Rudd lays down the law: Ban on teens buying acid or knives
STRICT laws to tackle the horrific epidemic of acid and knife attacks were unveiled yesterday by the Home Secretary.
Amber Rudd pledged to act following the outcry over a spate of ‘absolutely revolting’ crimes in which corrosive liquids ruined victims’ lives.
Attackers have caused horrendous injuries by splashing victims with substances ranging from household sink and drain cleaner to almost pure sulphuric acid that can be ordered online without checks.
Miss Rudd vowed to make it illegal to sell acid to under-18s, punishable by six months in prison. It will also be an offence to carry acid in public without good reason, carrying up to four years in jail.
In a well-received speech to the Tory conference, she also announced:
Tighter restrictions on the sale of sulphuric acid, which can be an ingredient in an explosive used in UK terror attacks;
Investment in internet technology to destroy vile images of child abuse;
Banning online knife sales to under-18s by making it illegal to deliver them to homes. Proof of age will be checked at collection points;
Flick knives and so-called zombie knives will be outlawed from being kept at home, with a maximum fouryear jail penalty;
A generation of children would be ‘needlessly failed’ if WhatsApp refused to let law chiefs snare paedophiles who use the encrypted service;
Repeatedly watching terror propaganda such as beheading videos and bombmaking guides online could be punished by 15 years in jail, as revealed by the Mail;
Security services in the UK have foiled seven terror plots so far this year.
Miss Rudd’s public protection measures were intended to send ‘the strongest possible message to gangs and criminals that they faced severe punishment.
A consultation on offensive weapons is to be published, giving the police greater powers to pursue offenders.
Her promise came as it was revealed that police recorded more than 400 acid attacks in the six months to April. The NHS said there had been 624 admissions since 2012 as a result of ‘assault by corrosive substance’, with 109 in 2016-17.
Victims can be blinded or disfigured. Only last month, a 15- year- old boy was arrested after six people were injured in an attack at a shopping centre in Stratford, east London.
Sulphuric acid, which has been used in the most horrendous attacks against victims, can also be a key component in the home-made explosive TATP – dubbed ‘Mother of Satan’ – which was used in the terror attacks at the Manchester Arena and Parsons Green.
Under the crackdown, it will become a regulated substance under the Poisons Act, which means anyone wanting to obtain it will need a Home Office licence.
Illicit buyers or vendors who fail to make checks face jail sentences of two years.
Miss Rudd revealed a £600,000 investment in technology to remove indecent images from the web at an unprecedented rate.
Project Arachnid is a web ‘crawler’ that checks the digital fingerprints of thousands of images every second, triggering alarms when a vile image is copied repeatedly.
It then tells technology firms so that they can intervene quickly. Miss Rudd said: ‘Spreading indecent images of children online is an absolutely abhorrent crime, and social media platforms cannot be looked upon as safe spaces for sharing hateful material.
‘ We want internet companies using this technology to search for and destroy illegal images in their systems. Our question to them is, “If not, why not?”’
She called on messaging services such as WhatsApp to help tackle the problem. Criminals and paedophiles use the apps because security services cannot crack their end-toend encryption.
She said: ‘We must require the industry to move more aggressively. They have the resources. If not, the next generation of children will have been needlessly failed.’
‘An absolutely abhorrent crime’