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Police display a sword bought by a teenage girl during a sting operation in August last year |
Shops that sold booze and knives to children are yet to be punished
Freedom of Information request reveals lack of action over sales
TALKING tough but acting soft: Camden Council’s failure to prosecute shops selling knives, alcohol and fireworks to children has been revealed by a Freedom of Information investigation.
Despite undercover operations in which 58 shops sold illegal goods to teenagers in the presence of police and Trading Standards officers since last August, only 13 have reached the courts, according to figures disclosed to the New Journal.
Eight retailers who sold knives to underage volunteers in a Trading Standards sting in February have yet to receive any sanction from the Town Hall or police, despite the offence carrying a potential £5,000 fine or a two-year jail sentence.
The figures prompted questions over the effectiveness of operations which use undercover police, trading standards officers and underage volunteers.
Lyn Costello, who was awarded an MBE this year for her work setting up campaigning charity Mothers Against Murder and Aggression, in Kentish Town, said: “Our work shows that a lot of stabbings are fuelled by alcohol, and if a child can buy both alcohol and a knife in their local shop then the only way to change things is to punish shopkeepers who break the law.
“We won’t win unless everybody is working together. If you have these operations – god knows what they cost – and you don’t prosecute, then there is simply no deterrent.”
The council, which has boasted of the deterrent effect of operations in a string of press releases, has nonetheless refused to publicise the names of the offending shops for fear they will be sued.
It said 17 alleged sales in October 2008 and February this year were “currently under further investigation by the Trading Standards Team”.
When a Kentish Town Road shop sold a 3ft sword to a 15-year-old girl in a sting last year, Camden Town police sergeant Neil Payn said it revealed a “total, widespread disregard for the legislation”. But the Town Hall’s caution in publicising the shops’ identities means there is no way of knowing whether the shop was prosecuted, let alone which one it was. Yesterday (Wednesday), the Town Hall barred the New Journal from observing a Trading Standards sting and threatened to have a reporter arrested because the newspaper refused to agree to conditions of secrecy over the identity of shops selling knives and alcohol to children.
Whether these operations have an impact on the ability of teenagers to get hold of knives is unknown.
Knives are readily available in every home, and the most commonly used stabbing weapon is a kitchen knife.
But the impact of underage alcohol sales is less uncertain.
When NHS Camden analysed data on test purchases in 2007 it found that more than 70 per cent of tested retailers in the borough sold to children. This compared to an average of 14.5 per cent in the UK, and prompted the health authority to make tackling underage sales one of its key priorities.
A Town Hall press official said: “We are not always able to prosecute and must follow the Code of Conduct of Crown Prosecutors when establishing whether prosecution will be possible. Each case must be examined individually and we must weigh both the evidence and whether or not a prosecution would be in the public interest.
“There are very strict criteria which must be applied in each individual case and sometimes other options such as issuing a caution is the most appropriate course of action.”
She added that the Town Hall had blocked the New Journal naming premises which sold illegal goods to children because “naming those shops or their staff publicly, before the legal process is complete is sub judice and could jeopardise any prosecution”. |
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