Cop councillor blames 'soft' courts for knife crime

8:28am Thursday 24th July 2008

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A former Metropolitan Police commissioner has blamed Croydon’s knife culture on soft sentencing in the courts.

Croydon conservative councillor, David Osland, has created a scrutiny committee to decide on what action the council can take to combat youth violence in the borough.

The former top cop will meet with licensees, victims, representatives from the legal system, police officers and reformed perpetrators to find out what solutions they have for the rising scourge of knife attacks in the borough.

Furious with the sentences youngsters receive in court and the restrictions placed on officers on the ground, Coun Osland said his main aim was to pressurise the Government into taking a tougher stance on those that carry knives.

He said: “This is not just the concern of the police and the council, youngsters are worried, their parents are worried and residents are worried.

“We need to find and identify radical solutions we can use to reduce the amount of youngsters carrying knives.

“Zero tolerance should mean zero tolerance and central Government should understand this.

“If young people are arrested carrying a knife they need to know they have done something wrong and need to be punished.

“Kids are arrested and laugh at the sentence they receive in youth court. They are back on the street the same afternoon after being handed a caution.”

Coun Osland added: “One of the powers of the scrutiny committee is to hold the council to account on anything we think they are failing on.

“The council has a duty to the people it is employed to look after and if we find they are failing in that duty we will take action.

“The committee will not be an opportunity for people to come and make speeches, we have had enough of those.”