." Neighbours rushed to his aid but could not stem the blood.

He died later at Bristol Royal infirmary.

Detective chief inspector Guy Vickers, who is leading the murder investigation, made an appeal yesterday for help in tracing Mr Wilson's killer. He would not confirm or deny reports that the row was over 40p but said that the killing had followed a "petty squabble". He said the suspect had been seen arguing with Mr Wilson shortly before the attack. "We would urge anyone with information to come forward."

Mr Wilson's home was cordoned off yesterday. Splatters of blood were visible in the front yard and on the doorstep. His partner, Maxine Prescott, 27, pregnant with the couple's fourth child, said: "Barry was a great bloke. I can't believe such a terrible thing happened on my own doorstep."

The killing is the latest in a spate of high-profile attacks which have focused attention on knife crime.

In the last few weeks a schoolboy footballer, Kiyan Prince, and a special constable, Nisha Patel-Nasri, have been killed in north London; at the weekend a student, Thomas Grant, died after being attacked on a train in Cumbria.

Mr Wilson's death also came fewer than 24 hours after a 17-year-old man was left lying in a pool of blood in the St Paul's area of Bristol.

A knife amnesty is being held nationally. In Avon and Somerset 40 collection points have been set up. Police searching for the weapon used in Mr Wilson's killing were hampered because they found a number of knives discarded in the hedges and drains near his house. As in many parts of the country, the number of knife incidents is increasing in Avon and Somerset.

Mr Wilson had spent Tuesday morning helping to clean up the streets as part of a campaign organised by the police, city council and fire service. The event had been heralded as a great success. More than 1,000 people had taken part and 42 skips were filled with abandoned furniture and rubbish.

Mr Wilson and members of his family then went along to the fun afternoon, including bouncy castles, face-painting and a football competition. A row broke out in a bar area.

Barmaid Michelle Rawlings, 26, said Mr Wilson and another man had been chatting happily. She said: "Just as we were about to close at around 3.45pm they bought a last pint and started arguing over money."

The man is believed to have followed Mr Wilson to his home just around the corner and attacked him. Some witnesses said Mr Wilson had tried to run back into his house but his trousers got snagged on the garden fence and he fell over.

Julie Hodge, 36, babysitting the victim's son, Troy, seven, told how Jasmine ran to her house screaming. "Jasmine came running up to my house and said, 'Come quick, come quick, my dad is in a fight'. Troy was with my son so I told them to stay in the house and ran down the road. As I got there I saw Barry slumped on the doorstep with loads of blood all around him."

Another neighbour said: "Barry got up and told me to ring the ambulance but then he collapsed. By the time my mum and I crossed the road to him, he didn't have a pulse. The blood was pumping out of his neck and his children were screaming."

Neighbours said Mr Wilson lived for his children. His son, Troy, could not wait to see his father after the fun afternoon because he had had his face painted. He had been excited about the birth of his fourth child. Another neighbour, Julie O'Reilly, said: "Only at the weekend I saw him hugging his missus on his doorstep and thought how happy they seemed."

Last night detectives investigating the stabbing said that they had arrested a 30-year-old man in the Knowle West area of the city on suspicion of murder. An Avon and Somerset spokeswomen said: "He's currently in police custody awaiting questioning."

    Police hunt killer who stabbed father in front of his two daughters, G, 1.6.2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,1787342,00.html