Crouch End knife crime falls to 3 as Haringey drops by 20%

Crouch End ward recorded 3 knife crime offences in the 12 months to August, down from 10 a year earlier. Across Haringey the total fell by 19.7 per cent, from 692 offences to 556, according to our count of Metropolitan Police figures.

That is about twice the fall City Hall reports for London, 9.7 per cent, and the fifth sharpest of the 32 boroughs on our count. It did not reach every ward. Alexandra Park ward went up from 7 offences to 25.

The figures sit behind an announcement from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. On 23 October he said his Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) would reach its one millionth Londoner that month. City Hall’s release does not mention Haringey, so we went to the data underneath it.

Ward by ward

The Met publishes knife crime down to ward level. These are our totals from its monthly crime data, for the same period City Hall used.

Thirteen wards fell, six rose and two did not change. The ward numbers add up to 547 and 684 rather than the borough totals, because the Met does not give a location for a few offences.

Numbers this small can swing on a handful of incidents, so one year does not make a trend in any single ward. The data does not explain why Alexandra Park rose.

The borough’s figures

The Met has since added September, and it was a worse month for young people. Seven victims aged 24 and under were injured by a knife in Haringey that month, the highest monthly figure since at least August 2025.

That changes the 12-month picture. Young victims now stand at 37, against 30 a year earlier. Knife offences with injury are 118, against 119. The overall knife crime total is 557, against 663, a fall of 16 per cent.

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Most of Haringey’s neighbours also fell, though Barnet went the other way:

• Enfield: down 6.7 per cent, from 659 to 615
• Hackney: down 13.3 per cent, from 654 to 567
• Islington: down 6.5 per cent, from 521 to 487
• Camden: down 15.5 per cent, from 543 to 459
• Barnet: up 22.2 per cent, from 334 to 408
• Waltham Forest: down 21.7 per cent, from 479 to 375

Those are counts, not rates, so they do not allow for the size of each borough’s population.

Since the VRU began

City Hall measures its progress against 2018/19, the year before the unit started. On that test, Haringey has fallen about twice as fast as London on two measures.

• Violence with injury: Haringey fell from 2,981 offences to 2,022, down 32.2 per cent. London fell by 15.9 per cent.
• Personal robbery: Haringey fell from 1,869 offences to 899, down 51.9 per cent. London fell by 28.7 per cent.

The Haringey figures compare 2018/19 with the 12 months to August 2026, using the Met’s 2018/19 file and the current one. The Met says a change to its crime classifications in October 2025 affected the groupings for violence against the person.

Knife crime cannot be compared this far back. City Hall says the Met changed how it records the data from April 2024.

The VRU’s work in Haringey

In Haringey, the VRU’s neighbourhood programme runs as Home Cooked, in Northumberland Park, about three miles east of Crouch End. It is part of MyEnds, which City Hall says has provided 60,000 targeted interventions across London.

The Bridge Renewal Trust leads the Haringey consortium. City Hall lists its other members as the Godwin Lawson Foundation, North London Partnership Consortium, Tottenham Hotspur Foundation and Open Door. It says the work targets young people who are excluded from school or at risk of it, or who are at risk of serious violence, gangs or exploitation.

The trust says it secured £800,000 over two years from the VRU for Northumberland Park. That page is undated. It followed an earlier £750,000 Home Cooked programme in Tottenham Hale.

Knife crime fell in both of those wards in the latest year. Northumberland Park went from 54 offences to 38, and Tottenham Hale from 59 to 36. That does not show the programme caused the falls. Five other Haringey wards, including Crouch End and Highgate, also fell by 29 per cent or more.

Last month the trust announced seven more grants from its Home Cooked Community Fund, for work with young people in Northumberland Park:

• Haringey Play Association: weekly girls-only sessions for 20 girls aged 8 to 16
• HR Sports Academy: football coaching qualifications and mentoring for four young people aged 16 to 24
• RISE Projects: workshops and mentoring for 30 girls and young women aged 16 to 24
• Refugee Workers Cultural Association: an early intervention programme for young people aged 14 to 21
• Pop Arts: music sessions and mentoring for 70 young people aged 16 to 19 at London Academy of Excellence
• Raza Sana: physical activity, mentoring and health education for 150 young people aged 11 to 24
• Streetz Ahead: mentoring and employability support for young women aged 18 to 25

The release gives no figure for how many of the one million live in Haringey, and we could not find a current figure for what the borough receives. City Hall points to a VRU dashboard for the breakdown of who has been reached, which we could not extract figures from.

