Amnesty plan for firearms in bid to stem tide of shootings

David Blunkett and senior police officers yesterday announced a firearms amnesty in an attempt to curb the rampant gun culture taking hold in English inner-cities.

The drastic measure, revealed by The Independent last month, was approved yesterday at a "gun summit" at the Home Office, attended by the Home Secretary, ministers, chief constables, high-ranking civil servants and community leaders. Mr Blunkett chaired the "round table" discussion after statistics showed firearms offences in England and Wales soared by 35 per cent last year.

The amnesty is likely to be in the late spring or early summer and will allow gun owners to hand over illegal weapons to police without fear of prosecution. Ministers emerged from the two-hour summit to say they would be examining new ways of making it easier for witnesses to come forward and give evidence against gunmen.

West Midlands Police are continuing to search for information on the identity of the killers of teenagers Letisha Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis, who were caught in the crossfire of drug gangsters in Birmingham on 2 January. The Home Office minister, Bob Ainsworth, said if witnesses thinking of coming forward to the police with evidence of gun crime do not feel safe the courts would "suffer an inability to bring people to justice". He added: "There is a review of witness protection taking place as a result of these issues."

The Home Secretary described the summit as a "helpful and constructive discussion". He said: "This was a meeting to listen and learn, to draw on experience and to be able to share a way forward."

Among the community leaders at the meeting was Lucy Cope, founding member of Mothers Against Murder, whose son Damian, 22, was shot dead in July last year. She said: "There needs to be tougher mandatory sentences and a zero tolerance policy. But there is no quick fix. We need hope for these youngsters, regeneration and jobs, and opportunities so they are not attracted to gang culture."

Officers from police forces with high levels of gun crime, such as the Metropolitan Police, Greater Manchester, West Midlands, West Yorkshire and Merseyside, were also at the summit. The National Criminal Intelligence Service, which co-ordinates intelligence between forces in the UK and overseas, was also represented.

The Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, dismissed the summit as a "gimmick". He told BBC Radio 4's World At One: "This did not suddenly rise this year. This has been rising year on year for four or five years. What worries me and angers me, in a sense, is that the Government has been almost utterly complacent about this." He said the Government's key priority must be to "give the streets back to people in those communities by making sure the police are back on the streets".

Firearms were used in 9,974 recorded crimes in the 12 months to last April, up from 7,362 the year before.

Eight out of 10 people believe that the Government has failed to live up to its 1997 slogan of "tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime", according to a Yougov opinion poll.