Hospitals are treating more than two gun crime victims a week, shock figures reveal.

They emerge as Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson fights for her life in hospital after being shot in Peckham, South London, last Sunday.

The terrifying rise in gun crime is exposed by NHS stats showing 127 victims were treated in England last year – up 50% from 85 in 2014.

Criminology professor Peter Squires pinpointed Tory police cuts as being a factor, with 10,000 fewer cops in England and Wales now than in 2010.

Shadow Home Secretary Nick Thomas-Symonds said: “The rise is deeply worrying. Fewer police on the streets means criminals feel freer.

“The violence is also partly driven by the growing problem of drug gangs. We need urgent action to get more officers into areas most impacted, as well as more support for the National Crime Agency to stop guns getting here in the first place.”

Peter Squires, a professor in criminology and public policy at the University of Brighton

Of the 127 hospital victims last year, 59 – nearly half – were under 25 and all but nine were male. A total of 40 were treated in London, 25 in the West Midlands and ten in South Yorkshire.

Prof Squires, from the University of Brighton, said: “When the cat’s away the mice will play. Because there is a lot less high-visibility policing in some crime-hit residential areas, gang problems have popped back up again.”

He said a rise in untraceable smuggled DIY “ghost guns” from Europe, manufactured illegally or by 3D ­printing, was also fuelling the crisis.

The National Crime Agency seized 552 illegal firearms in 2019-20.

It said the majority of UK shootings were by street gangs whose activities included armed robbery and drug dealing.

Police say gun crime victims are usually known to them, indicating fire-arms are used “in feuds with other gangs for protection, punishment or to extend criminal enterprises”.

The Home Office said: “We’re ­providing the most substantial increase to police funding in a decade.

"Gun crime has fallen in the last year but we’ve already recruited 8,771 more officers as part of the additional 20,000 we are hiring by 2023.”

Activist Ms Johnson was hit in the head during a house party shooting.

Police do not think she was the target but the Taking The Initiative Party, which she helped found, believes the attack was a “hate crime”.

Cameron Deriggs, 18, of Bromley Hill, Lewisham, has been charged with conspiracy to murder.