Schoolboy, 14, charged after 'threatening fellow pupil's face with meat cleaver'

A teenage boy has been charged after trying to slash another pupil’s face with a meat cleaver.

The 14-year-old was taken into custody after the dispute, which took place yesterday in a school in Harrow.

He has now been bailed to appear at Willesden Magistrates’ Court on Thursday, 18 April.

At least 40 people have been stabbed to death in the UK since the start of the year, with several of the victims being teenagers.

The rise in knife crime has coincided with falling funds and numbers of officers, which have decreased by almost 20,000 since 2010.

The Ministry of Justice announced that knife and weapon offences are at a nine-year high, with nearly 21,500 crimes being dealt with by the criminal justice system in 2018.

Last week, after coming under intense pressure to boost police resources, the chancellor announced an extra £100m emergency funding package to allow police to mount more operations against violent crime.

However, John Apter, chairman of the Police Federation, told Sky News that this amount was ‘nowhere near enough’ to end the crisis.

He said: “This is a drop in the ocean when it comes to money that’s not only been stripped from policing, but other budgets, the social services budget, the education budget, and this is dealing with a crisis so yes, it’s going to help a little bit, but it’s not enough.”

Recently a Tory MP was ridiculed after suggesting that all knives in the UK should be fitted with GPS trackers.