Hospital figures show North West's knife crime culture - Alcock

11.25.00pm GMT Tue 24th Mar 2009

Official figures show that the North West has the highest number of hospitalisations caused by knives, daggers and swords in England.

The figures from the North West Strategic Health Authority, which arose following a Parliamentary Question from a Liberal Democrat MP, also show that the North West has the second highest rate of admissions due to assaults with a sharp object in England in the year 2007-2008, behind only London.

Oldham West & Royton Parliamentary spokesperson Mark Alcock, said:

"Almost 1,500 people suffer injuries from knives or assaults by sharp objects serious enough to warrant hospital attention every year across the North West. Almost 70 of these are aged 15 and under, which demonstrates the worrying scale of knife crime and so-called knife culture among even the youngest people in our area.

"Hospital data is a reliable indicator of the situation, because it's free from the meddling hand of Whitehall and cuts through all the problems with crimes going unreported to the police.

"We are locked in a vicious circle where teenagers don't feel safe on our streets and therefore more of them carry knives, which in turn just fuel the spiral of knife crime.

"Instead of spending billions of ponds on unworkable and unnecessary ID cards, the Government should spend the money on actually making people safer by putting more police on our streets."