Rules on knifes?

Police work on the basis that any article (which means anything whatsoever) can be used as an offensive weapon. These articles come under three different categories, as follows, with examples:

1. 'Made' - is exactly what it says, a weapon that is manufactured for the sole purpose of being used to injure a person, e.g. coshes, bayonets, daggers, knuckle dusters, police batons, flick knives.

2. 'Adapted' - means items which, in their original form, had an innocent use but have now been altered or modified in some way for the purpose of enabling them to cause injury, e.g. bottles smashed to create a jagged edge, lump of wood with nails protruding, potato with razor blades protruding, bicycle chain attatched to a stick, sock with a snooker ball in the toe.

3. Any article could be an offensive weapon if the person having it with him intends it to be used at any time for causing injury e.g. stanley knife, screwdriver, pen knife, bottle, rope, baseball bat.

If the article that you are carrying in public falls into either 'made' or 'adapted' you will be arrested and charged for the possession of these items in a public place, without the police needing to prove your intent to use the item against a person, as their very nature is proof enough to prove their intent on use against a person, as that is why they were made or adapted.

If the article you are carrying in a public place falls into the 'intended' category, you can still easily be arrested for walking down the street with a spoon if the officer suspects you of using that article to cause injury to a person. Once under arrest, police will need to prove your intent for use of that article before you would be charged the offence. This would be done 99% of the time by interviewing you and simply asking you what you was going to do with it.

Various defences may be 'lawful authority' but if you are not a police officer or member of an armed service, on duty, this would not apply to you. Another would be reasonable excuse or good reason, when talking about intended articles. However, it is the suspects responsibility to prove his innocence to a court over his intent with the article, not the police.

However, this the offence of being in possession of an offensive weapon, you also need to be aware of the offence of being in possession of an article with a blade or a point in a public place.

This states "Any person who has with him in a public place, any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed (except a folding pocket knife with a blade the cutting edge of which is 7.62cm or less which is not lockable) shall be guilty of an offence. (Section 139 Criminal Justice Act 1988)

This includes all knives from DIY 'stanley' knives, sheath knives and various sporting knifes, cut throat razors, chisels and any other things with a cutting edge, but does not include screwdrivers. Pointed articles could include things such as darts, skewers and corkscrews.

If caught with anything like this in a public place you will be charged, but, will not be convicted if he proves that:

1. He had a good reason or lawful authority for having the article with him in a public place or on school premises,

or

2. He had the article with him:

a) For use at work;
b) For religious reasons; or
c) As part of any national costume;
d) In a school for educational purposes.

However, these defences are for the accused to prove their innocence at court, not for the police to prove your guilt before charge.
 
Interesting because the knife on all of my multi tools lock into place but are under the 3" limit.
 
Jonny69 said:
Interesting because the knife on all of my multi tools lock into place but are under the 3" limit.
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If I was you, I would not be surprised if you was arrested for possession of these items. The strict definition shows that if it locks, it is illegal. You may well be a decent member of the community, and the likelihood of you being stopped and searched is small.

However, with the current state of the police forces in the UK, police officers are issued monthly targets to make arrests and are pressured by line managers to make arrests. The officer here would be very justified in making an arrest here, as it can be further investigated at the police station.

You should be careful at the moment being about being in possession of such knives at the moment due to the current political climate, especially in London where knife crime is such a big headline and the mayor has urged for police to push for more prosecutions in this area, and the CPS have even put in measures to treat knife crime as a priority and to charge wherever possible in order to massage the figures and make the services look better.

There is also a current situation where new constables are put under great pressure to make arrests every day and someone in possession of such knife would stand very little chance of walking away after being stopped by said officer, who is on the prowl for anyone that he can arrest, in order to prove that he can make arrests, to his line manager (sergeant).

Police officers are happy to arrest someone for tiny offences that will shortly after be NFA'd (no further action) and will be let out of custody, as the officer will have met his target for making an arrest, it is not his problem whether that arrest goes anywhere by a charge or caution or any other method of disposal.
 
I have a gerber multitool, and everything locks on it, including the knife, bone saw, wood saw etc.

