Milton Keynes is becoming 'Stab City' declares head of police community forum

David Ashford is chairman of the Thames Valley Police Community Forum in West Bletchley and has been gathering information about knife crime for the past two years.

He has spent a considerable amount of time talking to teenagers and also homeless people around the borough in a bid to understand the knife culture.

And he believes that to wipe out knives, society must first stamp out drug dealers.

"Knife carrying and drug dealing are often two sides of the same coin?” he said.

"It makes sense from my perspective for a drug addict to carry a knife when going to score. ALL dealers carry blades. Perhaps not intending to use the knife, but it gives mental assurance to the addict as he enters the dangerous situation of making his purchase.

"The government needs to open its eyes. We need harsher, much harsher sentences for knife crime and for drug dealing.”

Mr Ashford believes, after four fatal stabbings in the past 13 weeks, that MK is fast earning the nickname of Stab City.

And while it is easy to criticise police and MK Council, knife carrying is a wider issue across society, he says.

Earlier today city MP Ben Everitt announced: “Enough is enough” and said he was pushing the Home Office and Thames Valley Police for “a much tougher response” for people caught with blades.

He added: "If you carry a knife in Milton Keynes you should expect to be locked up.”

Mr Ashford says: “My first reaction is to ask if this is a case of political gamesmanship or something of genuine concern. If it is the latter, which I sincerely hope it is, then Mr Everitt has set himself a mission impossible which needs to be supported by all residents of ‘Stab City’ in an attempt to achieve his ambition.”

He said the carrying of knives has escalated in the two years since he became chair of the community forum.

He added: “A forum meeting in early 2020 placed as priority drug dealing, knife carrying and anti-social behaviour – in that order. Discussing this with a group of teenagers in a school at the time they confirmed that drug dealing was a major issue but felt knife carrying was not.

"How may their attitudes have changed in two years?”

Mr Ashford was shocked when, taking part in an overnight walk to help locate homeless rough-sleepers, he came across a “giant drug camp” in Campbell Park.

He said: “And within Central Milton Keynes is what is colloquially known as the YMCA Bridge, adjacent to YMCA MK. This is a notorious drug dealing location. I found in the shrubbery on the hostel side of the bridge another drug camp. I took photographs and reported this.

“I find it very hard to understand the mentality of someone stabbing another person knowing full well they will be arrested and end up in prison. I discussed this with one person who attended the weekly lunch of love I ran pre-pandemic. He understood the mentality and tried to explain it to me. He wanted me to set up a meeting for him with Iain Stewart MP for South Milton Keynes but the pandemic intervened.”

Mr Ashford remembers the 1960s when he himself carried a knife.

"All teenagers did. A pocket knife better known as penknife. We used these to sharpen pencils, to open pop bottles, to clean our fingernails and many other things. But nobody ever considered them a weapon and would NEVER have used them in such a way to harm anyone.

“I was not a member of The Boy Scouts but back then a sheaf knife was part of the uniform strapped to the boy’s lower leg.”

“Society has changed. How do we change it back? How do we realise MP Ben Everitt’s hope?

"Putting up posters and having amnesty bins cannot be the answer...The government needs to open its eyes. We need harsher, much harsher sentences for knife crime and for drug dealing.”

Mr Ashford admits, ironically, that he sometimes carries a knife himself: “When I go to the DIY store I will have in my pocket a Stanley Knife so I can cut bindings on such items as wood in order to fit them into my car. Perfectly legitimate and I hope if ever I am stopped by the police in a random check such legitimacy would be accepted.”

“Do I feel safe out and about in Milton Keynes? Things have changed. I never go to Central Milton Keynes, I shop locally where I feel safe but always I am uneasy using a cash machine. Taking a vulnerable adult to a cash machine about four years ago I saw him robbed at knifepoint.”

Mr Ashford believes that mobile phones could hold they key to stamping out drug and knife crime.

“When mobile phones were first introduced all numbers had to be registered, including pay-as-you-go. Bring such back and eliminate the burner phones of the knife carrying criminal drug dealers. Is that likely to happen? It would make a difference.”

He concluded: “I wish MP Ben Everitt all the best if his thinking is to genuinely stamp out knife crime. But no MP and no government can undo the society we live in.

"Society itself must do that.”

This week Bletchley town councillor Dr Shery Delfani claims she has calculated that knife crime has soared by 90% in Milton Keynes over the past two years, with at least 10 fatal stabbings during that time.