knife Laws ?

First up, it is an offence to carry a blade or an offensive weapon for purposes of self defence. Secondly, you need lawful authority or REASONABLE excuse to carry a bladed article in public, that being said its highly unlikely a chef will have reasonable excuse to be holding his meat cleaver at 3am outside the local nightclub. In the majority of incidents common sense should dictate what is reasonable or not but at the end of the day it is down to the CPS and the courts, not the police, as to whether or not it is reasonable excuse and whether you will be prosecuted, but it has to go through the police process first before it lands on the CPS desk.
A samurai sword will still be classed as a bladed article even if it is blunt, but then lots of items you may think are bladed would actually be classed as offensive weapons instead On the whole, with offensive weapons it boils down to the intent.
Whacking a baseball through the co-op window is unlikely to get you nicked for an offensive weapon (unless of course the ball is still being held by someone you hit with the bat) but will most likely see you getting nicked for reckless criminal damage.
It is possible to discuss blades until the cows die of old age, nevermind come home, but seriously why risk carrying a blade anyway unless you really need it?

Originally Posted by carlos

First up, it is an offence to carry a blade or an offensive weapon for purposes of self defence. Secondly, you need lawful authority or REASONABLE excuse to carry a bladed article in public, that being said its highly unlikely a chef will have reasonable excuse to be holding his meat cleaver at 3am outside the local nightclub. In the majority of incidents common sense should dictate what is reasonable or not but at the end of the day it is down to the CPS and the courts, not the police, as to whether or not it is reasonable excuse and whether you will be prosecuted, but it has to go through the police process first before it lands on the CPS desk.
A samurai sword will still be classed as a bladed article even if it is blunt, but then lots of items you may think are bladed would actually be classed as offensive weapons instead On the whole, with offensive weapons it boils down to the intent.
Whacking a baseball through the co-op window is unlikely to get you nicked for an offensive weapon (unless of course the ball is still being held by someone you hit with the bat) but will most likely see you getting nicked for reckless criminal damage.
It is possible to discuss blades until the cows die of old age, nevermind come home, but seriously why risk carrying a blade anyway unless you really need it?

2 quick points ,what time do the chef's you know head home from work, the ones i know its normally 2-3am, and read op no one has stated that they carry a "knife" unless part of a tool anyway
RTFQ

Originally Posted by davepreston

2 quick points ,what time do the chef's you know head home from work, the ones i know its normally 2-3am, and read op no one has stated that they carry a "knife" unless part of a tool anyway
RTFQ

Oooooh touchy aren't we? Think you need to read the post in the context it was meant before gobbing off.

If a chef is finishing work at 2 or 3 am why would they be hanging around outside a nughtclub with a meat cleaver in hand/pocket/down their belt/whatever when they would either be going home or leave the damn thing at work anyway. I said HIGHLY UNLIKELY if you read the post, and in every case, which would be based on its own circumstances, there is every possibility there is reasonable excuse.

Secondly, when did I accuse anyone of carrying a knife anyway?

Honestly, some people.

Well i have 2 fantasy knives both of which are over 12" and are relatively sharp and they are on display in my home, when my mum was a special and had a police friend round, he didn't say anything about them, i think if they are just stored in your house it is ok because you're not using them but i may be wrong and he was just being nice as he was a friend of my mum's.

[BanannaMan]

Knife laws....You've got to be kidding.




I've got a fully sharpened bayonet......on the end of an M1 rifle in my bedroom.

I'm afraid I'm a typical american is this respect.
There's also 3 hand guns and a shotgun in near reach of the bed.
And that's just the bedroom....
Unless you have a rpg probably would not be wise to invade my home..

Gun laws (or knife laws)...who needs them?
We let people have them to kill other people so we can kill that person for killing someone else.
It all makes perfect sense ...don't it?

