Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, how many prosecutions for (a) carrying a knife and (b) knife-related crime resulted in a sentence of (i) up to six months, (ii) six to 12 months and (iii) over 12 months in the last three years for which information is available.

Data that includes the number of defendants prosecuted and sentenced for (i) up to six months, (ii) six to 12 months and (iii) over 12 months custody for possessing an article with a blade or point has been published up to December 2017 and can be found in the ‘Outcomes by offence data tool’, available at the following link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/733981/outcomes-by-offence-tool-2017-update.xlsx

Select ‘10D Possession of an article with blade or point’ in the ‘Offence’ filter. The number of defendants prosecuted can be found in row 23 and custodial sentence lengths can be found from row 55.

Identifying the number of prosecutions and custodial sentence lengths for all knife-related offences is not possible within proportionate costs, as there are a range of offences that an offender can be charged with. It would require manual searches of court records, and instances would be recorded under broader offence categories, such as for causing grievous bodily harm, which do not distinguish the use of a knife.