'Kill or be killed': We investigate the use of machetes in West Yorkshire

We can exclusively reveal West Yorkshire Police are recording the equivalent of 3 incidents a day involving machetes.

It follows several violent attacks this year, with the force releasing shocking images of some of the injuries they’re dealing with in a bid to highlight the issue.

Our figures reveal 753 crimes involving machetes were recorded by West Yorkshire Police last year, with 409 of these in the Leeds area.

Between January and August 2022, the force recorded 479 incidents – which works out at three per day. Of those, 214 were in Leeds.

Sarah Lloyd works with young people in the city after losing her son Kieran Butterworth to knife crime. He was 17 when he was stabbed to death by a drug dealer in Harehills in 2013.

She says eight years on, it’s ‘heart-breaking’ to see it’s still happening ‘day in, day out’:

“I’ve got grandkids growing up in Harehills and Gipton and I’m petrified for them to be honest.

“I see it on a daily basis. You see them walking round with knives, you see them talking about knives like it’s normal. The big machetes, they’ve started buying the really big quilted coats, the ones that come down to the floor, to hide the length of the blade.

“There’s young gang members who are too scared to walk the street whose little brothers are getting cut up in Harehills, because they can’t get hold of them. So they’ve got grown adults jumping out of cars, four at a time, and attacking them with machetes. It’s not just the youth, it’s like 20+ year olds that are still doing it.”

She believes knife crime has become ‘normalised’ in parts of Leeds, with young people growing up thinking it’s normal to know people who’ve been stabbed. She’s also concerned some are carrying knives simply because they think everybody else is and they’re too scared to walk the streets unarmed.

“A lot of parents are aware of it, but they feel that: ‘if he’s got a knife, he’s safer’,” she says.

“That by taking it off of them, their young person is more vulnerable. But in reality it’s the opposite. That’s why they’re getting away with walking out of the house with a weapon because nobody’s stopping them.

“They are still getting younger, and it’s primary school as well. But a lot of them now are saying they get involved with gangs because they’re scared to walk the streets alone. It’s a catch 22 situation. They’re saying: ‘it’s kill or be killed’.”

Sarah is currently working with a local film company to make a documentary about the dangers of knife crime following a successful crowdfunding campaign. She's teamed up with a former gang member to make the film, which will then be given to schools and colleges free of charge to help get the message across to young people.

Since the start of last year, West Yorkshire Police says it’s made more than 2,300 arrests and taken 770 weapons off the streets as part of Operation Jemlock – the specialist unit set up to target knife crime and serious violent crime.

The force says knife crime is currently falling across West Yorkshire with offences lower than those recorded in 2019, and lower than the same period last year.

Chief Inspector James Kitchen, who leads Operation Jemlock, said: “Reducing knife crime is a key priority for the force and we fully understand the concern it causes young people and their parents.

“Carrying a knife really does put young people at risk of being the victims of knife offending and educating young people about the dangers of carrying knives remains absolutely key to reducing offending in the long term.

“We continue to work very closely with the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit ( VRU) on a whole range of programmes and projects to educate young people and provide interventions across West Yorkshire to potentially stop more people from taking knives onto the streets.”

“We urge residents to please keep reporting any information they have on knife crime in their communities and the information from the public will be used to help target our resources.”