Knife crime, personal robbery and crimes in which guns were fired have all risen across Enfield and Haringey over the past year, according to recent data from the Met Police.

The statistics for the North Area Basic Command Unit (BCU), which covers both boroughs, show several types of crime increased – despite dropping across the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) as a whole.

Knife crime is a “key concern” following a 16 per cent rise in offences comparing the two rolling years to May. This contrasts with a six per cent decline across the MPS.

Personal robbery offences – a key contributor to the knife crime – rose 17 per cent year-on-year, compared to a two per cent decline across the MPS.

The figures were discussed at a meeting of Enfield Council’s safer neighbourhood board on Wednesday (July 22).

Chris Jones, superintendent in charge of safer neighbourhood policing and schools policing in Enfield and Haringey, said: “Knife crime is a key concern in the BCU. The majority of knife crime offences were linked to knifepoint robberies, street robberies.

“Personal robberies are a key contributor to knife crime. We are kind of an outlier in terms of the Met performance around robbery.

“There are comprehensive robbery plans in place, so we have a lot of central policing asset come to Enfield and Haringey, and there are a number of plans, including a schools policing plan around robbery.”

Lethal barrelled discharges – offences in which a lethal firearm was fired – climbed by 27 per cent in the BCU year-on-year, against a decrease of 27 per cent across the MPS.

Supt Jones said: “We are working heavily with specialist crime – we’ve been doing work with National Crime Agency and other serious law enforcement to target that high-end offending.

“I think it’s fair to say that Enfield and Haringey have levels of criminality that is street-based, but also have levels of criminality which is high-end, more organised crime, and therefore will result in potentially more firearms being used from that higher sector of the criminal underworld.”

Homicides rose from eight to 13 comparing the two rolling years ending May 2020 – from four to six in Enfield and from four to seven in Haringey.

Burglaries declined over the same period, but the one per cent fall in Enfield was much smaller than the 33 per cent decrease in Haringey and lower than the ten per cent decline across the MPS.

The figures showed Bush Hill Park witnessed a 139 per cent rise in personal robbery offences – from 18 in the previous rolling year to 43. The ward also saw the largest increase in knife crime offences – from five to 23.

Supt Jones said: “There is work to find out why Bush Hill Park has seen a large spike in the number of offences.”

Cockfosters witnessed the second-highest increase in personal robberies – from 28 to 53 comparing the previous two rolling years.