It can be easier for children to buy a knife than paracetamol, police have warned after a review raised major concerns over age verification and the availability of weapons for sale on social media.
Metropolitan Police Commander Stephen Clayman, the national lead for knife crime, said: “Bizarrely, it is harder to buy paracetamol in some respects than it is to buy a knife. And that can’t be right.”
Mr Clayman led a Home Office-commissioned review of online knife sales that found 15 illegal dealers who had sold more than 2,000 knives in an 18-month period.
He told the PA news agency: “I could go to a legitimate dealer and buy 300 knives, and the dealer has no obligation to tell police that someone’s just bought that, or the fact I bought five knives each week for the last 10 weeks.”
“We need to plug that and understand who is buying these knives.”
Other blades are bulk bought and resold illegally via social media on the so-called grey market.
Dealers post on social media sites including Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat, before communicating with potential buyers on encrypted platforms to avoid detection.
“Because then what happens is, when they’re selling them on social media via their particular accounts, they are selling indiscriminately to children and young men, predominantly men, because there are no age verification safeguards.
“They don’t really care who they sell to.”
It comes as the Home Office revealed a raft of anti-knife crime plans, which will see retailers report bulk or suspicious sales of knives to police and increased jail terms for selling weapons to children.
The measures proposed on Wednesday will be known collectively as Ronan’s Law, after his mother Pooja and sister Nikita campaigned for legal changes.
The latest plans come on top of proposals already announced to make knife buyers show photo ID at both sale and delivery.
Mr Clayman told the PA news agency: “The age verification is a huge vulnerability, both in terms of at point of sale and at delivery.
“We know that through the tragic stories we hear and have heard, but it continues that there are huge flaws that need to be addressed.”
Axel Rudakubana, the teenager who murdered three children and injured another eight and two adults in Southport, bought the murder weapon online despite being underage by concealing his identity.
Last year Rayis Nibeel, a teenage drug dealer who murdered father-of-two Omar Khan, 38, in Luton, was found to have bought 65 knives online using an account set up in his mother’s name while he was under 18.
He bought dozens of weapons including kukris, bayonets and large hunting knives and sold them on for profit.
A similar picture emerged with one of the teenage killers of 16-year-old Ronan Kanda, who was murdered in a case of mistaken identity by two boys who were able to buy knives with no identity checks.
One of the killers had bought more than 20 knives online, including by using his mother’s ID.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told PA: “We need stronger action to tackle this dangerous knife crime that is killing children, and we’ve seen lethal weapons in the hands of children, and we cannot go on with families being devastated in this way.
“We need a crackdown on online knife sales, because at the moment there are fewer checks on knife sales to children than there are often on alcohol or cigarette sales to children. That is just wrong.”
The measures include plans to create an offence of possessing a weapon with intent for violence. Currently a similar offence exists for someone found in possession of a gun, but not a knife.
A new national police unit to tackle online knife sales will also be piloted.
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