Police chief vows to continue knife crime crackdown

Chief Constable Craig Guildford recognises the impact high-profile knife attacks can have on communities.

The Chief Constable of West Midlands Police said his force is working hard to reduce knife crime, but shared public concern after a spate of incidents.

Speaking at the opening of a new police station in Dudley, Chief Constable Craig Guildford said: "Each one of those knife crime incidents is one too many, but the numbers compared to lots of other placers are reducing very considerably."

In the last fortnight a woman died after being stabbed at a bus stop, a 17-year-old was stabbed in the city centre and a man in his 20s was fatally stabbed on the Lozells area.

Mr Guildford said the incidents as "troubling" but claimed knife crime is falling in the region faster than anywhere else in England.

He said overall crime was also reducing in the West Midlands and the force had taken action to patrol known hotspots, increase the number of high-visibility patrols and to "vigorously investigate" knife crime incidents.

He said the force had also recruited another 150 officers to work in the community.

The new police station on Castlegate Way in Dudley will be a home for some of those neighbourhood officers, as well as emergency response teams, intelligence staff, offender managers and other staff.