Johnson targets knives and bendy buses

By Avril Ormsby

LONDON (Reuters) - Mayor of London Boris Johnson vowed to rid the city of knife crime and bendy buses in his first Question Time at City Hall on Wednesday.

Johnson, who was elected mayor on May 2, praised a recent police operation in Deptford that netted 16 weapons including knives, screwdrivers, a metal baseball bat, a mallet, wrench handles, a claw hammer and metal bars, from a group of youths after they had boarded a bus.

Johnson said: "I think it was incredible that you had 24 people getting on a bus armed to the teeth ... and they were using that bus as a vehicle in which to go off and have a fight somewhere across town."

He added: "This is a major problem and I hope that the Metropolitan Police take bus crime more seriously. I have high hopes that we will turn this around."

More hand-held scanners would be introduced and more police would be seen on the street, he said.

He also said he wanted to help police with their ambition of achieving more stop and searches by consent.

The mayor pledged to phase out bendy buses and replace them with a Routemaster Mark II in an estimated 100 million-pound programme despite doubts cast by his new director of transport policy.

"They will be equipped not with old-fashioned conductors, people who take your fare, but with somebody who will help you with the open platform at the back, because that is the vital feature that has been lost from so many buses," he said.