KNIFE crime among pupils attending schools in Birmingham have reached “emergency” proportions.

Eight hundred children in Britain’s second biggest city were caught with knives last year, according to a Freedom of Information request.

At the same time nearly 700 children were victims of knife crime.

It compares to five years ago when just 16 pupils - none older than twelve years old - were caught using or carrying knives on school premises in the city and nearby Coventry, Dudley, Solihull and Wolverhampton.

Some offenders today are aged ten while some stabbings have taken place on school grounds.

Weapons seized on school grounds were machetes, lock knives, craft knives and broken bottles.

West Midlands Police has experienced the second highest funding reduction since 2011 (24%) and one of the highest workforce reductions (19%), according to National Audit Office figures.

Last month Birmingham witnessed three teenage stabbing deaths within days of each other.

16-year olds Sidali Mohamed and Abdullah Muhammad, along with 18-year-old Hazrat Umar, were all killed in knife incidents.

Birmingham’s knife crime explosion is mirrored across the country.

Knife crime in England and Wales has been rising since 2014 and reached a peak in the year to September 2018, according to the last report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

The number of offences involving knives or sharp instruments went up by 8% to 39,818 compared with 36,776 offences recorded the previous year.

David Jamieson, the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner, last month described the rise in violent crime as a “national emergency” and called for special funding from the Home Office to stop the bloodshed.