Sale of acid, knives, corrosive substance banned in UK

LONDON: The government in Britain has announced a ban on sale of acids, sharp razor, knives under the age of 18, and corrosive substances in UK.

The people who repeatedly view the material online will have to face of 15 years prison. It was announced by Home Secretary Amber Rudd while addressing to Conservative party’s annual meeting in Manchester.

She termed the increasing acid and knives attacks as string of revolting attacks and told the party that sale of sulphuric acid would be drastically limited and said, “Major investment in new technology that will track down indecent images of children online and remove them at an unprecedented rate.” The home secretary said that acid attacks were absolutely revolting, adding: "I am also announcing a new offence to prevent the sale of acids to under 18s.”

"Furthermore, given its use in the production of so-called 'mother of Satan' homemade explosives, I also announce my intention to drastically limit the public sale of sulphuric acid. This is how we will help make our communities safer as crime changes," she added.

She told the conference there had been "an exponential surge in the volume of child sexual abuse referrals", as she unveiled a GBP600,000 investment in new software that trawls the web for images of child sexual abuse.

Ms Rudd said the technology will get the images taken down at an unprecedented rate. "Our investment will also enable internet companies to pro-actively search for, and destroy, illegal images in their systems. She also told party activists that security services had foiled seven “new consultation on offensive weapons, which will be published in the autumn.”

New measures could include: “Stopping the sale of knives online to someone under the age of 18. Making it illegal to keep certain types of weapons - such as flick, knives and zombie knives - at home. Making it illegal to sell the most harmful corrosive substances to someone under the age of 18.

Ms Rudd said that preventing people having a corrosive substance in a public place, without good reasons.: "We are going to prevent children purchasing knives online, and we are going to stop people carrying acid in public if they don't have a good reason."

She further said that extending the jail sentence for those viewing extremist content online would close an important gap in the legislation, with tougher sentences only applying now if people have downloaded or stored the material. “Anyone publishing information about the police or armed forces for the purposes of terrorism could now face up to 15 years in prison.”

Ms Rudd called on Facebook, Google, Twitter and Microsoft to "honor your moral obligations" and build on their progress in countering terrorism online. "I call on you with urgency, to bring forward technology solutions to rid your platforms of this vile terrorist material that plays such a key role in radicalisation," she said.

The home secretary also challenged detractors of the Prevent programmed to work with the government, saying it was not "some Big Brother monolithic beast.” On immigration, Ms Rudd said there would be no cliff edge for businesses when a new system is brought in after Brexit. "I'm committed to working with businesses, both large and small, to make sure we don't impose unnecessary burdens, or create damaging labour shortages," she said.

It is pertinent to mention that number of crimes using acid or other “noxious substances” has more than doubled in London over the last three years, according to official data there have also been notable increases in other parts of England. In the capital, the number of incidents rose from 186 between April 2014 and March 2015 to 397 in the same period in 2016-2017.