Warrington Trading Standards launches operation on knife sales (From Warrington Guardian)

Warrington Trading Standards launches operation on knife sales

10:48am Wednesday 8th July 2009

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KNIVES costing as little as £1 are being sold to youngsters across the town, a crackdown operation by Warrington Trading Standards has revealed.

In 11 test purchases across Warrington and Halton using a 15-year-old stooge, six shops sold the knives to the girl without even attempting to verify her age.

“It seems to us it was very, very easy for young people to get hold of knives, which is a real concern.

Peter Astley

One of the knives was an eight-inch boning blade while others were packs of craft knives and 12 stanley knife-type blades.

Peter Astley, health manager for Warrington Trading Standards, said: “We concentrated on shops that were selling knives very cheaply so price wasn’t a barrier.

“We don’t dress the volunteers up to look older and they don’t carry fake ID so there is nothing to trip up shop workers with.

“It seems to us it was very, very easy for young people to get hold of knives, which is a real concern.

”“Because of the seriousness of the offence we are investigating each of the traders and may prosecute.”

The operation was part of a national survey, which revealed under-age knife sales in Warrington were higher than the national average.

Although Mr Astley said they cannot say the town has more of a problem than elsewhere due to the number of test purchases conducted.

He added: “Our retailers must properly train their staff and ensure they have procedures in place, such as challenge 25, for dealing with age restrictive purchases.

“Our advice to traders is if they are in any doubt about people buying knives don’t sell them because the repercussions of selling a knife to a young person could be severe.

“The work Trading Standards do is vital in breaking the culture of knife buying – if we can restrict the access to buying knives and parents can make sure knives are not easily obtainable then we can make a positive impact on knife crime.

”There are certain parts of the country where knife crime is very serious and while Warrington does not have a problem at the moment we need to be vigilant to make sure we to continue to not have a problem.”

Warrington Trading Standards is also looking at how to strengthen protection against youngsters buying knives online after a 15-year-old boy was able to buy a knife using his debit card.

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