The crimes which saw Colchester ranked as second worst for knife crimes in Essex last year

There were a total of 100 violent offences recorded which include any assault, robbery, threat to kill, murder, attempted murder of sexual offence involving a blade.

Danny Bostock stabbed a man to death and then tried to blow up his flat...in a bid to get hold of his prize coin collection.

Gordon McGhee suffered several knife wounds in the attack in August last year at his home in Forest Road, Colchester.

Bostock denied murder but was convicted after a trial and was jailed for life.

He will serve a minimum of 30 years in jail.

A 16-year-boy avoided being sent to youth detention after threatening a shop cashier with a knife during an attempted robbery.

The teenager who cannot be named for legal reasons, burst into The Willows Convenience Store in The Willows, Colchester, at lunchtime in November.

He then hold the knife up to the worker and demanded cash before an unsuspecting potential customer walked through the door. He then ran away.

The boy was later charged with attempted robbery and possession of a blade - a large kitchen knife and was handed a 12-month behaviour contract and ordered to pay £200 compensation.

Ben Goodspeed and Tate Heeney were on the run for 11 days after the former knifed a teenager in the chest and the latter hit him over the head with a chair leg.

The victim suffered nerve damage and was rushed to the specialist cardiology unit in Basildon.

Police launched a manhunt until the pair turned up at Colchester Police Station with their mothers.

Both admitted wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and were jailed for seven and six years respectively.

A teenager was given a two-year detention and training order after leaving a former schoolmate scarred for life when she knifed her in the face.

The perpetrator was 14 at the time of the attack in June 2018 and she attacked the victim in an alleyway near Vineyard Car Park.

The incident happened in broad daylight, just after 4.30pm.

While officers were carrying out forensic work in the area, the defendant came over to them and was arrested.

A MAN who stupidly cleaned a bloodied knife he found on top of his wheelie bin was jailed after his actions stopped others being prosecuted.

Brett French bleached the ten inch curved blade which is believed to have been used to stab a man in St John’s Avenue, Colchester, in August last year

Just minutes after police had been called to the stabbing, ambulance crews alerted them that they were treating a man matching the description of the suspected knifeman in Sussex Road, Colchester.

He had suffered injuries to his face after having a mixture of boiling water and sugar hurled at him which was initially feared to have been acid.

French, who lived in the same road, had called the ambulance after the man - who he knew as a fellow drug user - knocked on his door and begged to be let in.

After he had spoken to the emergency services, French went to bed but found the knife in his back garden when he woke up.

In a panic he bleached the knife having heard about the stabbing and suspecting it had been the weapon used. He then hid it.

French was jailed for 18 months.