How West Midlands Police area has highest rate of knife crime (2024)

The police area where two 12-year-old boys murdered innocent teenager Shawn Seesahai has the highest rate of knife crime in England and Wales, official figures show.

Mr Seesahai, a 19-year-oldfrom Anguilla in the Caribbean, had been in the UK recovering from cataract surgery when he was ambushed by the pair in a park last November.

Wolverhampton sits in the West Midlands Policearea, where the number of offences involving a bladeper 100,000 of the population totalled 180 in 2023, up from 167 in 2022. By contrast, the rate in the area of London covered by the Met was 165.

Mr Seesahai is far from the only innocent young victim of knife crime in the West Midlands, with 17-year-old Muhammad Hassam Ali murdered in the centre of Birmingham in January in an apparent case of mistaken identity.

Meanwhile, in April, a 15-year-old boy died after being stabbed outside a Nando's restaurant in West Bromwich before being reportedly dragged 50ft through the local New Square Shopping Centre by his attackers, who are still being hunted by police.

The area's knife crime epidemic has increased pressure on West Midlands Police, which was placed into special measures in November over claims it was carrying out poor investigations that are failing victims.

The force insists it is carrying out improvements, and noted that ONS figures showed a 6.8 per cent drop in crime overall with reductions in violent crime, burglaries and possession of offensive weapons.

A total of 5,324 knife crime offences were dealt with by the force in 2023, according to the ONS data, which covers the period from December 2022 to the end of December 2023.

High-profile cases during that time include the fatal stabbing of footballer Cody Fisher inside a Birmingham nightclub on Boxing Day 2022.

The 22-year-old was dancing with his girlfriend and a group of friends at the Crane nightclub in Digbeth when he was ambushed by a gang of masked men in front of more than 2,000 people.

It later emerged that the attack occurred after one of his killers, Remy Gordon, found him on Snapchat and vowed 'revenge' for accidentally touching him on the back during a night out two days earlier.

The 23-year-old was sentenced to a minimum of 26 years in prison, while his accomplice,Kami Carpenter, 22, received a minimum of 25 years.

Seven young men were found guilty of murder in March afterBailey Atkinson was fatally stabbed with machetes and zombie knives in Walsall in January 2023.

The 21-year-old's final words were 'tell my mum I love her' as he lay dying in a pool of blood on the ground.

Meanwhile, anarmed gang killed father Kelvin Ward with a machete after ramming his son's car at a KFC restaurant in Birmingham in April 2023.

Mr Ward was ambushed and chased by the masked thugs as he tried to defend his teenage son, their intended target. His killers were jailed for life earlier this year.

Illegal access to knives among young people remains a key concern for police, with dealers selling weapons to under-18s via social media.

One of the 12-year-olds accused of murdering Shawn Seesahai claimed he got the machete used in the killing from 'a friend of a friend', but police said there was some evidence that he had searched for knives online.

Detective Inspector Damian Forrest, who led the investigation, said: 'The weapon was a large machete that really no person who doesn't need it as a tool of their trade should have any reason to own. Obviously, originally it would be a gardening tool.

'Although the facts of this case mean we can't say for certain how that weapon came into the possession of the suspects, there is some evidence that suggests that one of them had tried to purchase knives on the internet.'

Some teenagers, often those involved in drug dealing, want to buy large status weapons like zombie knives or machetes.

The national lead for policing knife crime, Commander Stephen Clayman, said the accessibility of knives online is 'a really concerning picture' for law enforcement.

Official figures show that knife crime rose by 7% in England and Wales in the year to December 2023, compared with the previous 12 months, but the total 49,489 offences recorded remained below pre-pandemic levels.

Part of the increase was driven by a rise in knifepoint robberies, which went up by a fifth year on year.

Knife-enabled homicides stood at 239 last year, broadly unchanged on the 235 recorded in 2022 and also lower than pre-pandemic figures.

However, in the year to March 2023, 82% of teenage homicide victims were killed with a knife, compared with 73% in the previous year.

Mr Seesahai's murderers join other notorious pre-teen killers such as Ricky Preddie, who was 12 when he and brother Danny, 13, killed ten-year-old Damilola Taylor with a broken bottle as the schoolboy walked home in south-east London in November 2000. Both were convicted of manslaughter.

The most infamous of killer British children are Venables and Thompson, who abducted and murdered toddler James in Bootle, Merseyside, in 1993.