Young knife crime victims 'treated for stab wounds in A&E up to 5 times before fatal attack'

Murder probe: The scene after a teenager was stabbed to death in Battersea
Nigel Howard
Justin Davenport13 June 2017
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Victims of serious or fatal knife attacks have usually attended local A&E units up to “four or five times” before with less serious injuries, a charity leader warned today.

John Poyton, chief executive of Redthread, called for earlier intervention by agencies to catch young people before they become involved in serious violence.

His charity deals with about 200 young people a month who are treated at London’s four major trauma centres for serious assault injuries, mostly from gun or knife violence.

Its youth workers meet victims, mostly aged 16 or 17, as they are brought in by ambulance or helicopter and, if the patient survives, try to help them turn their lives around.

Mr Poyton said: “By the time a kid comes in as a major trauma patient having been stabbed they will have attended four or five times at their local A&E with a number of previous injuries and, anecdotally, those injuries will be rising in severity.”

He said he feared that early stages of violence were being missed or ignored when young people walk into hospitals with more minor injuries. “We should be asking have they had a beating or have they got involved as a perpetrator of violence,” he said. “We see lots of broken knuckles, for instance, there is an anecdotal spiral of violence.”

Cordon: Police in Battersea after the teenager was stabbed to death
NIGEL HOWARD

The charity hopes to expand to more A&Es in London in an effort to intervene earlier.

Police have seen a 24 per cent rise in knife crime in the capital in the past 12 months, and nine youngsters have died in stabbings this year.

The scene of a stabbing outside Peckham Rye station
Craig Thomas

Redthread youth workers operate in shifts at the four trauma centres: St Mary’s in Paddington, St George’s in Tooting, King’s College in Denmark Hill, and with the St Giles Trust at the Royal London in Whitechapel.

Mr Poyton said the youth workers engage with victims and can also help the doctors and nurses who are treating them: “This cohort of patient, adolescent men, are often quite a difficult group to treat because they are scared, worried, and that can come across as angry, possibly abusive.”

But he said the youngsters are often in a “teachable moment” when they are seriously injured in a hospital.

“We find young people who are known to services such as the Westminster Gangs Unit and have been offered support for years but have refused to engage. But when they are aware of their own vulnerability they are more open to how they can change their lives.”

The charity has seen a rise in youngsters with knife injuries, many arriving at hospital in school uniform.

Mr Poyton welcomed police statistics showing that 75 per cent of young people carrying knives were not involved in gangs. “These are children who are doing normal things but getting caught up in violence,” he said.

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