[Red Herring]

When the legislation talks about restrictions on the possession of knives it all says "When other than at a place of abode" so in the best British tradition (for now anyway) what you do or have in your home is your business. Just don't have it anywhere else without "reasonable excuse" and the beauty about reasonable excuse is that it isn't defined. If you can come up with some imaginative story as to why you have it fine, but if it's to unbelievable then the police don't have to prove it's wrong, they just have to not believe you, and the court apply the same test. That's where the baseball bat and ball story started. If the bat and ball are in the boot of your car, or even on the back seat, then your explanation that you were playing ball in the park this afternoon stands a chance, if the ball is buried n the boot and the bat is to hand then less so, and no ball is even worse. Knives are the same. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've heard "It's for fishing init" despite the complete absence of any other fishing tackle in the car.

Personally I'm all for little sh1ts being encouraged to carry knives. Most of the time they only tend to stab each other and it means I can use a more appropriate level of force when arresting them...

Originally Posted by Red Herring

but if it's too unbelievable then the police don't have to prove it's wrong, they just have to not believe you, and the court apply the same test

WTF! But what if it is true?

The baseball and bat were in my car 'cos I was playing in the park this afternoon. My car broke down on the way back from the park, the RAC/AA towed me to a garage 10 minutes walk from home so I told the guy to go to his next call and I'll walk home once I've got a diagnosis and a quote from the garage. The garage then asked me to leave the car with them take any valuables out of the car. This baseball bat is professional bat and wasn't cheap, and I couldn't carry everything so I left the ball which isn't that valuable in the car. I'm now on my way home.

What if during a game of baseball you just hit into a load of bushes and loose the ball? Does that mean that on the way home from the park you are now assumed to be a criminal because you are carrying a bat without a ball?

What the hell happened to innocent until proven guilty?

The police should be REQUIRED to investigate each story they are told if they intend to prosecute. For instance interview your mates to see if you were playing baseball that afternoon and lost your ball, or check with the AA/RAC and if there's no call logged and the garage have never heard of you, then fair enough throw the book, but a prosecution shouldn't be allowed to go ahead simply because the authorities don't believe you.

Any circumstances that can lead to an innocent person, or a person with only innocent intentions who has unknowingly or accidentally committed a crime through no negligence of thier own, to being convicted as a criminal, is completely wrong IMO.

Knives!!....ban them( unless you have a rellivant licence for keeping them)

That is all.(just my opinion)

[Red Herring]

I think there is the risk here of us turning this into a legal argument. The original post was asking about knife laws and there are subtle differences between the laws specifically controlling knives and those used for offensive weapons (which the baseball bat may be).
Ralph the police are required to follow any reasonable line of enquiry that will either prove or disprove someone's involvement in an offence, so yes they would go and speak to your garage or your mates about the baseball bat. You do however need to be careful around the onus of proof. With offensive weapon and knife offences the onus is generally on the defendant to prove their reason for the possession was reasonable, rather than for the prosecution to prove it wasn't. That may sound like a play on words but it means that you need to convince the police/magistrate/jury that your possession of the article was reasonable in the circumstance, and what I was trying to say was that the more unbelievable or unlikely you make it the less chance you have of getting off.

Knife and offensive weapons laws are slightly different in Scotland, although the main components are the same. Sections 47 and 48 of Criminal Law (Consolidation) (Scotland) act 1995 cover them.

Basically flick, lock and butterfly knives are prohibited, unless you have a lawful authority or a reasonable excuse. An offensive weapon is ANY item which can be made, intended or used as a weapon. So if you have a plank of wood in the middle of a high street and are swinging it aboave your head, be prepared to be arrested for possession of an offensive weapon.

Same goes with knives, if you are walking down the high street with a knife in your pocket, 9/10 you will be arrested, unless you have a VERY VERY good excuse.

My dad is a prime example of this. He is a stalker (the deer stalker type not women..), and he regularly carries a knife on his belt for gralloching etc. He is bad for jumping out of the car and nipping into a shop/garage with the knife still on his belt. This is not a reasonable excuse, he should have taken the knife off of the belt before going into the shop. It's silly I know but do we actually want knife laws to be any moer lenient? Or the chavs/neds will just come up with any old **** and bull story and more innocent people will get stabbed.

And RH, yes, in some cases you are true with the "let them go and stab each other" thing, but look at the amount of cases where innocent people, who are in the least bit neddy and just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and they end up with a knife in their neck.