Knives in the street

MESSAGES FROM TEENAGERS at the scene of Ben Kinsella's murder. He was stabbed several times following a pub fight in north London on June 29. Four teenagers have since been arrested. The killing evoked such strong emotions that a protest demonstration was taken out in London by hundreds of youth a few days later.-LEON NEAL/AFP

A series of fatal stabbings in the past few months makes the London police look at knife crime as a more serious threat than terrorism.

We have to get tough. Weve let our kids get away with murder for years and now they are literally getting away with murder or think they can.

Lynn Costello, co-founder of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, U.K.

Sadly, in recent days, more young people have lost their lives to knife crime. This is not tolerable and clearly the message is not getting through.

- Sir Ian Blair, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, London

IT is not always that London has a summer an Englishman can crow about. This summer, however, has been more than promising. There is nearly 18 hours of sunshine most of the days, and the maximum temperature hovers round 20{+0} Celsius. Tourist crowds are there everywhere to lend charm to a glorious summer.

That king of events, Wimbledon, went through without a hiccup, except for some minor rain hold-ups. The icing on the cake was the titanic Roger Federer-Rafael Nadal final that saw nearly five hours of exquisite tennis. Excitement to the spirited visitor also comes in the form of the most popular musical, Mamma Mia, moving to the big screen, with the evergreen Pierce Brosnan playing the leading role. In sum, it is all hunky-dory. There is nothing in the air to suggest that the city has any problems at all.

London is, in fact becoming a dangerous place to live. In the past few weeks, it has been witness to far too many stabbings for anybodys comfort. Fortunately, unlike many other police forces in the world, the Metropolitan Police Service does not sweep this phenomenon under the carpet. A few months ago, Commissioner Sir Ian Blair went as far as to say that next to terrorism, knife violence was an urgent priority. Now his deputy, Sir Paul Stephenson, has gone further to admit that the problem had overtaken terrorism in the agenda for action.

What is most galling here is that teenagers hiding knives are killing others in the same age group, for the most specious of motives, and sometimes for no motive at all. Who would believe that 19 kids died following stabbings on London streets in this year alone?

The latest death was that of 14-year-old David Idowu, who was stabbed in his stomach and chest following an argument with a group of youth in south-west London. The number of teens killed in the whole of 2007 was just 27.

The London vagabonds most favoured weapon is the traditional knife, something that is easily available and over which no control is practical. The Met has launched Operation Blunt2 to handle this dangerous crime and has formed a 75-member-strong special squad to handle the situation. Following this, it claims that more than 27,000 people have been searched, 1,200 arrested and 500 knives seized. Only about 15 per cent of these people have been sentenced to a time in prison. Many got away with mere suspended sentences. This is palpably misplaced sympathy which cannot but encourage people who harbour thoughts of criminal harm.

The gravity of the scene will become clearer if one reckons the nearly 14,000 injuries from knives, swords and other sharp instruments reported last year in the United Kingdom . Of these, in nearly 400 cases, children under 14 were the victims. Many experts believe that the numbers could be higher and that the situation calls for better reporting from hospitals, if one were to make the correct assessment of a situation that is fast going out of control.

Incidentally, what strikes me is the astonishing cultural difference between those on either side of the Atlantic for whom violence comes naturally. If it is the gun that dominates the dangerous streets of Washington and Philadelphia, it is the good old knife that sends shivers down the spine of many in London, Liverpool and Manchester.

Three murders have been at the centre of recent discussions in London. The first is the killing of Ben Kinsella (16), brother of Brooke Kinsella, a former EastEnders actor. Ben Kinsella got involved in a pub fight at Islington in north London. He was stabbed several times during an exchange, the reason for which nobody knows. The killing evoked such strong emotions that a protest demonstration by hundreds of youth was taken out in London a few days later.

Poignantly, Ben Kinsella had reportedly written to Prime Minister Gordon Brown asking him to put an end to the dangerous knife crime that afflicted parts of London. This letter was part of a school General Certificate of Secondary Education English exercise. Within four days of Ben Kinsellas slaying, another youth, Shakilus Townsend (16), was done to death in south London after he was chased by a gang of eight masked hoodlums carrying knives and a baseball bat. It is learnt that he was led by a teenage girl to a street in south London where he was ambushed. This was described by the police as a senseless killing.

Perhaps the most horrific of recent crimes were the murders of two young French students, Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, researching at the Imperial College. Recent arrivals to London, they were to go back home a few weeks later after finishing their work. Their flat in south-east London had been burgled and a laptop stolen a week earlier. It is possible the intruder had at that time stolen the house key because on the day of the murder the entry into the flat had been friendly.

What was shocking was that the person responsible for the dastardly crime set fire to the house after repeatedly stabbing the two Frenchmen to death. One believes that whoever perpetrated the crime was something of a psychopath because one of the victims bore 196 stab wounds and the other 47. This was cruelty at its worst and the French press rightly felt indignant enough to describe London as a lawless underworld. One arrest has since been made, and the police have still not shared vital details of the crime with the public.

The London stabbings stirred a major public debate on citizen safety in the city. Not surprisingly, some politics has also crept into the discussion with the Conservatives alleging that under the Labour government the situation had deteriorated beyond limits. Some have taken pot-shots at the newly elected Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson, especially for his comment that his advice to many, including his children, was not to get involved even if they witnessed violent behaviour on the streets. This was an about-turn from his stance last year when he said that the public should deal with thugs on the street and discipline them. This is attributed to his own realisation that the citys criminal elements have gone out of control.

There have been many suggestions to the police that they should resort to arrests of all those found in unjustified possession of knives and not release them with a mere warning after some questioning. The Association of Chiefs of Police (ACPO), an influential advisory body recognised by the U.K. government, has recommended the same to police forces and Crown Prosecutors. The ACPO has also requested hospitals to report cases of patients with stab injuries to the police, just as they notify gun-shot wounds. Alongside, the governments grant of 5 million to combat violent crime will be used for tackling knife crime as well.

Many are, however, sceptical about the efficacy of all these measures in bringing down knife crime, which seems to have run deep roots in British society. A few police chiefs, including Barbara Wilding of South Wales, feel that this is not a mere police problem and that the whole society has to take bold initiatives to repair a fractured society. Barbara Wilding, in a speech in May at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Kings College, London, bemoaned the fact that a kind of tribal loyalty to criminal gangs had taken the place of traditional loyalty to ones family.

She went on to say: In many of our larger cities, in areas of extreme deprivation, there are almost feral groups of very angry young people. Many have experienced family breakdown, and in place of parental and family role models, the gang culture is now established. This diagnosis of a major ill of society reads well. But what next? What is the medicine that can cure the malady?

I wish someone had the answer. In the absence of a workable strategy, I am afraid all police forces and societies, including those in the U.K., will have to muddle along, even as more are killed by ruthless street gangs. Meanwhile, in order to reduce the continual loss of precious young lives, the police have to intensify patrolling of hot spots, be ruthless towards those found carrying knives unjustifiably and illegally, and send them to prison after adducing enough evidence before courts.

The role of the judiciary in stemming the rot can hardly be exaggerated. It is good augury for England and Wales that the next Lord Chief Justice is going to be Sir Igor Judge, who, only the other day, said knife crime had risen to epidemic proportions and that the courts would have to impose the most severe sentence on the guilty.

What about the role of parents? In my humble tribute to Ben Kinsella, I would like to recall what he said in his letter to the Prime Minister. Identifying the deteriorating relationship between parents and children as the fundamental cause for youth violence, he said: Parents need to consider bringing their children to parenting classes to build a relationship, or else lose them for good. Can there be anything truer than this?