Teens buying knives illegally online as criminals ‘move with digital age’
Underage teenagers buying knives online remains “a really concerning picture” for police, with illegal dealers selling weapons via social media.
The national lead for policing knife crime, Commander Stephen Clayman, said forces in England and Wales are keen to cut off the supply of weapons as part of efforts to stop injuries and deaths.
He said knives are being sold on TikTok, Snapchat and sites run by Facebook and Instagram owner Meta, while the Home Office revealed plans for knife detection technology and harsher punishments.
He told Sky News knife crime is “moving with the digital age” and said he is looking to retailers to take care over age verification.
Social media sites could also help by limiting harmful content, he added, and he is confident following talks with firms around ways technology can limit what teens are exposed to online.
“Knife crime is not the preserve solely of young people, but clearly we see, where young people are concerned, more proliferation, more public space violence, more use of these large intimidating weapons,” he said.
Some young people involved in criminality particularly favour what he calls “status knives”, more than a regular kitchen knife.
“It’s still a really concerning picture in terms of the accessibility of knives online,” he told journalists.
Official figures show knife crime rose by 7% in the year to December 2023.
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In the year to March 2023, 82% of teenage homicide victims were killed with a knife, compared to 73% in the previous year.
As part of plans to combat the rise, all police forces in England and Wales will ramp up action for a week this month and again in November as part of Operation Sceptre.
The Home Office announced on Tuesday a £3.5m package for research and development of new technologies to detect knives from a distance when a suspect passes through two points.
An additional £547,863 will also be given to the Metropolitan Police to fund four more live facial recognition camera vans.
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Data shows knife crime on the rise
Laws around zombie knives, machetes and swords will be tightened up from September, giving police greater powers to seize weapons found in private properties.
It will be illegal to possess, sell, manufacture or transport zombie-style knives and machetes.
The maximum penalty for the possession of these and other banned weapons will also increase from six months to two years.
A surrender and compensation scheme is due to launch this summer.
The crash involving a cargo ship and oil tanker off the East Yorkshire coast is bad news for the sea, fish and air in the area. What we don’t know yet is quite how bad it will be.
That depends on a few things – but the speed of the collision, clouds of filthy black smoke from the fires and the leaked fuel are certainly worrying.
Firstly, it matters what was on board those two massive vessels.
Follow live: Jet fuel spilling into sea after tanker collision
Analytics firm Vortexa estimates the 183m-long tanker was carrying about 130,000 barrels of jet fuel (kerosene), which is now leaking into the sea.
Jet fuel is not as sticky or viscous as heavier types of oil, thankfully, so it’s less likely to clog the feathers and fur of birds and seals. It can also be broken down by natural bacteria.
But it can still poison fish and kill animals and plants on the shoreline if it makes its way into the soil there.
The Marine Conservation Society has pointed out the site in the Humber estuary is close to some protected areas and is important for seabirds and harbour porpoises.
And both ships will have been powered by a dirtier, heavier kind of oil – likely marine gas oil or heavy fuel oil, though we don’t know the details yet.
Heavy fuel oil is nasty stuff.
Pic: Bartek Smialek/PA
Cheap, thick and tar-like, it can smother animals and is very dangerous if they consume it, and is extremely difficult to clean up. Let’s hope this isn’t creeping around the North Sea already.
We don’t know how much of either the jet fuel or the oil powering the ships has leaked, or how much will be burned off in the violent fires – which themselves are ploughing black smoke and filthy air pollution into the surrounding atmosphere.
And we don’t know for sure what was on the Solong cargo ship and if, or what, will go into the sea.
Cargo ship ‘had sodium cyanide on board’
It was carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide among other cargo, according to a report from maritime data provider Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
The container vessel was also transporting an unknown quantity of alcohol, said the casualty report – an assessment of incidents at sea – citing a message from the local coastguard.
Plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, and potentially can choke or trap animals.
Many of us have seen that uncomfortable viral video of a turtle having a straw yanked out of its nose. Previous accidents on cargo ships have seen plastic Lego pieces wash up in Cornwall 25 years later.
Read more:
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Secondly, the impact depends on the sea and weather conditions around it.
Things like the wind and currents affect how an oil spill spreads in the sea. Scientists can draw up computer models to simulate how the oil could behave.
Thirdly, it matters how quickly this is all tackled and then cleaned up, if necessary, and if it can be.
Usually the slower the response, the worse the impact.
The coastguard has said the incident “remains ongoing” and it has started assessing the “likely counter pollution response” that will be required.
Such a response might need the help of numerous public bodies: the government environment department, the transport department, the Environment Agency and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
So for now the best we can hope for – aside from the welfare of the people involved – is that not all the oil is spilled or burnt, that conditions are calm and that rescuers and those cleaning up can work swiftly.
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