London yobs caught carrying knives 10 TIMES A DAY as our map shows where 2020 stabbings may be most likely to happen
TEN people are caught with blades EVERY DAY on the streets of London as the capital is gripped by a knife crime crisis.
Analysis of new Met Police figures show where people were arrested for carrying knives in the last year - and where attacks could be most likely to happen in 2020.
London's knife explosion has fuelled the capital's highest murder rate in more than a decade with 149 people killed in the capital last year - 90 in stabbing attacks.
Met Police detective John Massey recently said data of non-fatal knife crime can be used by police to predict where future murders will be carried out.
Our knife map reveals how areas in south and east London such as Lambeth, Croydon, Newham and Hackney have become plagued by gangs carrying weapons.
Westminster was the worst blackspot with 212 arrests in the last year. The borough is also the worst in the country for knife attacks.
Stabbings and knife arrests centre around busy pubs and bars in the wealthy West End and spike sharply between 12am and 1am as gangs congregate in the area.
Just this month, a man in his 20s was stabbed to death and another man was injured in a knife brawl outside posh department store Harrods shortly after midnight.
Robberies and cocaine dealing are the main drivers behind gangs carrying knives, according to a recent police and council report.
Five known gangs are currently active in Westminster with members focusing on drug dealing.
The Harrow Road Boys and the Lisson Green Men operate from the Mozart and Lisson Green estates in deprived areas of Kilburn and St John's Wood.
Harrow Road Boys members are believed to have been behind the fatal shooting of 20-year-old woman Mohanna Abdhou, who was caught in crossfire when two masked men on bicycles opened fire on a group of men on the South Kilburn Estate in May 2017.
In the wealthier Belgravia and Pimlico neighbourhoods - where a number of council estates sit alongside swanky bars and million-pound homes - the Ebury Town Militants, Church Town Militants and Page Street Boys control the local drug market.
Church Town Militants are known to have been involved in cannabis, heroin, crack cocaine and MDMA dealing which is believed to have been behind a spate of stabbings.
'RISING TENSIONS'
'Pop-up' knife arches have been erected in the West End throughout this year as police look to get to grips with drug dealing and gang feuds.
Westminster Chief Inspector Andy Brittain said: "It’s a significant problem around Soho, with a huge population and night-time economy which generates a fair bit of crime.
"Until we get knife crime under control we will keep popping up all over Westminster with these operations."
"Gangs have become a replacement family and once they’re in it’s very difficult to get out."
Westminster's first stabbing death of 2019 came just hours into the New Year when nightclub bouncer Tudor Simionov was knifed outside an exclusive party at a £12.5m townhouse in Mayfair.
Inside the event, tables were filled with 'plates of cocaine' which witnesses described as being openly snorted by punters.
Stop and search powers in Westminster were increased last month amid "rising tensions" following the murder of teenager Josiph Beker.
Josiph, 17, was stabbed to death outside a KFC on Edgware Road in September in front of horrified customers in broad daylight.
Six teenagers have been charged with his murder.
Police fear revenge attacks are planned following the killing, which was captured on CCTV as trouble flared between two groups outside the fast food chain.
The number of arrests across London for knife possession fell three per cent from last year's peak of 3,350 but remains 37 per cent higher than just three years ago.
Knife data 'could help prevent next year's murders'
A UNIVERSITY of Cambridge study co-authored by Met Detective Chief Inspector John Massey found future fatal stabbings could be predicted by analysing lower-level knife crime from the previous year.
The research, published in the Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, shows the number of lower-level knife offences over one year correlates with an increased risk of deadly knife crime the next year.
Det Ch Insp Massey said: "These findings indicate that officers can be deployed in a smaller number of areas in the knowledge that they will have the best chances there to prevent knife-enabled homicides."
Co-author Prof Lawrence Sherman added: "If assault data forecasts that a neighbourhood is more likely to experience knife homicide, police commanders might consider everything from closer monitoring of school exclusions to localised use of stop-and-search."
COUNTY LINES DRUG VIOLENCE & AFTER-SCHOOL STABBINGS
Outside of the heart of the capital, South and East London boroughs plagued by 'county lines' drug gangs and youth violence saw the highest levels of knife-carrying.
