Home deliveries of online knives to be banned under tough new restrictions
Online buyers will have to pick up a knife bought from a shop, where they will also be required to show proof of age.
Tuesday 18 July 2017 12:14, UK
People who buy knives online will have to pick them up in person under new proposals to tackle the sale of blades to under-age shoppers.
It is already an offence to sell knives to under-18s but the planned measures would mean they cannot be delivered to private property.
Online buyers would have to pick up any knife bought from a shop, where they would also be required to show proof of age.
Announcing her intention to tighten the law, Home Secretary Amber Rudd said: "We are announcing new measures to combat knife crime and the devastating impact it has on families, individuals and communities.
"We are going to be consulting on new legislation so that people can't buy knives online without having their identity checked.
"At the moment you have to do it by the click of a button.
"What we are proposing is that if you want to buy a knife online it has to be collected from a place where you have to show your ID.
"We have evidence that young people have been able to buy knives without verifying their ID and I want to stop that."
Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott said the move was not enough and claimed the Government had "failed to address the root causes of knife crime".
She said: "They have not mounted effective anti-knives campaigns in schools and colleges, the voluntary agreement signed with retailers just last year clearly has not worked, and they have repeatedly broken their promises on sentencing for knife possession
"Meanwhile, the police have lost over 20,000 officers since 2010 and cuts to local authority budgets have seen youth centres and services close across the country.
"All of this amounts to a record of failure by this Tory government."
Calls for action on internet sales intensified last year after a court heard a knife used in the fatal stabbing of Bailey Gwynne, an Aberdeen schoolboy, was purchased online.
The knife crime consultation will also aim to close a loophole that means police can be powerless to act if they discover knives in someone's home.
A ban on the possession of outlawed weapons such as zombie knives and knuckledusters on private property would mean officers can seize them and make arrests.
The consultation will also ask if the offence of possessing a knife in a public place and school should be extended to universities.
Recent national crime figures showed the majority of police forces - 33 out of 44 - registered a rise in offences involving knives and sharp instruments last year.
Officers say youths are keeping blades on them for reasons including "status" and self-protection, as well as crime.