UK NEWS

STAMPEDE FOR ARMOUR TO COMBAT KNIFE YOBS

PROTECTION: New body armour ordered for nurses

Monday July 7,2008

By Nick Fagge

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(4)

TEACHERS, doctors and nurses are being supplied with body armour to protect them against an epidemic of violent crime.

Around 10,000 stab and bullet-proof vests are being ordered as hospital figures reveal a dramatic increase in knifings and other violent attacks in the past five years.

The Local Government Association said there was an urgent need to provide a “greater level of protection” to public sector staff, undermining Government claims last week that knife crime is “not serious”.

An average of 38 stabbing victims are treated in accident and emergency departments every day, and almost 14,000 people sought hospital treatment for injuries from knives, daggers, swords and other sharp objects last year, according to Department of Health statistics.

Thirteen stabbings alone were reported over the weekend.

Oxfordshire-based Body Armour Company has received 10,000 orders for protective vests from local government, with frontline NHS staff accounting for most of them.

Workers seeking extra protection include accident and emergency staff, hospital porters, teachers, benefits officers and traffic wardens.

The most popular item requested by councils is the £300 Home Office-approved KR1 stab vest.

The firm said it was also receiving more orders for body armour from teachers, which it views as its “biggest growth market”.

Peter Warren, a spokesman for the company, said: “Councils are becoming aware of the need for armour and protecting their staff.

“We have had many private inquiries from teachers and the rate is going up.”

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: “Violent crime has doubled in the last decade and it is of deep concern that so many young people are increasingly disinhibited about carrying and using knives.

“Once again, when it comes to tackling crime, the Government has run out of ideas, and this makes them part of the problem, not the solution.”

There has been an explosion of stabbings and other violent crimes against children and young people in the past five years.

According to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act, there was an 88 per cent increase in knife crime among under-16s and a 75 per cent increase for 16 to 18-year-olds.

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: “These figures suggest the problem is spiralling out of control.”

Combating the epidemic of knife attacks has replaced terrorism as the priority for the Metropolitan police in the capital.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is now considering requiring doctors to notify stabbing injuries to the authorities, in the same way as gunshot wounds are.

PUNISHMENT PERHAPS?

07.07.08, 12:56pm

With this new wave of violence gripping UK, why not sub-contract out prisons from Mexico and Peru (World's Toughest Prisons) and send UK's violent offenders there for the duration of their sentence. Once word gets around and the crim's understand what 'real' punishment is all about, perhaps they'll think twice about stabbing someone next time? Setting up committees and trying to solve this violence with a pat on the back and a psychological assessment seems not to be working. Get tough with these criminals.

• Posted by: dsafari • Report Comment

ONCE AGAIN, WE ARE DEALING WITH THE PROBLEM THE WRONG WAY AROUND.

07.07.08, 10:02am

A friend of mine had an aquarium. One day he noticed an aggressive fish picking on another fish so he placed the bullied fish into an isolation tank for protection. The next day, the aggressive fish picked on another one so he did the same thing with the victim and at the end of a few days, he had the majority of fish in this isolation tank whilst the aggressive fish had freedom in the big tank.

The "cure" for domestic violence used to be to take the poor wife and kids away and put them in a shelter whilst the husband remained in and had the freedom of the marital home.

Do you see where I am coming from? You do not treat the symptoms, you go directly to the cause and remove the threat. As soon as you jail a kid for ten years for carrying a knife and using it to threaten, I don't think many more kids will follow. The answer is so logical.

• Posted by: Tristram • Report Comment

WHAT A SPLENDID IDEA. WE SHOULD ALL BE ISSUED WITH BODY ARMOUR AT BIRTH - TO PROTECT US FROM THE CRAP THROWN AT US BY HYPOCRITICAL MP'S

07.07.08, 5:27am

Whilst absolute mayhem confronts every law-abiding person on our streets - what are our mealy-mouthed MP's doing about this scandalous state of affairs?

Fine-tuning their obscene expenses claims.

NOTHING IN THE REAL WORLD MATTERS TO MP's - JUST THEIR EXPENSES.

"I SAY, ROSEMARIE, IF I TELL THEM YOU ARE MY SECRETARY AND WE USE THE BACK ROOM FOR AN OFFICE, WE WILL GET ANOTHER £1,500 PER WEEK FROM THE GULLIBLE TAXPAYER".

"OH, RODNEY!! I STILL DO NOT KNOW HOW WE ARE GOING TO SCRAPE BY ON A MEASLY £5,000 A WEEK".

The first in line for body armour will definitely be our MP's.

• Posted by: ReubenMohawali • Report Comment

BODY ARMOUR? - BENEFITS OFFICERS?

07.07.08, 1:36am

Benefits officers bring problems to themselves by laughing at people from behind glass screens and writing stupid letters knowing their left wing unions will protect them. This is a step in the direction of a paramilitary police state fostered by the unions who want communism because they don't know anything about it, they were not born when many were killed by communist regimes. It is a big fear of many who know the truth about left wing idealism that some of the idiots who promote this are tied into crime and will exploit the fanatics in politics for their own purposes.

To suggest that benefits officers are vulnerable is sometimes true but the problem with the system is that in some areas the system is biased in favour of one kind of political idealists who get favourable treatment because of union connections. The more Labour the area the more biased the distribution of benefits is and this leads to resentment because claimants are very often treated unfairly. I do not condone or support any fraudulent benefits claims but if the benefits hot line is used and there is an air of certainty of the false claim being made it seems that no action is taken especially if a union member is the claimant, (I refer to EX-NUM and their families in particular) this is a most unfair situation that Labour allows to continue unchecked.

FOOTNOTE:
I am not against benefits officers but I am certain that there is a lot of bad feeling created by the circumstances described above, if a person becomes aware of bias in the distribution of benefits resentment will occur and tempers will be frayed. The distribution of body armour because everyone is running around screaming about knife attacks is partly a panic solution but Labour must remember that the public need protection too.

• Posted by: albertthedog • Report Comment