A police patrol on the streets of London in September 2022.
While stabbing attacks are increasing across the Channel, a judge from Bristol Crown Court speaks of a “scourge” among the youngest. On Friday, a sixteen-year-old boy was sentenced to life in prison for murder, with a security period of sixteen years. Two other teenagers of the same age were sentenced to nine and nine and a half years of detention in a juvenile establishment for manslaughter.
“Mikey had a successful musical career ahead of him and his future looked bright, although he had faced many difficulties in his short life,” the judge at Bristol Crown Court said in handing down the sentences. He also denounced “the scourge of knife crime” among young people in and around Bristol. “It is clear that you took up arms to fight and hurt people if violence were to occur,” during this party in which around 70 people participated, he estimated. The judge also noted that the victim himself had a knife, but the jury that convicted the three boys rejected any self-defense.
According to official figures, stabbings increased by 7% last year to almost 50,000 in England and Wales, and they jumped by 20% in the capital alone.
