Knife crime: stagger school leaving times, say London doctors

A growing number of victims of the spiralling knife crime epidemic are children as young as 12 and school exit times should be staggered to reduce the risk of violence, NHS trauma doctors have warned.

According to new research on people treated for knife wounds at the Royal London hospital between 2004 and 2014, the average age of stabbing victims has fallen from the late 20s to just 18 and an increasing proportion of victims are teenagers.

Experts said the findings corroborated a pattern across England.

Analysis by trauma specialists at the hospital of 1,824 people under the age of 25 treated there for stab wounds in that period found a “sharp increase” in the number of casualties aged 14 to 16. The number of all under-25s stabbed rose 25% each year during that decade, according to the findings, published in the BMJ Open medical journal.

The time when under-16s are in the greatest danger of being stabbed is between 4pm and 6pm on weekdays, with 22% of all victims attacked then, the Royal London doctors found. Almost half of under-16s were stabbed on their way home from school, for example at cafes, transport hubs and in other places where pupils congregate.

The study says: “The period immediately after school accounts for a large proportion of incidents in children, and these predominantly occur close to home and school.”

Secondary schools should stagger their closing times and police chiefs should stage more uniformed patrols in the areas where knifings are most common in a bid to curb the growing toll of injuries, the doctors believe.

“When I started as a surgical trainee 20 years ago, the youngest person we would see who had been stabbed was 17. But now it can be as young as 12 or 13. That happens not infrequently,” said Prof Karim Brohi, one of the co-authors, who is also the director of the NHS’s London trauma system.

“On a regular basis, I go in and tell a mother or father that their kid has been severely stabbed and sometimes I have to tell them that they have died. I’m having those conversations more regularly.”

John Poyton, the chief executive of Redthread, a charity which works with young victims of violent crime and NHS A&E staff, said the changing patterns of knife violence reflected trends across England as a whole.

“These findings are shocking and throw into sharp relief the reality that youth violence should not be labelled as something that happens to ‘gang’ members late at night – violence affects whole communities.

“The BMJ Open data echoes [that] the most common time of day for violence is after school. In 2018 so far, our data across London, Nottingham and Birmingham shows 30% of weapon-enabled assaults occur between 4pm to 8pm.”

The findings have emerged as hundreds of extra officers have been put on to the streets of London after five people were stabbed to death in separate attacks in the city between 31 October and 5 November. They included boys aged 15, 16 and 17.

Jackie Sebire, the National Police Chiefs’ Council spokeswoman on violent crime, warned last week that children as young as nine and 10 were carrying out knife assaults. Levels of violence she had not seen in her 26-year career were leading to scenes reminiscent of “the Wild West,” said Sebire, the assistant chief constable of Bedfordshire police.

In all, 69,000 children aged between 10 and 15 were wounded as a result of being stabbed or injured in some other way in the year to June.

Many teenage victims have nothing to do with gangs, Brohi stressed. “They aren’t members of organised gangs or running drugs. It’s just an endemic violent culture [in the deprived areas] that they’re growing up in. The more often it happens, the more it reflects the society we live in.”

Dr Martin Griffiths, another trauma surgeon at the Royal London, said many young people with stab wounds had been knifed “for seemingly little reason,” often involving alleged lack of respect for a local “face” or even stepping on someone’s trainers.

On Monday, Jonathan Abora, 18, of Tufnell Park, north London, was jailed for life at the Old Bailey after he – and an unidentified accomplice – killed Israel Ogunsola by stabbing him six times in Hackney, east London, on 4 April. A witness said the attack was “relentless” and that the assailants clearly intended to kill Ogunsola.

The study confirms that growing numbers of knife attacks involve greater ferocity than before. “Over half of all stabbings resulted in multiple injures. This is more than double the frequency observed in a study in our catchment area 30 years ago, which supports anecdotal observations of increasing intensity of violence involving knives,” the authors said.

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Most of the 1,824 victims studied had suffered relatively minor stab wounds. But children aged under 16 were more likely to die than 16 to 25-year-olds, despite sustaining similar injuries, the paper said.

The Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said the study’s “terrifying” findings showed that more uniformed officers were needed on the street to prevent and detect violent crime.

“The findings from this report are deeply concerning and as a parent myself, quite frankly terrifying,” said John Apter, its national chair in England and Wales.

“How has it got to the point where we have senior medical experts suggesting staggered school closing times as a preventative measure? What sort of community do we live in where our children fear that they might be fatally attacked on their way home from school – or feel like they need to carry a knife to protect themselves? As a society we have truly lost our way.

“The prime minister failed to acknowledge that dwindling police numbers had anything to do with the rise in violent crime. I’m sorry but I simply do not accept this.”