CLICK KNIFE
Online marketplace sold illegal weapons and didn’t verify ages
ILLEGAL weapons including folding knives and batons are being sold on a fast-growing online marketplace, an investigation found.
The products were being traded on Temu – the most downloaded app in the UK for the year to August. And agerestricted items such as axes were also being sold on the site without the required age checks.
Researchers identified six weapons they believed to be illegal – two folding knives, two knives disguised as keyrings, a survival knife and a baton – and were able to buy seven age-restricted products without checks.
On three listings that stated how many of the products had been sold, sales were near 102,000.
The investigators, from consumer magazine Which?, did not need to provide proof of age to buy five knives and two axes, all of which cannot be sold to under-18s under the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
Researchers set up several accounts on Temu without giving a date of birth, then ordered weapons and had them delivered with no age verification.
Some of the products were extremely cheap, with listings from just £4.48.
Temu – which launched in September last year and is based in Boston, US – is widely advertised on sites popular with young people such as TikTok and Instagram. Operated by Ireland-based Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, it offers heavily discounted goods shipped from China.
Sue Davies, Which? head of consumer protection policy, said: “Problems with dangerous products will get worse if new tech giants like Temu continue to be held to weaker standards than high-street retailers.”
Knife crime lawyer Caroline Liggins, of Hodge Jones & Allen, said: “Public safety must come before profits. It’s shocking how cheap the items are on Temu – they are pocket money prices.”
There were 282 knife deaths in the year to March 2022, up 19% on the previous year. The largest rise was among boys aged 16 to 17, up from 10 to 24.
Temu said it is “committed to complying fully with relevant rules and regulations” in markets it operates in and takes “all reports of violations very seriously”. It added: “After a complaint of a person under 18 purchasing a bladed article, we immediately removed all related product listings.
“We also initiated a comprehensive investigation and review to further strengthen safeguards.”
Safety must come before profits. It’s shocking how cheap items are
CAROLINE LIGGINS KNIFE CRIME LAWYER