South Central Ambulance Service warns children as young as 8 are being stabbed

Children as young as eight are being involved in 'knife-related incidents' across the South Central Ambulance Service area, which includes Portsmouth.

It comes as medics pinpoint drug supply and county lines as being responsible for the increase.

Its safeguarding team is working with others to try and identify anyone at risk of serious violence.

Thames Valley Police has already shared its database of people vulnerable to drug dealers with Scas.

Hampshire police has been asked if it has done the same.

Official statistics revealed there were 788 serious crimes involving a knife in Hampshire, including 11 rapes or sexual assaults, in the 12 months to September 2019.

The force in January said it had seen an 17 per cent increase in the number of people arrested for possession of a knife.

Trust board papers said: ‘The trust has seen a large rise in knife related incidents involving children as young as eight years old across our area.

‘This is not just a trend across South Central, all ambulance trusts are seeing this trend.

‘Many of these attacks are directly related to county lines gangs and the distribution of illegal drugs.

‘The safeguarding team are working with our police, local authority and education partners across the trust.

‘Scas safeguarding team are members of task and finish groups looking at how every organisation that has a responsibility to tackle child knife crime can identify and support victims of county lines and gangs to disrupt this growing epidemic of child knife crime.'

TVP's adult and child exploitation database allows it to see children and adults known to be involved with gangs.

The papers added: ‘This will give us the ability to place a special situation report on our databases for our crews to access when dealing with a known child or adult that is being exploited by gangs as part of the county lines process.

‘In turn this will make Scas best suited to assist via safeguarding to support and protect these vulnerable persons before they either become a victim or have life-changing injuries due to a knife attack.’