Thetownend.com

Unconfirmed reports of multiple stabbings and three deaths.

Could be some random nutter

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-53123975

They got whoever did it.

it's quite scary how many are carrying knifes and prepared to use them and only going to get worse

Being treated as terror related

From BBC

'Three people dead after multiple stabbings in park

It is not being treated as terror-related, say police, after a man is arrested on suspicion of murder.'

Fucking frightening,  another bloke dieing of gunshot wounds in Manchester and a fatal stabbing  the norm  every day in London, where's it going to stop ?.

Tougher sentences?

Like the US?

People don't think about the sentence before going to kill. That's pretty obvious isn't it?

Yes, where the murder rate in New York is now lower than London. London's increasing and New York's decreasing.

How would you go about reducing the rate of knife crime then? Whatever's in place at the moment obviously isn't working.

Ditch the knee jerk howls for "tougher sentences" is a good start.

But it's true !!!,     Jail 'em for life,  hang 'em, any better ideas ?.

You actually posting something positive would be a start. Hardly knew jerk,  I've thought it for years.

I've never quite got the tougher sentences being preventative argument for crimes like murder - I think it stands for 'smaller' crimes that people might convince themselves are harmless or worth the risk like drugs or financial crimes, but surely nobody is making a logical decision on committing murder being worth the sentence, whatever that sentence is. I can see the argument from a "we as a society want to punish this person and prevent them re-offending" but not that it would actually stop the first crime.

To reduce the number of events, proper investment into mental health and social services would seem a good place to start. It stands to reason that if you cut these things to the bone, people who are dangerous are more likely to fall through the cracks and people who might become dangerous are less likely to be turned away from that.

In general terms anyway, we don't know anything about this specific event yet.

I am not sure that posters on a (loosely) football related forum can offer anything that will result in a paradigm shift on matters such as crime, law and order and penology.

Something needs to be done, when you read a story about a fella who has dozens of previous and gets to go on a course instead of being jailed for burglary, makes me think that the person hasn't changed with the soft approach. They're just laughing at the judicial system.

That's not what he said though.


The career burglar is pre-meditated, and may well 'benefit' from harsher sentencing.

The 'soft approach' as you so loadedly put it, would take some of the pressure off of our over-stretched police.

I thought the debate concerned knife crime?

Fines could also do with being stronger for things like fly tipping, vandalism, criminal damage, driving without insurance etc.

I suspect that the majority of these offences are undetected. If so, I suspect that this will have limited impact.

The chances of appearing in court is about the only stat declining

I see it IS being classed as a terroist attack now, a Libyan national arrested.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/21/reading-stabbings-libyan-held-after-three-killed-in-park-attack

Where did the link to the BBC website go?

I mean, that’s just plainly not true is it

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/world/london-us-cities-homicide-rates-comparison-intl-gbr/index.html

And this will be entirely down to ten years of the ‘tough on crime’ Tory party systematically underfunding the courts and legal system

In England and Wales, there are minimum custodial sentences for anyone aged 16 or over caught with a knife in the following circumstances:

i. Threatening: They are convicted of using the knife to threaten another person where that person is at immediate risk of serious physical harm

ii. Repeat offenders: They are convicted of carrying a knife in a public place or on school premises, and they have at least one previous "relevant conviction" of possession a weapon or threatening people with a weapon

In these cases, offenders aged 18 or over would be sentenced to a minimum six months' custodial sentence and a maximum 4 years. For those aged 16 or 17 the minimum sentence is a detention and training order of at least four months.

The secret barrister on twitter gives lots of insights.

Apparently the justice system is on its knees. Buidings are falling apart, there are not enough courtrooms, cases keep on having to be postponed to due a lack of staff/facilities, and so on.

Then there's the havey police cuts. I remember one copper pleading with May to not make heavy cuts because it wil mean they can no longer be proactive. It seems that is exactly what happened.

Must be Sadiq Khan's fault, though.

Another few thousand coppers along with an iron fist approach to sentencing isn’t going to change a thing.

If young adults, in London especially, want to stab other young adults there’s some tough debates and unpopular decisions to be made about the reasons why.

Equality of education and an actual meritocracy would make a huge difference.

If you banned private education, just see how quickly investment in state schools would improve when the elite are unable to send their kids to Eton, Harrow and the like.

It will never happen of course but removing the tax-free status from private schools (the fact it even exists is mental) and investing the money saved into education programmes, would certainly help.

Stats please.

Here’s something. Haven’t bothered to read it, though!

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43628494

Looks like I missed out "for 1 month". Be interested to see the comparison based on just knife crime.

His books well worth a read, the legal system is being dismantled before our eyes (which is affecting ones ability to get a fair trial as much as actually sentencing those who are guilty - he presents a frankly terrifying hypothetical (albeit based upon experience) case of someone innocent being convicted purely down to the state of the system and the lack of proper representation if you cannot afford it) and yet those who witter on about being tough on crime, still keep voting for the party that have been doing the systematic dismantling!


As noted elsewhere, the number of coppers is considerably greater than in the era that those of a misty eyed nature like to get excited about, the only real increase in the last 50 odd years happened 2000-2010 under Labour (which has almost entirely been rolled back), not the party of 'law and order'.

Terrorism means clicks though doesn't it, wall to wall coverage of Reading (rightly so), yet some pissed up knob head mounts the pavement just down the road from here mows down and kills three people and its being barely reported.

My son was in that park 20 minutes before the attack....

Glad he left before it kicked off

Seems to be some rather strange reporting of this going on insofar as it seems to be little mentioned that all those killed were part of the LGBT+ community and the emerging potential mental health rather than terrorism motives seem to be getting limited coverage?

Probably would have been ok, seems the attacker targeted a certain group according to the news today.

So something similar has happened in Glasgow this afternoon then or so it seems.

3 people dead apparently and the suspect shit and killed by police with several injured.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/live/2020/jun/26/glasgow-major-incident-city-centre

6 in hospital. Suspect dead.