knife crime death toll passes 100

There has been one fatal stabbing every 1.45 days so far this year in England and Wales. If killings continued at that rate for the rest of the year, the total would be slightly lower than the 285 stabbing deaths recorded in 2017-18.

The 100th death was John Lewis, 32, who died in Middlesbrough on the evening of 14 May.

Those killed in 2019 range in age from 14-year-old Jaden Moodie, who was stabbed in Leyton, east London in January - to 80-year-old Barbara Heywood, who was attacked at her home in Bolton in March.

An analysis by the BBC showed that 83 of the 100 stabbed were male and almost half the victims were under 30.

Knife crime in England and Wales rose to record levels in 2017-18 with the number of fatal stabbings the highest since Home Office records began in 1946.

Thirty of the fatal stabbings were in London, 10 in Greater Manchester and eight in the West Midlands.

In September 2018, London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, announced the introduction of the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) in a show to stem the rising tide of violence within the city.

Javed Khan, chief executive of children’s charity Barnardo’s, said:“This shocking milestone confirms we are living through a knife crime crisis, with nearly half of victims under 30.

“It’s vital that we act now, so we don’t condemn future generations to live in an endless spiral of violence.”

“Children are children. They are not born with knives in their hands, but when there is little or no possibility of a positive future – what we call a ‘poverty of hope’ – they are highly vulnerable to exploitation and criminality.