Lenient sentencing 'makes mockery' of knife crime crackdown

19 August 2023

Courts are being too lenient with repeat knife-crime offenders and are making a mockery of the work done by police, according to West Midlands Police Federation chair Rich Cooke.

Figures show only around a third of offenders are sent to prison even though legislation passed three years ago should mean an automatic custodial sentence.

Rich said West Midlands Police had changed tactics on the ground since the arrival of the new Chief Constable and this had led to an increase in arrests.

But he said too many “potential killers” were then being allowed to walk free and continue offending.

Rich said the vast majority of police officers would expect to see repeat offenders locked up and believed most members of the public would also support such a sentencing policy.

He told TalkTV: “The problem is the courts are finding reasons to keep these people out of prison even if they are repeat offenders despite a law passed in 2020 which is supposed to require a minimum sentence.

“But it’s just not happening because there’s a get-out clause under which the courts can ‘in the interests of justice’ basically not bother to apply the law.

Rich Cooke told TalkTV 'potential killers' were being allowed to walk free

“The message has got to go out that these people are one step away from being killers and we have got to protect innocent members of the public first.

“I am all for giving people a second chance to a degree but when we are talking about people with third and fourth offences not going to prison, it just makes a mockery of everything we do as police officers and it makes a mockery of the law.

“It is demoralising for me as a police officer.”

Figures show just 31.9 per cent of offenders caught with a knife were handed immediate prison terms in the year ending March 2023

Charging rates for suspected knife offences have fallen from more than 60 per cent in 2016 to just over 30 per cent last year.

“A lot of knife crime is committed by juveniles and there has been this mantra within the criminal justice system around rehabilitation and around not criminalising kids and youths and I agree with that to a degree,” said Rich.

“But we are talking about potential killers here. They talk about not giving children an adverse childhood experience - that’s one phrase I’ve heard - but it’s absolutely ridiculous because these kids are carrying machetes and swords and they are using them to kill and maim other children.

“So let’s try to rehabilitate where possible but when you have repeat offenders you have to go back and ask ‘Who are we here for and who are we here to protect?’ We are here to protect the innocent people who live in this country.

“How do we as a society go to a bereaved parent and say ‘We stopped the offender five times with a knife but we wanted to give him a second chance or a third chance’?”

Rich acknowledged there was an element of victims becoming offenders and arming themselves with knives for their own protection.

But he added: “Then it becomes a vicious circle because if you don’t deal with the offenders then more people get victimised, more people believe that the police and society can’t protect them and so it perpetuates the whole thing.”

Youths are being arrested in possession of machetes and swords

Rich called on the courts to impose the maximum sentences available on people caught carrying knives.

He said: “We can’t have any truck with lawlessness especially at this level of seriousness.

“In the West Midlands, under the new Chief Constable, we are having a crackdown on knife crime.

“We are arresting and we are placing suspects before the courts but at the end of the day there has to be the prison places and there has to be secure detention for juveniles.

“You do wonder how much of this is about money and it definitely feels like the people who pass the sentences don’t have to live with the consequences.

“It’s the ordinary, hard-working people in places like Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Coventry who are left picking up the pieces after these devastating crimes.”