"GUN-FREE" BRITAIN AGAIN

The Packington estate, so decrepit that it is scheduled for demolition, lies between streets of neat Victorian and Georgian terraces in the otherwise leafy borough of Islington, north London. Last Thursday three boys, all aged 15, sat in the estate's ramshackle play park eating Skittles and shooting the breeze. Even though two of them had their hoods up they were not especially intimidating. None had been excluded from school and when asked who they wanted to win this year's Big Brother they cheerily replied, "that one who's got Tourette's". These were normal inner-city boys. Nice, even.

Yet when asked whether they ever carried knives around the neighbourhood or had tried to take one to school, all three responded with a dismaying "for sure". To prove it one boy - who, incidentally, had an innocent smile and sunny disposition - reached into the folds of his tracksuit and pulled out a small kitchen knife, the sort you might use to chop mushrooms. This, he explained, was for "protection".

Perhaps it was to be expected. In recent weeks numerous reports of citizens attacked and slain have fostered the notion that every other hoodie in Britain is carrying a concealed blade. There were more than 50 knife attacks over the bank holiday weekend alone and horror stories involving good-hearted samaritans apparently breaking up public fights only to be knifed to death have multiplied.

Among them was Tom Grant, a 19-year-old student at St Andrews University, who was on the train travelling home to Gloucestershire last Saturday when he reportedly stepped in to help a woman having a savage row with a young man. He was stabbed fatally.

A few hours later in Nottingham, Ian Montgomery, 26, went to help a woman being beaten up outside a nightclub. He, too, was stabbed and is still recovering in hospital. Marlvin Jiro was not so lucky. The 26-year-old father was knifed at about the same time in Birmingham after a fight. He died at the scene.

Just three days later Barry Wilson, 29, was stabbed in Bristol. Following an argument he was killed on his doorstep in front of his two young daughters. Across town, less than 24 hours earlier, another man, an unnamed teen, had lain dying in a pool of blood, yet another victim of a knife. The following evening a 40-year-old woman was stabbed in Norwood, south London, her body left next to her VW Golf which still had its lights on and engine running.

These terrifying tales followed the recent public outcry over the death of Nisha Patel-Nasri, a special police constable whose funeral was held last Thursday. Patel-Nasri had her own kitchen knife turned on her when, for the second time in a week, she had challenged intruders at her home in Wembley, north London. A single clumsy stab wound to the leg was enough to sever her femoral artery. Later that week, 15-year-old Kiyan Prince was stabbed to death outside his school in north London.

Is Britain in the grip of a knife epidemic? Is blade culture out of control? The statistics do not entirely support this conclusion. Although there has been a recent burst of violence - which has coincided (embarrassingly for law enforcers) with a nationwide five-week knife amnesty - the percentage of knife-related violent crime has remained steady at 6% for several years. Home Office records show that the number of people killed with a sharp instrument in 1994 was 231. In 2005 that number was a near identical 236.

Anecdotal evidence from crime and social workers - not to mention the knife carriers themselves - suggests that more people are carrying knives. Last Monday in Luton more than 90 weapons (including scabrous blades, knuckle-dusters and a 10in carving knife) were confiscated from a crowd on its way to a carnival.

The exact percentage of blade carriers remains hard to calculate as it relies on the unscientific process of canvassing members of the public, who are prone to lie. In 2004 the British Crime Survey estimated that 60,000 children aged 11 to 16 were carrying knives, but what of the over-18s? Perhaps the most damning evidence that knives have become a fixture of British life is the rise in the number of people found guilty of carrying blades in public places, up 63.5% in five years.

This certainly chimes with opinion on the ground. "It's been getting worse for a few years now," says Dawn Irwin, head of Offroad Productionz, a mentoring group that tackles gang and violent crime. "Blades are everywhere."

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