Fed chair repeats calls for hardline approach to knife crime

18 April 2023

West Midlands Police Federation chair Rich Cooke has repeated his calls for a tougher approach to knife crime after the Government announced plans for a crackdown which would see more machetes and zombie knives banned in England and Wales.

Rich said police forces should take a harder line on anyone caught carrying a weapon and urged the courts to use their maximum sentencing powers.

He told TalkTV, he said: “We’ve got to cut the crap really. There’s been too much messing around with mantras like ‘let’s not criminalise young people and children’ for the last 10 years.

“We’ve gone through a phase where we have caught kids with knives but they haven’t been arrested because there are policies in place and people in the system with a very liberal mindset and that is causing a big problem.”

Rich said many police officers were frustrated by some of the sentences handed down by the courts.

He said: “We have sentencing issues where even repeat offenders aren’t getting sent down. 

“There are supposed to be rules to make sure they are sent away and they are not getting sent away because somehow the courts are finding a way ‘in the interests of justice’ not to do so.

“They use that reason in the majority of cases and that’s got to stop.

“Having been around the courts myself I just think a lot of judges and lawyers live on another planet. Perhaps I am generalising but I don’t see that they experience the real world.

“And I think if you had people who had experienced living in these communities that are blighted by these criminals and this level of crime you would see very different penalties issued by the court. Somehow we have to imbue that in the system.”

Rich said young people in towns and cities across the country often felt pressured into carrying weapons.

“The drugs culture, the county lines have taken over in a lot of suburbs, it's not just in the cities and the urban centres any more and my colleagues in the West Midlands are dealing with this sort of incident on a daily basis,” he said.

“I think there are about 250 knife murders a year across the country but you can multiply that by 100 in terms of serious injuries caused by these weapons.

“And the only reason we haven’t got masses of more bodies piled high is because of the NHS and the availability of trauma care that we can provide nowadays. If we went back 30 years it would be an absolute massacre, even more so than it is.”

The Home Office said certain types of the blades which are “designed to look menacing” and “with the intention to threaten” are not currently prohibited but would be outlawed under the measures.

Police would also be given more powers to seize and destroy the weapons while criminals would face tougher sentences for their sale and possession.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: "The thugs wielding these deadly knives aim to terrorise their victims and the public, and too often even carry out horrific or fatal attacks. They are emboldened by the cowardly idea that carrying these blades inflates their own status and respect.

"This can't go on. These plans seek to give the police greater powers to seize and destroy these weapons and impose harsher penalties on the criminals selling them, keeping them off our streets and making communities safer."