BRITAIN’s knife crisis was laid bare by figures showing a 93 per cent rise in kids being treated for stab wounds.

Former Met chief Bernard Hogan Howe demanded the Home Office hire an extra 20,000 cops as the shock stats were published by Channel 4 ahead of a Dispatches investigation.

He also urged Theresa May to appoint a ‘Knife Crime Tsar’ as nobody appears to be “getting a grip on the crisis”.

New NHS figures compiled by Dispatches reveal a shocking 93 per cent rise in the number of under-16s treated in for assault by a knife or sharp object in the past five years.

There were just 180 cases in 2012-2013 – but this rose to a staggering 347 in 2017-2018.

Separate Freedom of Information (FoI) figures show a 77 per cent increase in murder or manslaughter by under 18s since 2016.

'GET A GRIP ON CRISIS'
Rape and sexual assault by teenagers using a knife rose by more than a third, 38 per cent.

Bernard Hogan-Howe, who fronted the Dispatches investigation, said: “It’s important to focus attention on the exploitation of children in socially deprived areas.

“We need to increase police numbers in these areas and reduce the drug supply into the UK and its distribution including by county lines.

“Something law enforcement and government have failed to do.”

In the programme, Policing Minister Nick Hurd insists an extra £460 million of public money is going into the police system.

But he admitted the Government faced a “massive challenge”.

He said: “One of the big challenges underpinning it is the reality that for too many young people, particularly in our big cities, carrying a knife now feels normal.”