Almost a third of knife crime in England and Wales happens in London with an incident every 30 minutes, according to shock official figures released on Thursday.
The Metropolitan Police recorded 16,789 offences involving a bladed weapon in 2024 – around 46 a day, the Office for National Statistics said.
Some 54,587 knife crimes were logged by police in England and Wales last year, up two per cent from 53,413 in 2023.
The ONS said most knife-enabled offences took place in metropolitan areas with the London force recording 31 per cent, West Midlands Police nine per cent and Greater Manchester Police six per cent.
Levels for the Met are 14 per cent higher when compared with the pre-pandemic figure of 14,680 in March 2020.
Knife-enabled crime includes offences where a blade or sharp instrument has been used to injure a victim or used as a threat. It also includes those where the weapon may not have been seen.
The statistics emerged as 29-year-old Abdirazak Omar appeared in court on Thursday charged with the murder of his female neighbour Pamela Munro, 45. She was stabbed to death at a block of flats in Enfield, north London, over the Easter weekend.
Across England and Wales, the number of offences involving possession of an article with a blade or point stood at 28,150 in 2024, up one per cent year-on-year from 27,892 and higher than the pre-pandemic figure of 23,264 in 2019/20.
Knife-enabled homicides stood at 216, down 16 per cent from 258 in 2023.
Separately, shoplifting offences recorded by police in England and Wales has passed half a million for the first time, figures show.
A total of 516,971 offences were logged by forces last year, up 20 per from 429,873 in 2023.
The figure is the highest since current police recording practices began in the year to March 2003, the ONS said.
Shoplifting offences have been running at record levels for the past two years and have seen a “sharp rise” since the Covid-19 pandemic, it added.
Responding to the data, policing minister Dame Diana Johnson said: “This Labour Government will not tolerate the criminality blighting our communities.
“That’s why we’re putting almost 3,000 more bobbies on the beat in neighbourhood roles this year, and under our leadership, these crimes will receive the attention they deserve.
“We are already starting to reverse the Tories’ decade of decline on charge rates.”
She added: “Today’s figures are yet more evidence of the damage done by destroying neighbourhood policing as the Tories did over 14 years.”
Scotland Yard were approached for comment.
Billy Gazard of the ONS said: “While police-recorded offences involving knives and sharp instruments have increased, there has been a marked decrease in firearms offences.
“However, shoplifting offences continue to rise, reaching half a million offences in the year ending December 2024, the highest on record.”
