The Government's knife crime strategy was in disarray last night as the Home Secretary was accused of a humiliating U-turn over plans, briefed at the weekend, to confront offenders with stabbing victims in hospital.

Jacqui Smith insisted to MPs in the Commons that, despite widespread reports, she had never said that the Government was proposing to take young people into wards to see patients.

This was apparently contradicted by an interview Ms Smith gave to Sky News on Sunday. She was asked: “One of those proposals is that people caught carrying knives should be taken to see people in hospital who have been stabbed, or to meet the families of victims, is that correct?”

“It is,” Ms Smith replied.

Dominic Grieve, the Shadow Home Secretary, said: “This is yet another government announcement that has been conjured up in three days and collapsed in three hours. Ministers should realise that gimmickry will not solve this very serious problem.”

The exchange came as police in Scotland said that a 22-year-old man who was stabbed 11 times when he was attacked by two men during the T in the Park music festival was an “innocent victim” who had tried to defend a female friend.

The man suffered eight wounds to the body and three to the head in the assault at Balado, Kinross-shire, during the early hours of Sunday, but police said that he was making good progress in hospital.

The stabbing victim was found in the campsite at about 12.40am, and police are looking for two men in connection with the attack. Detective Chief Inspector Bruce Kerr, of Tayside Police, told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme that the man was an innocent victim.

“He went to intervene with the two males who were accosting one of his female friends and they just set about him. He was stabbed eleven times, eight to the body and three to the head,” Mr Kerr added.

Police have circulated a description of the suspects and urged anyone who witnessed anything to contact them. One suspect is described as white, aged 20-24, and slim with short brown hair. He is thought to have been wearing a green or yellow jacket.

The second man is described as being white and stocky with short, brown receding hair. He was wearing a red hooded top or jacket.

Meanwhile, the family of a 27-year-old Scottish man murdered in a random knife attack have joined the dispute over Ms Smith's remarks.

People who carry knives should not be taken to a hospital but to a morgue, the father of John Jenkins, whose killer were jailed yesterday, has said.

Bill Jenkins, 54, spoke out after two men were jailed by the High Court in Edinburgh for life for the unprovoked attack on his son John, a chef, who was on his way to work.

Taking offenders to visit knife victims in hospital would put medical staff under pressure, he said.

“I believe in taking them to the morgue and showing them what they have done,” said Mr Jenkins, who described how he had had to identify the body of his murdered son.

“It is the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.”

John Edgar, 24, and his cousin, David McCaig, 18, were drunk when they set about Mr Jenkins, who they did not know, as he walked to work in Livingston.

Edgar, of Scotstoun, Glasgow, was told he must serve 15 years before he can apply for parole and McCaig, of Ladywell, Livingston, was jailed for at least ten years.

New figures for England and Wales showed that the number of youngsters caught with knives in school has risen more than sevenfold in a decade.

Sentences for pupils found with knives in school have jumped from 902 in 1996, to 6,334 in 2006, the most recent total available. The figures also show that fewer than one in five offenders is given a custodial sentence for carrying a lethal weapon in school.

The row over Ms Smith's remarks overshadowed moves to deal with the problem announced by Gordon Brown at his monthly press conference. Young knife crime offenders would be forced to clean up the streets at weekends and problem parents who fail to respond to moves to help them to improve discipline could be evicted from their council homes, he said.

Under pressure over deepening public fears, the Prime Minister announced a doubling to 20,000 of the number of families to be subject to “family intervention projects”, where the state steps in to stop young offending. They will be drawn from the 110,000 families identified by local authorities as being most at risk of having children who might offend.

Kenny MacAskill, the Justice Secretary, said that the Scottish government would consider introducing legislation to crack down on the country's “booze and blade culture”.

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