A SUNDAY TIMES investigation has revealed the lack of regulation that allows knife crime to flourish in the west of Scotland.

A 15-year-old boy was illegally sold more than 20 dangerous weapons in shops — including several high street chains — with no attempt made to check his identity.

Calum Duke, a schoolboy from Glasgow working undercover, was able to buy a potentially lethal haul of blades including kitchen knives, daggers, dirks, hunting knives, craft knives and even an axe.

In some cases, shopkeepers offered to wrap the weapons, warning that he could find himself in trouble with the police if he was found with them in his possession.

The findings follow a warning by police this week that the west of Scotland is in the grip of a “knife pandemic”. The number of murders involving a blade in the Strathclyde area is three times higher than anywhere else in Britain.

Every week for the past six months, there have been 25 serious assaults with a knife and 13 of the 30 murders in the west of Scotland this year were committed with a blade.

The level of knife crime in Glasgow is similar to that in the most violent eastern European cities. The worst offenders are male and between 15 and 25.

The Offensive Weapons Act 1996 makes it an offence for shopkeepers to sell a knife to anyone under the age of 16. New legislation, to be introduced later this year, will raise the age limit from 16 to 18.

However, opposition politicians last night demanded tougher penalties for shopkeepers who are flouting the law by selling dangerous weapons to minors.

“It is intolerable that a minority of shopkeepers are putting their commercial interests above public safety,” said Stewart Stevenson, a justice spokesman for the Scottish National party. “The full force of the law should be applied to those wholly irresponsible shopkeepers who choose to break the law by selling knives to those under the age of 16.”

Paul Martin, the MSP for Glasgow Springburn, said those responsible should be prevented from trading. “Powers are needed to allow shops that are shown to sell knives to under-16s to be shut down. We should also look at the possibility of introducing life bans to traders who refuse to implement the law,” he said.

“Some might claim that their livelihoods were being taken from them but, by selling knives to youngsters, they are putting actual lives a risk.”

Of 45 shops visited by Duke in west central Scotland and Edinburgh, one in four was prepared to sell him a knife. They included British Home Stores (Bhs), the Co-op and Internacionale.

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