Map reveals most dangerous place in the UK for knife crime

THE UK’s knife crime capital has been revealed - and it’s not London.

Latest statistics show England and Wales saw 49,265 knife-related offences in 2022 as a knife crime epidemic continued to sweep across Britain.

Just this week, student Kwabena Osei-Poku, 19, was stabbed to death outside the University of Northampton's campus.

And last month Jamie Meah, 18, died in hospital after being knifed in a taxi in Leeds.

Now The Sun has revealed where in Britain people are most likely to fall victim to stabbings using new ONS figures.

West Midlands is the current "crime knife of Britain" where the highest level of crimes per 1,000 population was reported.

The numbers are calculated to show the level of crime proportionate to the number of people who live there.

The police force, which covers Birmingham, Coventry and Wolverhampton, recorded 161 instances of knife-enabled crime per 1,000 people in the year ending December 2022.

In total the force dealt with 4,938 cases - with 22 of these ending in murder.

It comes after cops yesterday launched an urgent murder probe after a man was stabbed to death on a street on Queensbridge Road in Birmingham.

Although it is among the UK’s smallest forces, with just over 1,400 officers, Cleveland was found to be the second worst place in the UK for knife crime.

The area covered by Cleveland Police - which includes the county district boroughs of Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees, and Redcar and Cleveland saw 161 reports of knife crime.

London ranks third - with the Metropolitan police recording 137 instances of knife crime last year.

There was major concern about knife killings in London in 2021 when a record 30 teenagers died.

On the other end of the spectrum, Dorset is the safest place in the UK to live for knife crime.

Here just 37 knife-related crimes were reported per 1,000 people.

Earlier this month West Midlands Police Federation chair Rich Cooke called for a tougher approach to knife crime.

He told Talk TV: "We've got to cut the crap really.

"There's been too much messing around with mantras like 'let's not criminalise young people and children' for the last ten years.

"We've gone through a phase where we have caught kids with knives but they haven't been arrested because there are policies in place and people in the system with a very liberal mindset and that is causing a big problem."