Sadiq Khan was grilled at the State of London Debate on Thursday evening
Sadiq Khan faced a furious backlash from a mother who told him communities in London ‘do not feel safe’ as the capital remains in the grip of a violent crime wave.
The audience member grilled the Mayor at the State of London Debate last night, telling him she cannot ‘let her son out in the streets of London’.
Holding Mr Khan to account, she told him to give Londoners ‘facts rather than statistics’ about the unprecedented number of killings in London this year.
The debate followed the London Knife Crime Summit organised by the Mayor on Wednesday night – the same evening the capital saw its 81st murder.
The woman hit out at Mr Khan, telling him another victim was stabbed near her home in Greenwich earlier in the year, just 200 yards from a closed police station.
The Mayor blamed the rising crime levels on budget cuts, but was jeered by audience members as he said the huge number of knives seized by police in recent months should give people ‘confidence’.
The woman told the Mayor to give Londoners ‘facts rather than statistics’ about the unprecedented number of killings in London this year
The Mayor blamed the rising crime levels on budget cuts – but was jeered by audience members
The woman addressed Mr Khan at the debate which was held at the indigo O2 in North Greenwich on Thursday.
She said: ‘[It] happened outside that police station that is closed down, my local police station. There are no bobbies on our street. Londoners, we don’t feel safe. Our communities do not feel safe.
‘You give me statistics, Mr Khan and that’s fair enough. But for me as a parent, I’m telling you, we do not feel safe. We don’t feel safe in London.
‘In February alone, 250 knives and swords were seized across London, just within one week.
‘Please don’t give me statistics. Give me known facts so I can let my son out in the streets of London and feel safe.’
The Mayor said the Metropolitan Police were ‘overstretched and under-resourced’ and needed resident’ help to make the city safer.
The debate followed the London Knife Crime Summit organised by the Mayor on Wednesday night – the same evening the Capital saw its 81st murder
Holding Mr Khan to account, she told him to give Londoners ‘facts rather than statistics’ about the unprecedented number of killings in London this year
He added: ‘It’s really important to look at the evidence. The evidence is that over the last four years across England and Wales, crime has been going up.
‘But across the last eight years, I know talking about numbers can sometimes appear like we don’t understand the concerns that Londoners have, but across the last eight years, we as a city have lost £720million from our budget.
‘Across the country, crime in London is going up less steeply than crime across England and Wales.’
The Mayor was also heckled by Tommy Robinson supporters at the debate.
Mr Khan was paying tribute to the recent victims of London’s terror attacks when the protesters chanted the name of former EDL leader Tommy Robinson as they called for Mr Khan to be sacked.
The audience applauded as the group were removed by security.
The scene where a 20 year old man was stabbed to death in Edmonton, North London on Wednesday night
Violent crime in Britain’s capital soared by 21 per cent last year, with 1.3 million offences recorded by police. Knife crime rose by 22 per cent.
There have been more than 70 killings in London this year, many of them stabbings, and at one point the capital’s murder rate was higher than that of New York.
Last year there was a total of 80 fatal stabbings in the capital – the most in almost a decade.
Official figures show that 2017 was the worst year for knife deaths among young people since at least 2002.
Forty-six people aged 25 or under were stabbed to death in London, up by 21 compared with the previous year, according to police figures.