Delays in knife crime decisions rocket as police 'spend days Tipp-Exing files'

29 January 2024 , 18:00

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Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper meeting anti-knife crime campaigners in Wellingborough (Image: Paul Marriott)

People caught carrying a knife are waiting weeks to find out if they'll face charges - sending the message that it's being tolerated, Labour has warned.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told The Mirror that the Home Office under the Tories "isn't doing its job properly". It now takes an average of 29 days for a decision to be reached on whether to prosecute a suspect caught in possession of a blade - up from just nine in 2015/16.

Ms Cooper warned unnecessary bureaucracy means officers are "spending all day with a bottle of Tipp-Ex" in order to bring a case to court. She said police are frustrated with how long it takes to deal with knife crime cases as she vowed to tackle the delays.

The Labour frontbencher said: "Fast action really matters. When you're dealing with things like knife crime, you need to be able to respond quickly.

Ravuan Jones of charity Off The Streets talks to Ms Cooper (Paul Marriott)

"And if it's taking weeks for something to happen then there's more of a risk that people will think 'well, nothing's gonna happen'." She said: "I spoke to a police officer who is spending hours and hours and hours having to redact a whole load of information from the file before he can even send it to the CPS to get advice or to get charging advice.

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"So it's the equivalent of him spending all day with a bottle of Tipp-Ex. This shouldn't be happening." Delays also mean vital intervention to steer young people away from crime isn't happening, Ms Cooper said.

It comes after figures released last week showed knife crime has gone up 77% since 2015. The Shadow Home Secretary blamed cuts to youth services, a drop in neighbourhood police and changes to the way gangs operate for the spiralling number, with over 48,000 cases reported in the year to September.

Ms Cooper voiced her alarm about failures to tackle knife crime (Paul Marriott)

She said: "The Conservative Government's been completely asleep at the wheel. To have such a big increase reflects the fact that youth services have been slashed. It reflects the fact that neighbourhood police have been cut from our streets with 10,000 fewer neighbourhood police on our streets, and it reflects the fact that criminal gangs are now operating in a different way."

Ms Cooper added: "This is a generation that has been so badly let down". Labour has announced plans to plough £100million into youth hubs to ensure at-risk youngsters are helped, funded by scrapping tax breaks for private schools.

The party also plans to beef up neighbourhood policing teams with 13,000 more officers - 10,000 of which will be new recruits. Latest Home Office figures reveal that just 5.9% of crimes result in a suspect being prosecuted, with nearly 6,000 cases shut a day with no suspect identified.

The Shadow Home Secretary said: "I think you have that feeling now that respect for the rule of law is falling because there's just no consequences in too many cases. You need to have the action taken. We need to make sure that criminals are being caught and are facing justice as a result."

Her remarks came after she met anti-knife crime campaigners in Wellingborough, Northants. Among them were Ravuan Jones and Jane Capps, who co-founded charity Off The Streets.

Since 2021, when it was set up following the killing of 16-year-old Dylan Holliday, they have distributed 213 bleed kits - emergency first aid kits that keep stab victims alive - across Northamptonshire. These are already known to have saved four lives.

Ravuan told The Mirror: "When he died we decided as a community that we'd had enough." The group of volunteers has distributed 14 amnesty bins across the county, with just over 3,000 knives collected by police as a result.

Jane said: "There's this perception that it's just young people, but it's not, it's older people too. And knives are used in domestic violence cases as well."

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Gen Kitchen, who is campaigning to become Wellingborough's next MP in the February 15 by-election - called after Tory Peter Bone was booted out over bullying and sexual misconduct allegations, said knife crime is one of the key issues she wants to tackle.

Since she stated campaigning Ms Kitchen said she's spoken to over 12,000 people on doorsteps, and said: "They just have this feeling that nothing works."

Dave Burke