THERESA May has been blasted as a "disaster" and blamed for Britain's policing crisis by an ex-Met Police chief.

Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Lord John Stevens slammed the outgoing PM as London's knife crime has continued to spiral to unprecedented levels.

Speaking to LBC's Nick Ferrari, Lord Stevens said: "It really has been a pretty poor period of time, unprecedented. We all think it's probably been the worst period of anyone whose been Home Secretary, ever."

And Lord Stevens, who served at Met Police Commissioner from 2000 to 2004, said there had been a "complete breakdown of trust and confidence" between May and "overworked" cops.

During the explosive interview, Nick Ferrari asked if Theresa May has been the "most disastrous Home Secretary and Prime Minister for policing you've ever seen" – with the former Commissioner replying: "I really do believe that."

It comes as London's knife crime has continued to spiral out of control – with knife crime surging by 16 per cent in the capital year-on-year in 2018.

And Lord Stevens said he hoped that May's departure from No10 would hopefully mark an end to a "dark period of policing."

Theresa May served as Home Secretary from 2010 to 2016. She became Prime Minister in July 2016 – stepping down after failed Brexit talks this month.

And just this week, police chiefs banded together to slam the "emasculation of British policing" under Theresa May.

In a letter to The Times the former Metropolitan Police chiefs, who ran the force from 1993 to 2017, said resources had been “drained to dangerously low levels".

BLOOD ON THE STREETS

Last night alone, a man was gunned down on a busy London road, while Tesfa Campbell, 40, was named as the victim stabbed the death in Battersea.

Jaden Moodie, 14, was one of the youngest victim's of the capital's spiralling knife crime.

There were 1,299 stabbings in London up to the end of April, according to official statistics from the Met Police.

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In 2017-18, there were 137 knife offences for every 100,000 people in the capital.

2018 was London’s bloodiest year in almost a decade as the murder toll reached 134.

Last year's attacks meant, for a time, that the capital's homicide rate momentarily overtook that of New York.

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