Following a challenging year with serious youth violence and the three tragic deaths of young people, Det Ch Supt Catherine Roper, Borough Commander of Islington, makes a direct plea to young people to stop carrying knives.

Over the last year it is true there has been an increase in knife crime not only in Islington but the Metropolitan Police Service as a whole.

This has resulted in a number of tragedies and we are continuing to look at ways to tackle and prevent this type of offending.

As a borough we are committed to working with the community and I am directly asking young people to take the decision to make this stop, and to collaboratively work with professionals to make Islington a safer borough.

In Islington we are working hard with all our partners to proactively tackle all criminality across the borough. This includes violent and knife crime.

It is recognised that all violent crime brings misery to everyone involved. Every victim is a loved one of somebody; every perpetrator will have family and/or friends who will not want them to be getting involved in this type of activity, and it affects whole communities.

Police officers in Islington will continue their visibility, interventions, and investigations to robustly tackle anyone who engages in violent and knife-enabled criminality. We want this borough to provide a feeling of safety and security to everyone – be they resident or visitor.

With our partners, we continue to visit and offer help and opportunities to all those whom we know to have been involved in violent crime before, and all those we have concerns that they may engage in violence in the future. However, you have a vital role to play, and we need everyone’s help to do more.

If you have concerns about a family member or a friend, please speak to your dedicated ward officers, or call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111. Of course, if you are worried that someone may be in immediate risk of harm, please call 999 for an immediate police response. In Islington we have broadened our engagement across the borough with regards to knife criminality, including delivering training to all our estates housing providers, landlords and open spaces caretakers in searching for weapons and their forensic retrieval.

We are working to actively encourage knife surrenders into our knife bins, and engaging schools to educate children and young people as to the impact of knife crime – from a personal and criminal perspective.

With ParkGuard from London Borough of Islington, we are also providing increased open space patrols, weapons searches, sniffer dogs and training – in addition to the enforcement and engagement activity already mentioned. We can, and will do more – but I again ask for the people of Islington to help us in what I believe to be our common goal, to end knife crime.”