Call for tougher sentences in knife crime ‘zero tolerance’

Ministers today faced calls to bring in far tougher sentences for knife crimes to stop so many teenagers being stabbed to death.

Keith Vaz MP, former chairman of the Commons home affairs committee, proposed a Bill to lengthen jail sentences dramatically. He believes adults caught in possession of a knife should automatically face three to five years in prison, rather than six months.

Mr Vaz, MP for Leicester East, said: “We need to show zero tolerance and a tough sentence will send out a powerful message.”

His proposed Bill has been dubbed Tyler’s Law and would also see people aged 17 and under facing more time in youth detention centres. It was named after Tyler Thompson, 16, who died from his wounds after being knifed last November in Leicester.

His mother, Amy Morgan, said: “The defendant in my son’s case already had a previous caution for carrying a knife and he had been on a knife awareness course as well. But what effect did that have when he later went on to kill my son? It clearly had no impact on him whatsoever.”

The Bill comes after the number of people caught carrying knives in England and Wales rose to a six-year high. Courts dealt with more than 19,000 knife possession cases last year — the highest number since 2011.