One in four shops still sells knives to underage children, research shows

♦ A quarter of shops sell knives to underage children, secret shopper research has suggested.

Figures from the retail age-checking company Serve Legal showed that under-18s were able to buy a knife in 26 per cent of 2,357 test sales in 2017.

At homeware or DIY stores, where 672 of the tests were carried out, 41 per cent sold the blades to young mystery shoppers without checking their identification. This also happened in a fifth of supermarkets (21 per cent) over 1,685 tests sales.

The poorest rates were in Scotland and Northern Ireland, where retailers failed 41 per cent of tests, while London had the lowest proportion with 18 per cent of test failures.

Office for National Statistics data recorded 39,598 offences involving a knife or sharp instrument in 2017, a 22 per cent increase on the previous year, and the highest since comparable records began in 2010.

Ed Heaver, the director of Serve Legal, said: “Despite the principles of the Government’s voluntary agreement on underage sales ... complacency on the high street could well be contributing to a deadly societal problem, with knives being sold to young people in plain sight.”