Two teenagers have been charged with weapons offences after a stop-and-search over a ‘ticket issue’ in London Euston revealed the pair allegedly carrying two enormous machetes.
Disturbing footage captured in the Underground area of the station yesterday afternoon shows the moment British Transport Police (BTP) arrested the youths after discovering the terrifying blades.
BTP said they had the grounds to establish a search over the ticketing problem but their probe uncovered the huge weapons.
In the horrifying video which lays bare the size of the knives, the tracksuit-clad youths can be seen hanging their heads as a woman and a small child walk past.
Officers quickly arrested the pair, aged 15 and 16, and took them into custody before they were both ‘further arrested on suspicion of breach of court bail as part of an unrelated matter’.
They said both have been charged with possession of an offensive weapon and are due to appear at Bromley Youth Court today.
A witness who captured the footage told the Daily Mail they were horrified to see officers reveal the blades as they walked through the station.
They said: ‘I was watching to see what happened and my [boyfriend] said ‘they are being searched’. The next minute the officers pulled out these massive, huge knives!
Two teenagers have been charged with weapons offences after a stop-and-search over a ‘ticket issue’ in London Euston revealed the pair allegedly carrying enormous machetes.
British Transport Police (BTP) arrested the two youths after discovering the terrifying blades
‘They were even bigger in person, the video doesn’t do it justice’
The witness said one of the boys pleaded with officers after they discovered the weapon, telling them: ‘Allow it please it’s not mine.’
A British Transport Police spokesperson said: ‘At around 2pm yesterday (5 October), British Transport Police (BTP) officers spoke to two boys, aged 15 and 16, in relation to a ticket issue at Euston Underground station.
‘Grounds were established for a search and two machetes were recovered.
‘Both boys were arrested and taken into custody, where they were further arrested on suspicion of breach of court bail as part of an unrelated matter.
‘They were both charged with possession of an offensive weapon and are due to appear at Bromley Youth Court today (6 October).’
The footage will only serve to heighten anxieties around knife crime in London over the last decade.
Research from the Policy Exchange this summer found that knife offences in the city had increased by 86 per cent in the 10 years prior.
London’s iconic West End had more knife crime than almost 15 per cent of the rest of the capital combined, according to the research.
Just five per cent of robberies and 0.6 per cent of ‘theft from person’ crimes in London were solved last year, the research – titled Your Money or Your Life: London’s Knife Crime, Robbery and Street Theft Epidemic’ – found.
The report’s author, ex-Scotland Yard detective chief inspector David Spencer, said his former force must take an unequivocal ‘crime fighting first’ approach to save the city from a knife, robbery and theft epidemic.
A witness who captured the footage told the Daily Mail they were horrified to see officers reveal the blades as they walked through the station
Knife offences across the country have increased by 78 per cent since 2014, but Mr Spencer said these figures had been skewed by the scale of the issue in the capital, where there were 16,879 knife crimes last year alone – about a third of the total across England and Wales.
The report points out that this coincides broadly with the mayoralty of Sir Sadiq Khan, who in July was publicly criticised by US president Donald Trump for doing a ‘terrible job.’
Sir Sadiq, who was knighted in June, has won the Mayoral elections three times since 2016.
The Policy Exchange report claimed that since the pandemic knife crime has risen year on year throughout his tenure, with separate figures indicating a nine per cent rise in the past year.
After the report a spokesman for the Mayor said murders, gun crime with lethal barrel discharges, knife crime with injury and burglary are all down since 2016 and last year teen murders were the lowest they had been for a decade.