I also have a spade, a saw and an axe in my boot, which may take some explaining if i was stopped.
 
Damned media hysteria.
All of this fails to deal with the problem of violent little ***** living up to their reputation and "respec' innit?", and results in criminalising members of the public who never once considered their swiss army knie/leatherman tool etc as a weapon... still if it makes the figures look good it must be ok. :rolleyes: Wasters.
 
jumpy said:
Damned media hysteria.
All of this fails to deal with the problem of violent little ***** living up to their reputation and "respec' innit?", and results in criminalising members of the public who never once considered their swiss army knie/leatherman tool etc as a weapon... still if it makes the figures look good it must be ok. :rolleyes: Wasters.
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Exactly, it is a sad state of affairs, but the police forces are just covering their own backsides. In a time where society is more and more scared of knife crime and violence, the government are pressuring the police to make more arrests for knife crimes, so that the government can say "Look, our streets are much safer now because all of these knives are off the street and extra people convicted".

The police force are happy to do it because when it all goes breasts up, the police can say "Well it's not our fault, we've tried our hardest to solve the problem by taking all these extra knives off the street and more people convicted".

However, in the real world, it doesn't solve the problem, because all those extra arrests are not the right people, they're the people with their swiss army knives who were never going to use them to stab anyone.

This fuels the vicious circle, where the government put even more pressure on the police and the police arrest even more people for tiny knives that were never going to use them aggressively to cover themselves, and the government can again say that they have done an amazing job against knives, but the problem never really goes away.

So therefore, police commanders are pressuring police inspectors to make their teams perform better by making more knife arrests, so they are putting pressure on the sergeants to pressure their constables. The constables are put under pressure by their sergeants to make arrests to please them and their inspectors. Therefore, any sniff a constable gets of a possible arrest for a knife, he's going to take it to take the pressure off him.
 
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me227 said:
As long as your use it in your job I think your safe as you can justify having it on your person.

Unless you get some idiot police officer with no common sense.
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That's about it.

If you're carrying a useful tool around that is part of your trade you'll generally get away with it with no real questions asked.

If however you're carrying a razor sharp 6 inch lock knife and look dodgy, and give the officer grief for asking about it you'll be in trouble.

The law makes it an offence to carry a lock knife, or a blade over 3 inches (I think) without reason - if it's a tool you use on a regular basis as part of your work, or you're carrying that hulking great meat cleaver back from being sharpened (with the receipt), or in it's packaging you'll generally be ok.
The law is suitably worded to allow people to carry them as part of a job/because they've just bought them etc.

As a rule, if you're sensible and polite, and the officer is sensible you'll be ok
 
mike5678 said:
[snip]This states "Any person who has with him in a public place, any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed (except a folding pocket knife with a blade the cutting edge of which is 7.62cm or less which is not lockable) shall be guilty of an offence. (Section 139 Criminal Justice Act 1988)[/snip]
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OPSI - Criminal Justice Act 1988: Section 139 said:
139 Offence of having article with blade or point in public place

(1) Subject to subsections (4) and (5) below, any person who has an article to which this section applies with him in a public place shall be guilty of an offence.

(2) Subject to subsection (3) below, this section applies to any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed except a folding pocketknife.

(3) This section applies to a folding pocketknife if the cutting edge of its blade exceeds 3 inches.

(4) It shall be a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had good reason or lawful authority for having the article with him in a public place.

(5) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (4) above, it shall be a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that he had the article with him—

(a) for use at work;

(b) for religious reasons; or

(c) as part of any national costume.​

(6) A person guilty of an offence under subsection (1) above shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.

(7) In this section “public place” includes any place to which at the material time the public have or are permitted access, whether on payment or otherwise.

(8) This section shall not have effect in relation to anything done before it comes into force.
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I carry a Leatherman, one in which the main blades lock (It's an old Wave). It would really suck if I found that it's not classed as a 'pocketknife' due to the locking safety mechanism.


Does anyone have a link to some official documents that states that locking blades (less than 3 inches, or not) are illegal?
 
chucky said:
I have a gerber multitool, and everything locks on it, including the knife, bone saw, wood saw etc.

