Police need powers to stop knife crimes, says James Whale

Not a week goes by without another stabbing. And the victims, almost exclusively, are young men and boys. The long-overdue ban on so-called zombie knives is welcome – though I was gobsmacked to read recently that one supplier is being paid compensation for the destruction of their stock.

It beggars belief that these ghastly creations, a mix of machete and serrated cleaver, were ever legal in the first place. But at the end of the day, the sad truth is that blades are all too easy to pick up, not least from any kitchen.

On Friday, two 13-year-olds who murdered 19-year-old Shawn Seesahai with a machete became the youngest convicted killers since Robert Thompson and Jon Venables murdered two-year-old James Bulger in 1993.

The boys, who cannot be named, will remain on licence for the rest of their lives. They were 12 at the time of the murder. One of them “often” carried a machete.

So how do we stop kids killing each other?

Better education, more opportunities, and better policing. On the latter, the demise of stop and search tactics, branded “racist” in some sections, has been a disaster.

Police need to be able to search young people they believe may be a danger to others or themselves – and carrying an offensive weapon would certainly count as that – without being accused of racial profiling. Virtue signalling among campaigners, shaming the police into curtailing stop and search has in my view contributed to the knife death epidemic.

Clearly, we need to get tough again. If that means stopping kids wearing face masks and hoodies on public transport which many people, especially older folk, find threatening, but which potentially hides their identities, then so be it.

Society and civilisation have always worked best on the understanding that sacrifices must occasionally be made by the few for the benefit of the many. If that means some young people getting the hump because they get stopped by the police when they are entirely innocent of any wrongdoing, then I’m afraid that’s just tough.

Obviously our police need the training and support so they can carry out these duties in a grown-up manner, without being inflammatory, but the bottom line is that anyone carrying a knife must know that they are now a target for law and order. Stop and search is not the be all and end all, but it’s an important tool.

We cannot tolerate the deaths of so many of our young people. It’s a tragedy and it’s unfolding before our very eyes.