Shamed: the police forces that only caution knife thugs

Police forces are letting knife-carrying thugs off with just cautions, a Sunday Mirror investigation has revealed.

Our shocking findings come despite new Government guidelines which say everyone over 16 caught roaming the streets with a blade should be hauled before a court.

We obtained figures from 19 forces across England that show what action they took against people caught carrying knives from March to June this year - and found massive differences.

As our chart on the right shows, in Wiltshire just 15 per cent of those found with knives were charged.

But a crackdown on knife crime in Cheshire means 94 per cent of the thugs were sent to court.

And in London, which has been hit by an epidemic of knife killings this year, almost as many - 90 per cent - were also put before the courts.

On average across the country, more than a third of those caught carrying a knife were let off with a simple police caution - which amounts to no more than a warning.

The latest British Crime Survey has revealed someone is the victim of a knife crime every four minutes and knives are used in about eight per cent of all violent crimes. This year alone 17 teenagers have been stabbed to death in London. Those prosecuted for carrying a knife face jail. The maximum penalty was doubled last year from two to four years.

But fewer than one in five under-18s caught carrying a knife are jailed even when they reach the courts. Our statistics show that across all the forces, around 20 per cent of those caught carrying knives were under 18.