Eight in 10 teenage homicide victims ‘killed by knife or sharp instrument’

Around eight in 10 teenage homicides in England and Wales involve a knife or sharp instrument – a far higher proportion than across the population as a whole, new figures reveal. Some 64 homicide victims aged 13 to 19 were recorded in 2023/24, 53 of whom – 83% – were killed by a sharp instrument. By contrast, fewer than half – 46% – of all homicides in England and Wales in this period involved a knife or similar weapon.

The data, which has been published by the Office of National Statistics, comes just days after 15-year-old Harvey Willgoose was stabbed to death at school in Sheffield on Monday in what Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described as a “horrific and senseless” incident. In the wake of the Southport murders in July 2024, the Government announced stricter age verification checks for people buying knives online, while a ban on owning zombie-style knives and machetes came into force last September.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has told The Times that a ban on kitchen knives with a pointed end, being advocated by actor and campaigner Idris Elba, was also being considered in a bid to tackle knife crime. The percentage of teenage homicides in England and Wales where the method of killing is a sharp instrument has been on an upwards trend over the past decade, from a low of 56% in 2013/14 to the latest figure of 83%.

Speaking to LBC on Thursday, Ms Cooper said: “I think you need much stronger action on the knife sales, make it much harder for children to be able to get knives in the first place. “But also the prevention work and swift action when a child is found carrying a knife, because too often those cases have just been dismissed.”. The proportion of all homicides involving a sharp instrument has also reached a decade-high and rose from 42% in 2022/23 to 46% in 2023/24, according to the ONS.

Half (50%) of all male victims of homicide in 2023/24 were killed with a knife or sharp instrument – again, the highest figure in the past decade – compared with just over a third (35%) of female victims. Of the 262 homicides by a sharp instrument in 2023/24, 109 (42%) involved a kitchen knife, 18 (7%) a machete and 13 (5%) a combat, rambo or military-style knife, while 45 (17%) involved a sharp instrument where the type was not known or never recovered.

Under-18s accounted for 15% (40) of the 262 victims of sharp instrument homicides in 2023/24, up from 13% (32 out of 243) in 2022/23 and the highest percentage in 10 years. When looking at ethnic appearance, the ONS found that 12 of the 40 victims under-18 in 2023/24 were white, 11 were black, 16 were another ethnicity – including Asian and mixed – and one was not known or not recorded. In other words, 30% of victims under the age of 18 were white, 28% were black and 40% were of another ethnicity.