Ministers are considering steps to discourage underage sales following the Southport murders, which would force online sellers to request two forms of identification from anyone wishing to purchase a knife.
Despite having a violent conviction, Axel Rudakubana purchased the kitchen knife used in the July attack from Amazon when he was just 17 years old. Rudakubana fatally stabbed three young girls during a dancing lesson in Southport.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said in the House of Commons on Tuesday that it was a "disgrace" that Rudakubana could purchase the knife so readily despite laws that forbid selling blades to anybody younger than 18 and promised to enforce the restrictions more strictly.
Rudakubana admitted carrying a knife more than 10 times.
As part of the plans being considered by the Home Office, buyers would have to submit an ID document to an online retailer and then record a live video or selfie to prove their age.
Stronger ID checks are one of the proposals from a review of online knife sales carried out on behalf of the Government by Stephen Clayman, the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for knife crime.
At present, customers ordering knives on Amazon, for example, are asked to enter their date of birth and told that “proof of age and a signature will be required on delivery”.
Proposals for the tougher checks are expected to be accelerated in the wake of the Southport murders. They come on top of a manifesto commitment to introduce fines for executives at tech companies, which flout rules on sales of banned ninja swords, zombie-style blades and machetes.
‘Two-click killer’
Labour also pledged to reduce knife crime by half in a decade. The number of knife offences reported by police forces across England and Wales are close to their record levels, surpassing 50,000 for only the second time since records began.
In London, they have already hit a record high of 15,859 in the year to June, which is up 16 per cent on the previous year, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Writing for The Sun, Sir Keir Starmer said it “remains shockingly easy for our children to get their hands on deadly knives”.
“The lessons of this case could not be clearer,” he said.
“Time and again as a child, the Southport murderer carried knives. Time and again, he showed clear intent to use them. And yet tragically, he was still able to order the murder weapon off the internet without any checks or barriers. A two-click killer. This cannot continue.
“The technology is there to set up age-verification checks, even for kitchen knives ordered online. We must now use it to protect our children from future attack and I will ensure that this happens.”
A spokesman for Amazon said: “We use trusted ID verification services to check name, date of birth and address details whenever an order is placed for these bladed items.
“We have an age verification on delivery process that requires drivers to verify the recipient’s age through an app on their devices before handing over a parcel containing an age-restricted item.”
On the first day of his trial on Monday, Rudakubana pleaded guilty to the murder of six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last July.
Ms Cooper told the Commons that Rudakubana’s easy access to a knife despite his age and a prior conviction for a violent offence against another child at school was a “total disgrace”
He had also been referred to Prevent, the Government’s anti-extremism programme, on three separate occasions between 2019 and 2021.
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