Ken Livingstone has claimed his focus on crime has been a real success and the 26 youths killed in London last year is small compared to the number of children living in the city.

Despite a huge rise in teen murders Mr Livingstone said murders were on the decline.

He added: "In a city with a million kids it is absolutely horrifying that 26 were murdered last year, but that is out of a million.

"You can't generalise with the 26 to others that are law abiding and decent.

"There is a real demonisation of young people in this country. There was when I was I was a kid, We really are a fairly hostile country to grow up in."

Speaking during a visit to the Croydon Guardian's office, Mr Livingstone who is standing for election for a third term in office, said in his eight years as London Mayor he has put more police on the streets and reduced crime by 20 per cent.

He also claimed the fear of crime on our streets is being fuelled by the other mayoral candidates.

He said: "Once this election is over there won't be a group of people who want to be mayor who run around and try and scare people and making things sound worse than they are.

"So the fear of crime will decline from May 2 when people stop running around and saying that London is on the verge of replicating Sodom and Gomorrah."

Crime figures released today show crime as a whole has fallen by 20 per cent but when asked if it is simply less people reporting crime, Mr Livingstone disagreed.

He said: "Serious crime is going down. We have had a 28 per cent reduction in murders in this city in the last five years, what you have got is this horrifying element of teenage murder we have had increased.

"And that's why I persuaded the Government to give us the money necessary to provide a £79million imporovement to youth provision and we are continuing to expand the police force to target this. But overall this is a success story.

"Because we have people back on the street and people see officers I think more people are reporting crime. They certainly report the serious crime.

"The figures the police collect are not something you can ignore. It might be that somebody is not reporting a burglary but people are reporting murders and there aren't bodies around that people aren't being told about and that is a 28 per cent reduction."

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