One in ten 10 to 15-year-olds is afraid to travel alone because they fear being attacked with a knife, shocking new research shows.
Almost half of children in this age group have seen violent incidents or heard of them happening to their peers, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The figures paint a stark picture of the spiralling knife crime epidemic amongst young people – with about one in 200 10 to 15-year-olds admitting to carrying a knife in the previous 12 months.
And the ONS noted this figure could be an underestimate as it said that children who carry weapons might be unlikely or unwilling to admit to doing so.
The findings, from new ONS research into children’s experiences of violence, show that about one in 32 children said they felt it was likely they could be attacked by someone with a weapon in their daily life.
This rose to 7.5 per cent of 10 to 15-year-olds who said they had a fear of being physically attacked by someone without a weapon.
Almost one in ten said they avoided travelling alone in the previous 12 months because they were concerned about people carrying weapons, while 5.8 per cent said they did so because they were concerned about gangs.
The research, based on estimates from the 10 to 15-year-olds Crime Survey for England and Wales in the year ending March 2024, showed the levels of fear among young people around being attacked.
Tory MP Matt Vickers, the Shadow Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire, said knife crime leaves some communities so fearful they are unable to go about their daily lives
Almost half of children between ten and 15 have seen violent incidents or heard of them happening to their peers
One in ten 10 to 15-year-olds is afraid to travel alone because they fear being attacked with a knife, shocking new research from the ONS shows
Just under a fifth of boys said they felt they were likely or very likely to see people they believed were involved in gangs in their daily life while the figure was 11.6 per cent for girls.
Boys were also more likely to say they did not currently have an adult they could trust in their lives, at 4.8 per cent compared with 2.2 per cent for girls.
The findings come amid a worsening epidemic of knife crime in the UK with a number of shocking cases of teenagers being killed in stabbings.
The Former children’s commissioner for England, Baroness Anne Longfield, earlier this month described knife crime involving teenagers as a ‘national crisis that needs a national response’.
The Government has recently announced a series of measures to crack down on the problem, including making retailers report bulk or suspicious knife sales to police, and increasing jail sentences for selling weapons to children or illegal blades such as zombie knives.
