Retailers selling knives online face stricter laws

Stricter rules for retailers selling knives online – and tougher penalties for those who break them – are to be introduced in the spring.

Retailers across the UK will be required to report any bulk or suspicious knife purchases to police – and the jail term for selling weapons to under-18s will increase from six months to two years.

A new policing unit backed with £1m of funding to monitor for weapons being sold illegally on social media will also be created.

The new measures announced by the government will collectively be known as Ronan’s Law – after 16-year-old Ronan Kanda who was murdered close to his Wolverhampton home three years ago.

Introduced as part of the government’s Crime and Policing Bill in the spring, the rules are in response to a review by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) into the online sale of knives.

The changes will also see:

• The increased prison sentence for selling weapons to under-18s apply to either individuals who have processed a sale or a company CEO
• Retailers being required to bring in stronger photo identity checks for buyers – both at points of sale and delivery
• A new offence of “possession with violent intent”, which will come with a prison sentence of up to four years. This means that even if the weapon is legal, if there is intent to cause violence, it will be a crime
• A consultation on a registration/licencing scheme for online knife sellers

The Home Office says the new measures will significantly tighten the law, which until now has been less stringent than the legislation covering the sale of alcohol, tobacco, fireworks or even scratch cards.

“It is horrifying how easy it is for young people to get hold of knives online,” said Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. “Even though children’s lives are being lost, and families and communities are left devastated as a result.”

She added that “not enough has been done to tackle the online market over recent years which is why we made it an urgent priority”.

Cooper stressed that “everyone has to take responsibility” for reducing knife crime.

Ronan Kanda was killed in a case of mistaken identity by fellow school pupil Prabjeet Veadhesa, who was also 16 at the time. He used a 22-inch sword he had ordered online using his mother’s ID to pass security checks.

It was one of nearly 30 knives and machetes he had bought using the same method over several months.

Since her son’s death, Ronan’s mother, Pooja Kanda, has campaigned for fundamental changes to the law to make it harder for people to sell and buy knives.

“The online sale of bladed articles played a crucial role in this tragedy. A 16-year-old managed to get these weapons online and sold these weapons to other people. I knew we could not go on like this.”

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Ms Kanda said she “absolutely” believed her son would not have died if the new legislation had been in place at the time of his death in 2022.

“The murderers would not have been able to get the weapons they were able to get so easily. Nobody was able to stop them, and they were just 16,” she said.

Ms Kanda said of the new law: “Out of tragedy comes a light. The light we all need”. However, she stressed “there’s so much more we can do” when tackling the root causes of knife crime.

The NPCC review into online knife sales was led by Commander Stephen Clayman.

“Bizarrely it is harder to buy paracetamol in some respects than it is to buy a knife – that can’t be right,” he said.

“We want to make retailers more responsible for what they are selling. Who owns the company should be responsible. And law enforcement should be in a position to understand who is buying up knives.”

The new recommendations also require social media companies to be more accountable for the “thousands of knives” that Cdr Clayman says are being sold on platforms.

“They are being quite clever about it in the way they don’t overtly sell. But they show all the knives and encourage people to move to a different [online] platform to make the transaction.

“If they are selling knives and we can prove it, we will take legal action and ask for the content to be removed.

Cdr Clayman says police will be asking tech companies to remove selling content “within 48 hours”.

The measures are aimed at stopping sellers like Stefan Petrescu from Southampton.

He used Instagram to sell hundreds of knives. Police found receipts which revealed that Petrescu had bulk-bought more than £3,000-worth of knives, which he had then sold online.

Messages from Petrescu’s seized phone showed the use of social media platforms to market the knives, with buyers saying they wanted to “shank” (stab) or harm others.

In one video, he wears a black balaclava-style mask and gloves while handling knives, advertising his stock of serrated machetes, knuckle dusters and other blades while drill music plays in the background – including the song “Ready for War”.

In October 2024, Petrescu was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to knife-related offences.

The home secretary has said the government is on a “mission” to halve knife crime over the next 10 years.

There were 262 murders involving a knife or sharp instrument in the year to March 2024, according to the Ben Kinsella Trust. Fifty-seven of those killed were under 25.