Knives in court: Rise in blades found at London family courts

The courts service said "we have robust safety measures across all our buildings"

The number of large blades brought to London family courtrooms has tripled in a year, official records obtained by the BBC show.

In 2018-19, 86 knives with blades longer than 3in (8cm) were seized at family courts, the BBC found.

That rose to 262 in 2019-20 before confiscations dropped during the pandemic.

In total 5,000 bladed articles - including small knives and syringes - were confiscated in 2019-20.

Overall, a big majority of cases involved blades under 3in (8cm).

More than 4,000 shorter blades were found in 2019-20, the figures showed - up 4% from the previous year.

The vast majority were seized at the Central Family Court, London's largest family court.

Family courts mainly deal with private family disputes that involve parents and concern their children, and public work when local authorities need to remove children from their parents' care.

The figures, revealed following a Freedom of Information Act request from the BBC, covered 15 of the courts based in the capital.

Mandatory bag searches, metal detectors and surveillance cameras are used to find blades, and anything considered an offensive weapon is reported to police.

Patrick Green, chief executive officer of anti-knife charity The Ben Kinsella Trust, said the increase was likely, in part, due to improved security but was still "extremely worrying".

"With knife crime having reached record numbers by the end of 2019, these figures appear to show that there is a growing culture of knife carrying in our society," he said.

"It is also alarming that the prospect of being searched when entering a secure building does not appear to be a strong enough deterrent to stop some people from carrying knives."

The number of longer-bladed weapons confiscated had fallen before increasing last year.

In the financial year 2015-16, 41 were taken by court staff but that dropped to 11 in 2016-17. There were 18 confiscated the following year, before increasing year-on-year to 262 in 2019-20.

The number of knives with shorter blades increased steadily from 1,814 to 4,056 over the same five-year period.

Official figures show 472 "sharps" - a broad category including needles - were confiscated last year.

A spokesperson for Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunal Service said: "The security of all court users and staff is our priority, which is why we have robust safety measures across all our buildings.

"We will always report illegal items to the police."

At the start of the pandemic court work slowed and stopped completely in the case of jury trials.

Since then there has been restricted access to courts to maintain social distancing and coronavirus safety measures, leading to a court backlog of 54,000 cases across the UK.