No 10 hosts gun crime summit

Gang membership may be used as an aggravating factor in sentencing, Home Secretary John Reid has announced.The proposal is part of a wide-ranging review of the law on gun crime in the wake of a spate of fatal shootings.Mr Reid told a gun crime summit at 10 Downing Street that ministers will also seek to clarify confusion over whether five-year minimum jail terms can be handed to youths aged 18-21 for gun offences.A number of community leaders who spoke at the meeting said they were uncomfortable with more legislation on gun crime and warned that Britain was in danger of creating a generation of "urban child soldiers".Mr Reid told the summit: "We will review the age sentencing element and look at bringing in a gang and aggravating element in any offence when it comes to sentencing."We will lay an order or any orders that are necessary, to clarify the 18 to 21 issue and make sure a minimum sentence truly is a minimum sentence."Although the five year minimum was introduced in January 2004, last March the appeal court said that because of a clash with separate legislation it could not apply to under 21s.Prime Minister Tony Blair told the meeting he believed new legislation would be part of the solution to the gun crime problem.He said he recognised that there had to be a wide range of efforts in the community, but added that the failure to toughen up laws could send out a message of "complacency".But there was no agreement among the 25 people seated around the conference table that new legislation would help.The Rev Nins Obunge, of the churches group Peace Alliance, said: "Legislation is not the way forward. We may be raising urban child soldiers."We will come out of this conference making statements on legislation, how you are going to crack down, but not support these young people who need an exit strategy. I am very uncomfortable about that."The Downing Street talks were arranged after three teenagers were shot dead in the space of a fortnight in south London.Billy Cox, 15, was shot in the chest at his home in Clapham North last week and was found dying by his younger sister. His shooting followed the gun deaths of James Andre Smartt-Ford, 16, and Michael Dosunmu, 15, in Streatham and Peckham respectively.Police responded to this wave of violence by deploying more armed officers on the streets.Officers are also looking at two other murders in south London this month - those of Chamberlain Igwemba, 47, who was shot at a flat in Camberwell, and Javarie Crighton, 21, who was stabbed to death in Peckham.A 28-year-old man was also shot dead in Hackney, east London at the weekend.© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.

ITN | February 22, 2007

Tags:. .teenagers. .solution. .introduced. .forward. .seek