Home Secretary To Meet With Police Chiefs After A Rise In Teenage Stabbings
4 March 2019, 06:36 | Updated: 4 March 2019, 06:42
The Home Secretary has called for an end to the "senseless violence" which has led to teenagers across the country being stabbed to death.
Three teenagers have been killed through knife crime in Birmingham in the space of two weeks.
Sajid Javid will meet with police chiefs on Wednesday to discuss violent crime amid a series of brutal stabbings around the country.
Young people are being murdered across the county & it can’t go on. We’re taking action on many fronts & I’ll be meeting police chiefs this week to hear what more can be done. Vital we unite to stop this senseless violence
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) March 3, 2019
West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner David Jamieson has branded knife crime a "national emergency".
17 year-old Hazrat Umar was killed in Bordesley Green on Monday (25th Feb); 16 year-old Abdullah Muhammad died in Small Heath the previous week, and seven days earlier Sidali Mohamed, 16, was stabbed outside a college in Highgate.
The Home Office said it set out a range of actions to tackle violent crime in October including a £200 million youth endowment fund.
It also consulted on a new legal duty to underpin a public health approach to tackling serious violence, and an independent review of drug misuse.
An extra £970 million in police funding is proposed in the funding settlement for 2019-20, the Home Office said.
It added that the Offensive Weapons Bill currently before Parliament will introduce new offences to tackle knife crime and acid attacks.
The Home Office also said the serious violence taskforce, chaired by the Home Secretary and including other ministers, MPs, police leaders and the London Mayor, meets regularly to oversee and drive delivery of the serious violence strategy.