Lambeth, Southwark and Croydon form a corridor of hotspots through the south of the capital.
Newham, Tower Hamlets and Hackney in the East are also blighted by knife gangs.
Teens make up the majority of offenders and stabbing victims, with more than a third aged between 15 and 17.
Children as young as 10 are known to be operating in London-based county lines gangs and the average age for new recruits is just 15.
Rail connections from stations such as London Bridge and Stratford to lucrative drug markets in Kent, Essex, Sussex and Norfolk are seeing gangs thrive and young people increasingly drawn into violence.
We previously revealed how London commuter stations are used to ferry teenagers with backpacks crammed full of drugs and cash out into the suburbs.
'My boy was stabbed to death by county lines cowards'
Jaden Moodie, 14, was recruited by a county lines gang before he was stabbed to death in a ferocious gang attack in Leyton, East London.
The schoolboy was knocked off his moped by members of a rival gang vefore being knifed nine times in 14-seconds and left to die in the road on January 8.
Moodie and his killer Ayoub Majdouline, 19, were involved in rival drug gangs - Beaumont Crew and Mail Boys.
Majdouline was filmed strutting down the street and joking with fellow gang members just moments after the killing and was jailed for at least 21 years after being found guilty of murder earlier this month.
Jaden's mum Jada Bailey described her son's killers as 'cowards' and said she had begged for help from authorities to help free her son from the gang's grip.
She said: "When they were killing him they could see he was a child. I've got no sympathy and no words, they're cowards.
"You send your child to school and you think they're going to be safe, a lot of the security and police they've assigned need to be assigned to the school gate and get the groomers away from the children.
"No parent should have to bury her child, particularly a 14-year-old. That's what we need to highlight, Jaden was only 14 years old."
Francis Osei-Appiah, a former gang member of Kent-based crime prevention charity Reform Restore Respect, said: "With drug dealing comes violence - we've seen this take a foothold in Kent over the last decade and it's getting bigger.
"The gangs are moving out from London where street-by-street the competition is fierce, to places where they think they can own the town.
"You've got parts of Kent where because of the rail connections, you can be there from London Bridge in half an hour, you might as well still be in South London."
Chillingly, a recent report by Southwark Council found the peak time for knife offences in the area was in after-school hours between 4pm and 8pm.
Cases are spiking during winter months when it is dark in the early evening.
Baptista Adjei, 15, was stabbed to death in his school uniform in Stratford, East London, on October 10, just minutes after phoning his mum to tell her he was going to McDonald's on his way home from classes.
He was allegedly attacked by a male carrying two knives and stabbed in the heart and lung. Two 15-year-old boys have since been charged over his murder.
His mum Josephine Frimpong said he wasn't involved in gangs and had been dreaming of becoming a professional footballer.
Speaking about the moment she received a panicked phone call from his friends, she said: "They said 'Baptista is dead'. I said 'no, Baptista is not dead' and I'm running.
"I go outside and I'm crying a lot and later on I saw police cars coming."
Colin James, founder of East London charity Gangs Unite, which seeks to rehabilitate young gang members, said: "Drugs and county lines is always going to be there but there's been a huge knock-on effect in recent years of young people carrying knives because of the fear of getting killed.
"The kids they know are carrying knives and they're hearing about these stabbings in the media and it's a survival instinct.
"The only way you can tackle it is looking at the supply and demand. Where are they getting these knives from?
"You've got to look at the shops and whether the law is being upheld and how these kids are able to order knives of the internet to their front doors as easily as shopping on Amazon."
A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said: "Tackling violence that involves knife crime is the number one priority for the Metropolitan Police Service.
"We have been using all preventative and enforcement tactics and powers available to us.
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"Stop and search and the use of Section 60 remains an important power in tackling knife crime and protecting the public. This means that following a stabbing, further retaliatory incidents are prevented saving further violence.
"In 2018, it resulted in more than 4,200 arrests for weapon possession alone. Every one of those weapons seized potentially means one less violent incident, injury or death.
"In the new year, we will be focusing on preventing and detecting those offenders of robbery involving knives in Westminster, through intelligence led targeted approaches combining various tactics and proactive operations."
- Anyone with information about someone they suspect to carry a weapon should call police on 101 or contact Crimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.