Gang-related gun violence has risen sharply in Birmingham since a judge halted the radical use of court orders banning suspected criminals from parts of the city, the police and community leaders say.

West Midlands Police pioneered the use of civil injunctions to restrict the movements of suspects when there is not enough evidence to launch a criminal prosecution.

These were first used to ban from a red-light district a rapist who was attacking prostitutes, but have since been extended to curb the activities of members of the Johnson Crew and the Burger Bar Gang, Birmingham’s rival factions.

But a judge ruled in January that Birmingham County Court did not have the jurisdiction to impose the orders - designed under Section 222 of the Local Government Act 1972 for local authority use to curb rogue street traders - in criminal matters.

Birmingham council officials are now awaiting the outcome of an appeal hearing at the High Court in London next month to see if they can continue with the scheme.

Kirk Dawes, a former police officer who works as a gangland mediator in the city, said that violence between gangs had surged since the courts stopped issuing the injunctions.

“The figures are going up and up. We are at a critical time in Birmingham,” he said. Before the use of the civil court powers there had been “war” in some areas of the city, with 27 deaths related to gang violence in 2002, said Mr Dawes. The injunctions had helped to cut the death toll by giving people such as him the chance to work directly with gang members and allowing the police time to conduct thorough investigations.

The civil injunctions had been used more than twenty times in the six months before they were stopped. They enabled officials to stop suspects from going into specific areas when there was intelligence saying that they committed crimes there. If they break the order, the offenders can be jailed.

Assistant Chief Constable Suzette Davenport, of West Midlands Police, told a recent commission on gun and knife crime that firearms offences had started to climb back up since January.

Paul Parish, team leader of Birmingham’s antisocial behaviour service, said that the injunctions “are used if there is sufficient evidence that someone is going to commit harm or injury. It is about restricting them from an area because of the risk they present. It is part of a number of strategies used to tackle gangs.

“A civil court questioned the use of the injunctions under Section 222 of the Local Government Act, but we are appealing against it and the cases have been stayed pending the outcome.”

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