The president of the family division has given a shocking insight into the scale of the UK's knife crime epidemic, revealing that court security seized 473 knives with blades over three inches long at a London court this year.

Sir Andrew McFarlane said at the Nicholas Wall Memorial lectrure: 'an additional 230 knives were found in the precincts immediately outside Central Family Court in Holborn, central London'.

McFarlane said: 'We do not believe that most, indeed any, of these knives were necessarily being brought in for use in the court building. It simply seems to be a facet of everyday life in 2019 for some members of the population to carry a weapon with them at all times.'

The figures come in the same week that HM Courts & Tribunals Service published court security guidance to help inform people of what to expect when they enter a court building.

Local authorioties and the family courts were praised for taking action under the Children Act 1989 to protect vulnerable young people caught up in the gang culture.

He said: 'In the past some such young people may have found themselves before a criminal court. Now, not infrequently, young teenagers in such circumstances, who are seen as victims and in need of protection, are brought, by local authority social services, before the family court where an application is made for a care order on the grounds that the child is "beyond parental control" and as a result is suffering or is likely to suffer significant harm.

'Care judges in the larger courts in urban centres now see a regular flow of cases involving young people on the edge of the gang culture. Whilst these are not the most straightforward of cases, it is right that the family court is able to take steps to try to protect these young people, where protection is needed, and it is, again, a sign of the flexibility of the Children Act that its provisions apply readily to these modern problems.'

Please contact Ian Henery at Ian Henery Solicitors Ltd on 01902 366 615 or via email at ian@ianhenery.com if you wish to discuss any of the issues raised above in more detail.