People buying knives online will be asked for two types of identification as the government plans to prevent underage sales following the murder of three girls in Southport.
Axel Rudakubana, who admitted this week to killing the young girls last summer, bought the knife he killed them with from Amazon when he was 17, despite it being illegal to sell knives to under-18s.
Rudakubana, who also admitted 10 counts of attempted murder, had been referred to the anti-terror programme Prevent three times.
Politics latest: New powers needed to tackle knife crime, says minister
The government is proposing buyers will be asked to record a live video and submit an identity document, such as a passport, to prove their age.
Currently, when someone orders knives on Amazon they have to enter their date of birth and are told: “Valid photographic ID with a date of birth may also be required upon delivery.
“The driver will input your year of birth into their device and may then require an ID check to complete the age verification process.”
Amazon said it takes its “responsibility around the sale of all age-restricted items – including bladed products – extremely seriously” and has launched an investigation following the Southport attack.
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‘Southport must be a line in the sand,’ the PM says
A review of online knife sales by Commander Stephen Clayman, the National Police Chiefs’ Council’s lead for knife crime, has suggested stronger ID checks.
Commander Clayman was due to report at the end of this month, but the plans are now being brought forward after questions were raised about how easy it was for Rudakubana to buy a knife.
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Elsie Dot Stancombe, Alice da Silva Aguiar and Bebe King were killed by Rudakubana. Pic: Merseyside Police
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced an inquiry into the Southport attack on Monday, hours after Rudakubana’s unexpected guilty plea.
Minister Alison McGovern told Sky News’ Breakfast with Kay Burley: “I hope the inquiry can be as quick as possible.
“I don’t want to prejudge what the person, independently of government doing the inquiry might say, but I want it to be as quick as humanly possible.”
The home secretary said it was a “total disgrace” Rudakubana had been “easily able to order a knife on Amazon”.
Labour won the summer’s election, just before the Southport attack, with a manifesto pledge to halve serious violence, including knife crime, over the next decade.
In September, zombie-style knives and machetes were added to the list of banned weapons and the government launched the Coalition to Tackle Knife Crime to bring together campaign groups, families of victims, young people impacted and community leaders.
New sanctions have also been announced for executives at tech companies that fail to halt illegal knife sales on their platforms.
Knife crime in areas of England has soared over the past five years, with the City of London seeing a 72.73% rise up to June 2024, Northumbria having a 46.2% increase and Avon and Somerset having a 25.56% rise, according to government statistics.
Between 2022 and 2024 knife crime surged by 307% in London.