Brown says knife-carrying "unacceptable"

By Tim Castle

LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday people carrying knives would be "caught, prosecuted and punished" as he defended the government's handling of knife crime following a spate of stabbing deaths.

But his message was overshadowed over claims from opposition parties that the government had already backtracked from a "half-baked" policy to force those caught with knives to visit hospitals to see stabbing victims for themselves.

"We need to make it absolutely clear to everyone, but especially young people, that in our country there are boundaries of acceptable behaviour, that it is completely unacceptable to carry a knife," Brown told his monthly news conference.

Four fatal stabbings in one day in London last week, taking the total killed with knives in the capital this year above 50, has returned the issue of violent crime to the top of the political agenda.

The capital's Metropolitan Police Service says tackling knife crime has now overtaken counter-terrorism as its main priority.

Senior Scotland Yard officer Alf Hitchcock, the government's newly appointed "knife tsar", said stab injuries had become more severe and were being committed by younger offenders.

Brown said the government was taking a range of measures to reduce the menace of knife attack, including more visible policing, greater stop-and-search powers, increasing use of metal detectors and tougher prison sentences or community punishments.

"It is a combination of prevention, enforcement and punishment," he said. "I wouldn't want people to think it is one measure alone."