Scene of a fatal stabbing in Upper Street in May: ‘In London alone there are more than 20,000 stabbings a year’

• AS a councillor I always tried to work hard to end knife murders in Islington. I know from my own background the pain that families go through when they lose a teenage son who was going to school and sitting exams before starting his life either in university or going out to work for the first time.

It is not just a crime, it is a loss of a life that should have been and will never get to be. No more weddings, holidays or children to come. It is not just the loss of a life, it is the taking away of so much hope and promise of what a life should have been and will now never be.

When I started to look into the background of the knife killings to understand what was happening, I found out some really incredible things. We get reports of deaths in the news but we do not get reports of knife crimes and violent incidents. There are not hundreds but thousands of stabbings.

In London alone, there are more than 20,000 stabbings a year. I worked out that there were 3.6 stabbings an hour. Think about that for a second: if you sit down to read this paper and have a pint in an hour four people would have been stabbed.

The problem is even worse when you look at the national picture. In places like Wales the figures are as high as 10 stabbings an hour. They have a smaller population and more incidents.

The situation used to be much worse in the north. However, in Scotland they decided to confront the issue. There were too many boys with blades killing other boys with blades, fuelled on either alcohol or drugs on Friday and Saturday nights.

So what did they do? Parents had had enough of the deaths and forced authorities to declare a health emergency. They made the police, courts and health service work together with councils to find ways to reduce stabbings, and it worked. After two years the level of stabbings fell to just a few.

So what happened and how did it work? The point is this. When we all make crime our business, and not the job of the police, parents or schools, we will all work together to bring down crime and prevent violent incidents, instead of leaving it and walking away or in some cases just standing by and watching until the blood runs down the road.

This is a personal point of view, but I hope people will ask themselves when enough is enough? At the weekend there were five stabbings. How many more will it take before we say: “No more”?

No to more mothers and fathers burying their children. No more to a life taken far too early. No more to not having exam results to celebrate. No more birthdays or weddings that will never come. No to having an empty room with clothes and pictures of a son who will never come back.

RAPHAEL ANDREWS
Address supplied