Knife crime soars by 90% in Milton Keynes, worse than London

Knife crime has risen by a staggering 90% in Milton Keynes over the past two years, the MK Citizen can reveal.
Knife crimeKnife crime
Knife crime

The rise, which is higher than London, was revealed after the BBC put in a Freedom of information request to all 43 regional police forces in England and Wales.

They asked for details of serious knife crime in their area, including any assault, robbery, threat to kill, murder or sexual offence involving a knife or sharp instrument.

The results placed Milton Keynes as one of the top three fastest-growing areas for knife crime.

It was second to Oldham, where such offences have more than doubled since 2017, and the same as Norwich.

But though the rate is increasing, the number of people charged with knife crimes is down by 20% nationally.

London still has 16 of the 25 worst-hit areas, while Cornwall and Norfolk have the lowest number of incidents.

The age group 25 to 34 years had the largest number of both victims and suspects, with 18 to 24-year-olds coming a close second.

Earlier this year the Police and Crime Commissioner awarded £800,000 to groups across the Thames Valley Police area to help tackle knife crime amongst children.

The Milton Keynes Youth Offending Team and the Youth Faculty at Milton Keynes Council received some of the cash to set up a range of range of early intervention programmes. These included awareness of youth violence and exploitation across secondary schools to targeted intervention with young people already involved in gangs and knife crime.

Matthew Barber, Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner said at the time: “Given the recent increase in knife crime, we need to look at what more we can do to protect young people from violence and exploitation and how we can work even more closely in partnership with both statutory and community organisations to try to reverse this trend.”

He added: “These projects we’ve funded will help tackle this issue by working with young people at both ends of the spectrum of youth violence, from early intervention programmes to identify and support those at risk of involvement in knife crime, gangs or drug dealing to supporting those young people already involved."