What City Hall is claiming

The release says the VRU has reached one million “young Londoners”. Its own breakdown is three-quarters of a million young people, plus 250,000 parents, carers, youth workers and professionals who have had training or support. That covers just over seven years and more than £140m of investment.

City Hall’s analysis of violence in London sets out the London figures:

• Hospital admissions of under-25s after assault with a knife or sharp object: 260 in the 12 months to July 2026, down 55.6 per cent on 2018/19. The fall for England outside the Met’s area was 48 per cent.
• Violence with injury: 65,678 offences in the 12 months to August 2026, 12,429 fewer than in 2018/19.
• Gun crime: 1,725 offences, down 27.8 per cent on 2018/19.
• Personal robbery: 22,760 offences, down 28.7 per cent on 2018/19.
• Knife crime: 13,648 offences, down 9.7 per cent on the previous 12 months. The release also says there were 2,500 fewer victims of knife crime over the last three years.

The analysis adds a detail the release leaves out. Violence with injury rose by 1.3 per cent in the latest year, or 854 more offences, although City Hall says it remains well below 2023 levels.

The NHS admissions figures are published by police force area, so there is no Haringey number.

The release also credits these parts of the unit’s work:

• hospital-based youth workers, who City Hall says have guided 75 per cent of young people away from further harm
• youth workers in police custody suites, who have connected with nearly 17,000 young people
• London’s Inclusion Charter, which City Hall says has driven down suspensions, exclusions and absenteeism in its first full year

City Hall says school exclusion doubles a young person’s risk of being involved in violence within 12 months.

What they said

Sadiq Khan said: “I set up the Violence Reduction Unit just over seven years ago because of a clear and long-held view that we cannot arrest our way out of violence. Violent crime is preventable, not inevitable.”

He added: “Hospital admissions of young people for knife assault are down by more than half, and there are thousands of fewer victims of violence and gun crime, but I’m clear there is more to do to reduce violence and exploitation.”

The release blames national cuts to youth services between 2010 and 2019 for the rise in violence that followed. The Government already provides some funding for the VRU, and the Mayor wants ministers to commit to consistent, multi-year funding. He said: “We are turning the tide in our efforts to tackle violence and look forward to working with the Government in order to realise our shared national ambition of halving knife crime, supported by a long-term, multi-year financial backing that our communities deserve.”

Lib Peck, the VRU’s director, said: “Our prevention and early intervention approach is built around catching young people at points of crisis or vulnerability and giving them the support they need towards safety and opportunity.”

She added: “History shows what happens when you cut the very services working to prevent violence and so it’s crucial that we keep the momentum up so that every young person in London is safe and supported to thrive.”

Martin Griffiths, a consultant trauma surgeon at Barts Health NHS Trust and Clinical Director of the Violence Reduction Network for the NHS in London, said: “A 55 per cent fall in young people admitted to hospital for knife assault is welcome news. Every one of those injuries is a tragedy however, but behind this fall are young Londoners who are safer and families spared the worst day of their lives.”

He said: “There is more to do, and the NHS is committed to walking alongside the VRU to keep young Londoners safe.”

What it means for you

Recorded knife crime is low and falling in Crouch End and Highgate. It is higher but mostly falling in the east of the borough. Alexandra Park is the local exception, and it is worth watching whether that rise holds.

The latest month is a reminder that fewer offences does not always mean fewer young people hurt. City Hall’s figures also cannot tell you what the VRU has achieved in Haringey. Crime falling after a programme starts does not by itself show the programme caused it, and City Hall credits both enforcement and the VRU’s work.

The Met updates its borough and ward figures each month, so anyone can check these numbers as they change.