I also have a spade, a saw and an axe in my boot, which may take some explaining if i was stopped.
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If this was in a box covered in dried blood labelled 'BODY DISPOSAL KIT' then you'd be properly up the creek :D
 
"It is a common belief that a folding knife must be non-locking for this provision to apply however the wording of the Criminal Justice Act does not mention locking and the matter becomes a question as to the definition of "folding pocket knife".

section 1.

It is an offence for a person to manufacture, sell, hire or offer for sale or hire or expose or have in his possession for the purpose of sale or hire, or lend or give to any person:

A) any knife which has a blade which opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in or attached to the handle of the knife, sometimes know as a "flick knife" or "flick gun"; or
B) any knife which has a blade which is released from the handle or sheath thereof by the force of mavity or the application of centrifugal force and which, when released, is locked in place by means of a button, spring, lever, or other device, sometimes known as a "mavity knife".
[ROWA 1959 S 1(1)]
Section 1(2) also makes it illegal to import knives of this type, as a result it is (almost) impossible to obtain possession of such a knife without either committing or abetting an offence. Note that the above legislation does not refer to possession of such knives other than possession for the purpose of sale or hire, it is therefore not illegal per se to merely possess such a knife.

The CJA 1988 mainly relates to carrying knives in public places, Section 139 being the most important.

It is an offence for any person, without lawful authority or good reason, to have with him in a public place, any article which has a blade or is sharply pointed except for a folding pocket-knife which has a cutting edge to its blade not exceeding 3 inches. [CJA 1988 section 139(1)]

The phrase "good reason" is intended to allow for "common sense" possession of knives, so that it is legal to carry a knife if there is a bona fide reason to do so. Examples of bona fide reasons which have been accepted include: a knife required for ones trade (e.g. a chefs knife), as part of a national costume (e.g. a sgian dubh for the Scottish national costume), or for religious reasons (e.g. a Sikh Kirpan).

The special exception which exists in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (s139) for folding knives (pocket knives) is another "common sense" measure accepting that some small knives are carried for general utility however even a folding pocket knife of less than 3" (76mm) may still be considered an offensive weapon if carried or used for that purpose. It is a common belief that a folding knife must be non-locking for this provision to apply however the wording of the Criminal Justice Act does not mention locking and the matter becomes a question as to the definition of "folding pocket knife". However, in the case of Regina v. Desmond Garcia Deegan (1998) in the Court of Appeal, the ruling that 'folding' was intended to mean 'non-locking' was upheld. As the only higher court in the United Kingdom is the House of Lords the only way this ruling could be overturned is by a dessenting ruling by the Court of Appeal, the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords or by Act of Parliament.

The same act also covers the possession of knives within school premises:

It is an offence for any person, without lawful authority or good reason, to have with him on school premises any article to which s.139 applies. [CJA 1988 section 139A(1)]

This would appear to imply that all legislation on knives in public applies similarly to school premises, and therefore a folding pocket knife under 3" in length would be considered legal.

British law also covers age restriction on the sale of knives in the Criminal Justice Act 1998:

It is an offence for any person to sell to a person under the age of 18 any knife, knife blade, razor blade, axe or any other article which has a blade or is sharply pointed and which is made or adapted for causing injury to the person. [CJA 1988 section 141A]

British courts have in the past taken the marketing of a particular brand of knife into account when considering whether an otherwise legal folding knife was carried as an offensive weapon. A knife which is marketed as "tactical", "military", "special ops", etc could therefore carry an extra liability. The Knives Act 1997 now restricts the marketing of knives as offensive weapons and thus it is much more unlikely that such marketing could be used as evidence against a defendant.

Although English law insists that it is the responsibility of the prosecution to provide evidence proving a crime has been committed an individual must provide evidence to prove that they had a bona fide reason for carrying a knife (if this is the case). Whilst this may appear to be a reversal of the usual burden of proof, technically the prosecution has already proven the case (prima facie) by establishing that a knife was being carried in a public place.
 
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