Last month we showed how the Sun had wrongly applied an estimate for the proportion of knife crime committed by youth, made by a local police commander for a London borough, to youths involved in knife crime across Britain.

The article asked for the Sentencing Bill, which proposed tougher sentences on knife crime, to be extended to cover youth under the age of 18, using the assertion that 40 per cent of knife crime was committed by youths. This claim was quoted by a backbench minister in Prime Ministers Questions to support the same argument.

Full Fact found the figure was actually closer to 19 per cent.

The statistic was also denounced later by Justice Secretary Ken Clarke at a Commons home affairs committee.

We contacted the Press Complaints Commission and the Sun has now issued a printed correction.

It states: “We reported on October 18 that 'more than 40 per cent' of all knife crime involves juveniles. In fact, this was an estimate by local police for the London borough of Enfield. The most recent Ministry of Justice figures show the proportion is just under 20 per cent in England and Wales.”

The original story has been corrected. 

Unfortunately the figures have already been used in the House of Commons during a session of Prime Minister's Questions, and this could have played a role in the Government's decision to eventually include 16 and 17 year olds in its knife sentencing review. This demonstrates the care that newspapers need to take when placing figures in the public sphere.

However one of the most welcomes features of this correction is the speed with which is was issued, which is a credit to the PCC, and to the newspaper for its constructive approach. Full Fact originally raised the issue with the PCC last week, making this the quickest resolution we've yet had through the mediation process.

It comes on the same day as the Mirror printed a correction in response to a complaint Full Fact made last Friday without the need for PCC intervention. We hope other newspapers—some of which have taken months to print simple corrections—will have noted the speed with which these papers have corrected the record, and take it upon themselves to do likewise.