Khayri Mclean: Police target knife crime after teenager's stabbing

Fifteen-year-old Khayri Mclean was stabbed to death outside school in Huddersfield in September

Specialist "undercover" police are on the streets of Huddersfield in a bid to reduce knife crime two months after a 15-year-old boy was stabbed to death.

Schoolboy Khayri Mclean was killed outside his school in September.

Residents were left "horrified" by the attack, and less than two weeks ago another teenage boy was left seriously injured in a knife attack.

Now councillors have heard plain-clothed police are on the streets in an undercover "deterrence car".

Kirklees councillor Amanda Pinnock said Khayri's killing had "sent a real shockwave through the community," according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Khayri Mclean, 15, died after he was stabbed near the entrance to North Huddersfield Trust School

Khayri was stabbed outside North Huddersfield Trust School in Fartown on 21 September. Two teenage boys have since been charged with his murder.

Speaking at a council meeting last week, Ms Pinnock said: "It does feel as though this may not be an isolated incident and just last week we had another stabbing and it feels as though potentially it could be endemic and that's not what we want.

"What we don't want is another mother to lose her child, we don't want to see any more fatalities, any more incidents involving young people. We need to be steering them away from criminality."

'Eyes and ears'

West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin said the combined authority was pouring extra support into tackling knife crime, with enhanced support and funding. "We've got a deterrents car which is undercover and out-of-uniform officers that are eyes and ears on the ground trying to witness and look at where people are gathering," she said.

"They're experienced about what to look for and divert people away from violence."

Flowers and messages were left at the police cordon after Khayri's death

Ms Brabin added: "We will not solve this by getting more police officers on the street, we just won't.

"We've got to get in early with these families and help them help their children, divert them away from violence, stop them having access to these sharp weapons."

In the weeks after Khayri's death police used extended stop and search powers in parts of Huddersfield, arresting five people.

The powers give police the right to search people without reasonable grounds for suspicion in a specified area for a defined period of time.