Manchester's knife carrying crime rates among highest in the country as police deal with spate of stabbings

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Manchester has some of the highest rates of knife possession crime in the country, startling new figures reveal. In the last three years, the equivalent of one in every 275 people living in Manchester was caught carrying a blade, the statistics show.

That put the city in sixth place in the country in terms of highest knife carrying offences per population - with a rate of 36 crimes for every 10,000 people living there.

Birmingham had the highest rate of blade possession offences in that period - with 52 crimes per 10,000 population. It is understood that GMP feel Manchester's possession statistics are high because of the force's efforts to proactively seize knives.

The worrying figures come in the same week that three Manchester men were jailed for life for the murder of Sadiq Al-Lami - who was stabbed 11 times at a set of traffic lights in a ‘road rage’ incident.