Retailers selling knives should be licensed the same as those selling guns, says former police chief

Retailers selling knives should be licensed in the same way as those selling guns, a former police chief says after it was revealed a teenage killer bought 79 blades from the same site Internet.

Rayis Nibeel, 17, was one of the attackers who stabbed Omar Khan, 38, during a drug deal gone wrong.

He had amassed weapons worth £1,000, including swords, machetes and the knife used in the murder. Festus Akinbusoye, Britain's first black police and crime commissioner, said it should not have been allowed and called for more regulation, including on compulsory licensing.

'[The] The Government must urgently ensure that all retailers of certain knives and blades are licensed, as are those selling firearms, for example for hunting,” said the former Bedfordshire PCC. “This will require monitoring, proof of safe storage and confirmation of use.”

Nibeel, who is starting a 20-year prison sentence, used his mother's ID card to bypass age verification checks to buy weapons from British company DNA Leisure. His purchases included knife sets as well as 39 hunting knives, 15 machetes and 12 swords. Nibeel can be named after St Albans Crown Court lifted an anonymity order last week.

The weapons were delivered to his home in Luton before he and Umer Choudhury, 18, stabbed their victim last September. The teens purchased the guns online in 13 transactions with the intention of robbing their drug dealer, according to their lawsuit.

Police only discovered the link to DNA Leisure after speaking to a neighbor who had accepted a package for the teenager. Following a BBC investigation, DNA Leisure said Nibeel had committed fraud. “We used an age-verified courier to deliver the package.

We have not broken the law in any way,” he added.

In 2022, Ronan Kanda was murdered with a sword purchased from the same retailer, also using false identification.

Police forces recorded 49,489 knife crimes in 2023, compared to 46,153 the previous year. The number of armed robberies has increased by a fifth.