Home Secretary announces scheme to tackle knife crime but murdered teen's mother demands action on knife sales

Pooja Kanda, whose 16-year-old son was stabbed to death in Mount Road, Lanesfield, in a case of mistaken identity, wants to see a new law that would mean only licensed retailers would be allowed to sell knives.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood was at Acocks Green Boxing Gym in Birmingham to promote the Government’s Knife Crime Concentration Fund, which will see £26.25 million shared among 236 knife crime hotspots in the UK.

The Government has not yet specified the areas that will receive the funding, but 22 will be in the metropolitan West Midlands, 11 in the West Mercia force area, and eight in Staffordshire.

The targeted areas will receive funding for extra police patrols, CCTV cameras, and crime prevention measures.

Miss Mahmood said the funding would be shared according to local needs, but the areas will receive an average of £110,000 each.

She said knife robberies had fallen by 23 per cent since June 23, putting the Government well on course for its target of halving knife crime within 10 years.

During the visit she met with Mrs Kanda, who welcomed the extra funding for knife crime hotspots, but challenged her about the time it was taking to introduce licensing laws for knife retailers.

"Having lost my son Ronan, I know the devastating consequences of knife crime. Behind every statistic is a family and community that has been changed forever.

“These reductions are encouraging, but I am even more encouraged by the Home Secretary's commitment to targeted action in areas experiencing the greatest harm. Enforcement is vital, but sitting equally alongside prevention and early intervention – reaching young people before violence sets in and addressing the circumstances that allow it to develop.”

But she said she had heard little about the licensing proposals since a public consultation earlier in the year, and every day the legislation was delayed meant more knives on the streets.

“We had a consultation in February and we still haven’t heard much about it to this day,” she said.

“I would like to push forward to not delay it anymore and let’s just get on with it, because the longer we leave it more retailers will be selling these type of weapons, or any bladed articles, that should not be on our streets.”

Miss Mahmood praised Mrs Kanda’s efforts, and said the Government was considering the responses to the consultation.

“As a result of the campaigning from Pooja and others, we have changed the law already on the selling of knives online, and we will be rolling out those changes over the coming months.

“We’ve done a consultation on a licensing regime for those who sell knives, and we are currently considering the responses to that consultation, and we’ll say more about that in the coming months.”

When questioned whether the money earmarked for the Knife Crime Concentration Fund would be sufficient to make a difference in the selected areas, Miss Mahmood said she was convinced that even small measures could have a significant impact.

“We know that even relatively small amounts of money in a hotspot area, whether that’s an increase in patrols, or in CCTV, or in prevention work, can make the biggest difference,” she said.

“We’ve already piloted this approach in some areas across England and Wales, and we’ve had very, very encouraging results on the levels of knife crime.”

Miss Mahmood said there were many reasons that children became drawn into knife crime, and that once a young person had become drawn into that environment, it was difficult for them to get out of it.

“The Government has therefore deliberately decided that the first time a child comes into contact with any system, and particularly the criminal justice system, having carried a knife, we will have an intervention for that child and a specific plan to divert that child away from ever carrying a knife again.

“We do know that once you get into this, it’s a very difficult behaviour to get out of, and it can get you into all sorts of other trouble as well, including drugs and gangs.

“We want to break that link so that every child who carries the knife will have a mandatory plan that will focus on that child and help divert that child away from knife crime in the future.”

Mrs Kanda said she showed the King a locket displaying a photograph of Ronan when she was appointed an OBE at Windsor Castle earlier this month.