Police unit to tackle gun crime

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A specialist national police unit and a ministerial task force will be set up to try to tackle gun crime in major English cities, says the government.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith told BBC One's Sunday AM programme she was worried gun crime was "happening more with young people".

The £1m initiative will target gun crime and gangs in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Birmingham.

This week saw the funeral of shooting victim, 11-year-old Rhys Jones.

Rhys was shot as he walked home across a pub car park in Croxteth, Liverpool on 22 August.

Ms Smith promised that greater use of intelligence-led policing would "get gang leaders off the street".

Guns and gangs

The home secretary, who will lead the ministerial task force, said mediation between gangs was another way to tackle the problem.

The new national police unit, headed by Merseyside's Deputy Chief Constable John Murphy, will focus on the regions where gun crime is concentrated.

YOUTH SHOOTINGS IN 2007 London: Six deaths James Andre Smarrt-Ford, 16 Michael Dosunmu, 15 Billy Cox, 15, Annaka Keniesha Pinto, 17 Abukar Mahamed, 16 Nathan Foster, 18 Manchester: One death Kamilah Peniston, 12 Liverpool: One death Rhys Jones, 11

"Around half of all gun crime is committed in just three police force areas - West Midlands, Greater Manchester and London - but you are less likely to be a victim of violent crime than 10 years ago," said Ms Smith.

"But recent tragic events have rightly made us ask if we are doing all we can to tackle serious crime involving guns and gangs," said the home secretary.

"To suggest that our streets are full of gun-toting young people is just plain wrong," Ms Smith said.

Serious violence

"But yes I am worried about, when it come to the most serious violence, the extent to which gun crime in particular is happening more with young people."

"There will be much greater use of intelligence-led policing to identify who it is who's supplying the guns - who are the gang leaders?

"The use of that intelligence-led policing will get the gang-leaders off the streets and their guns.

"It's tough work bringing together the Serious Organised Crime Agency, along with our border agencies, to cut off the supply of guns into those areas.

"It's building on successful work like mediation, where people actually get between the gangs in order to stop the kind of retaliation that we've seen."

According to provisional Home Office figures, there were 58 firearms-related homicides in England and Wales 2006-07 compared with 49 in the previous year.

Last week, Home Office Minister Vernon Coaker called for more people convicted of carrying a hand gun to receive the full mandatory five-year jail sentence.