‘Use surge policing to tackle knife hotspots’, minister says

The Met should use more “surge policing” in hotspot crime areas to reduce knife crime and teenage fatalities in the capital, a Home Office minister has said.

Chris Philp, the policing minister, said he also wanted to see increased use of new technology that allows people to be scanned for knives from a short distance, as well more stop and search “done respectfully”.

Mr Philp’s call came as he expressed concern in the wake of the killing of 14-year-old Jermaine Cools that modern slavery laws are being abused by knife carriers to escape prosecution.

Jermaine’s murderer, drill rapper and gang member Marques Walker, who was 16 at the time of the stabbing outside a chicken shop in Croydon in November 2021, was a habitual knife carrier who escaped prosecution for a previous incident in which he was caught carrying a zombie knife on the grounds that he was deemed to be a victim of modern slavery.

He was jailed for life at the Old Bailey to serve a minimum of 19 years this month. Mr Philp said he was “extremely worried that sometimes very well-intentioned modern slavery legislation is abused by people from whom the public need protection” and that action might be needed to ensure that similar cases did not happen in future.

He said: “When we think about modern slavery we do need to make sure we are not affording protection to people who are in fact a danger to the public. It’s something we need to keep under review. We can’t have modern slavery considerations leading people who are a danger to the public, a danger to others, in this case a 14-year-old lad, we can’t allow well-intentioned legislation to leave the public at risk.”

Mr Philp’s comments came as he called for London Mayor Sadiq Khan to ensure that the Met steps up its efforts to combat knife crime through more surge policing.

“What I would like to see in London is a lot more hotspot policing, surge policing of hotspot areas where knife crime and anti-social behaviour are of concern,” Mr Philp told the Standard. “We know hotspot policing works, I’d like to see Sadiq Khan do a lot more of it in London.

“Stop and search done respectfully has a significant role to play. Stop and search takes about 350 to 400 knives each month off London’s streets and I would like to see more of that done.”