Lawless London: Knife crime offences in the capital nearly double in decade under Sadiq Khan – as report shows West End is becoming a hotspot of offending

Knife offences in London have increased by 86 per cent in a decade, a shocking report has found.

London’s iconic West End has more knife crime than almost 15 per cent of the rest of the capital combined, according to research from the Policy Exchange.

Just five per cent of robberies and 0.6 per cent of ‘theft from person’ crimes in London were solved last year, the research – titled Your Money or Your Life: London’s Knife Crime, Robbery and Street Theft Epidemic’ – found.

The report’s author, ex-Scotland Yard detective chief inspector David Spencer, said his former force must take an unequivocal ‘crime fighting first’ approach to save the city from a knife, robbery and theft epidemic.

Knife offences across the country have increased by 78 per cent since 2014, but Mr Spencer said these figures had been skewed by the scale of the issue in the capital, where there were 16,879 knife crimes last year alone – about a third of the total across England and Wales.

The report points out that this coincides broadly with the mayoralty of Sir Sadiq Khan, who was this week publicly criticised by US president Donald Trump, who claimed he had done a ‘terrible job.’

Sir Sadiq, who was knighted in June, has won the Mayoral elections three times since 2016.

The Policy Exchange report claims that since the pandemic knife crime has risen year on year throughout his tenure, with separate figures indicating a nine per cent rise in the past year.

A spokesman for the Mayor said murders, gun crime with lethal barrel discharges, knife crime with injury and burglary are all down since 2016 and last year teen murders were the lowest they had been for a decade.

The Policy Exchange report points out that since the pandemic the number of knife crime offences has risen year on year under Sir Sadiq

US President Donald Trump (right) said this week that Sir Sadiq had done a ‘terrible job’ as Mayor of London

But the report’s author Mr Spencer said: ‘A cosy consensus between police chiefs and political leaders has led to a collapse in proactive policing – in particular stop and search rates – allowing the streets to be surrendered to thugs, robbers and thieves.’

The Metropolitan Police said there had been a recent dip in knife crimes between April and May, while personal robbery was down 12.8 per cent in a year.

The report made 17 recommendations, including that the capital’s top 20 knife crime hotspots should have enhanced ‘zero tolerance’ enforcement, with extra officers tasked with conducting high volumes of stop and search.

The number of searches has dropped by 56.4 per cent since 2022, from 311,352 annually to 135,739, the report states.

And the paper argues that contrary to criticism, the controversial practice is not deployed in a ‘racist’ way and reflected the proportion of the capital charged with serious crimes.

The report stated that 39.5 per cent of those stopped and searched were black, while 43.6 per cent of people charged with murder and 45.6 per cent of victims stabbed to death were.

‘The police are merely responding to the demographic breakdown of serious and violent offending in the capital,’ the report argued.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp said he supported the ‘zero tolerance’ approach, which he understood would require a combination of clear policy, political will and savvy operational policing to implement.

London’s iconic West End, including Leicester Square (pictured) has more knife crime than almost 15 per cent of the rest of the capital combined

Police chiefs have called on Apple and Google to prevent stolen mobile phones being able to connect with cloud services, which would render them useless to thieves, as 80,000 devices are snatched a year in the capital

‘It also requires policing and political leaders to put public safety ahead of ideological dogma on issues such as stop and search,’ he added.

The report also called on the Government to force Apple and Google to prevent stolen mobile phones being able to connect with cloud services, which would render them useless to thieves.

The Mail revealed on Saturday that traditional county lines gangs are turning to stealing phones over dealing drugs because unprecedented demand from overseas is creating a booming £70million black market.

The report also highlighted that ‘hyper-prolific offenders’ across Britain with 46 or more previous convictions are sent to prison on less than half of occasions after they are convicted again.

It recommended the Government should make immediate two-year custodial sentences mandatory for all such offenders upon conviction of a further offence.

Labour MP and former Metropolitan Police inspector Jonathan Hinder said the criminal justice system had been left broken, and there was an urgent need to properly resource courts and prisons to restore public faith.

‘In the meantime, the law-abiding public want a strong police force to have the confidence to take on criminals, and it’s time for politicians of all colours to give the police their full backing to do just that,’ he added.

Sir Sadiq, who was knighted in June, is in his third term as London’s Mayor

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ‘We are putting more officers in neighbourhoods than ever before, using our stop and search powers to taking thousands of weapons off the street – 17,500 over the past four years – and utilising new technology and data-driven tactics including focussing on the highest harm hotspots to bring offenders to justice and drive down violent crime.

‘We are also arresting more than 1,000 more criminals each month thanks to the hard work of our officers.

‘Our approach is having success – this financial year, knife-related crime is down by 16 per cent, there has 12.8 per cent reduction in robbery offences and homicide is at a five year low.

‘This report repeats the calls that we have previously made for reform of the justice system and the collaboration of partners like major mobile phone producers.

‘We all know that reducing knife crime requires a whole of society effort and we will support any initiative that seeks to make this happen.’

A spokesman for the Mayor of London said: ‘The latest ONS stats also show that overall, the violent crime with injury rate is lower in London than in the rest of England and Wales. ‘Record funding from the Mayor and an enhanced approach to neighbourhood policing in the West End has led to personal robberies falling by 20 per cent and violence with injury reducing by 25 per cent in the last year.

‘The Mayor is determined to build on this progress – his record £1.16bn funding has secured 935 police officers and he has worked closely with the Commissioner to increase the number of police officers on the beat in the West End, plus additional police officers working in new or enhanced town centre teams in hotspot areas.

‘Despite years of austerity by the previous government, this is the latest example of the Met Police and Mayor prioritising what Londoners want and delivering on their pledge to put high visibility policing at the heart of fighting crime and rebuilding community confidence and trust.’