Offensive Weapons Bill (Fourth sitting)

Nigel Huddleston Excerpts

Thursday 19th July 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Stephen Morgan]

Q My other question was how confident are you that the duties in the Bill will actually help to reduce crime?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: Trying to be optimistic, at the end of the day we are never going to totally resolve the issue, but we have got to try to make life harder and put ownership back on the various bodies that are involved, whether that is retail, education or the police. It is preventive, and it will all help. I cannot quantify, but I think anything where we have greater powers, greater opportunities and greater seizure powers can only be beneficial to what we are trying to achieve.

[Nigel Huddleston (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

Q You made some comments earlier about “Fortnite” that concerned me. Unfortunately, we are hearing a lot about that here in Parliament. You mentioned that parents are probably buying weapons for children, as well, whether intentionally or unintentionally. That does raise the question about the online world and parental responsibility. As it relates to age verification online, do you see problems in that area? Children are meant to be 12 years old before they play “Fortnite” but you are probably seeing much younger children being exposed to violence. Then there is the age verification as it relates to buying products that they probably should not be buying at a certain age. Do you see that online world being problematic? I am not trying to put words in your mouth, but you have alluded to some difficulties there.

Chief Inspector Burroughs: We can only educate on the difficulties. I have talked about incidents where officers have attended, and then we have talked about the area from a problem-solving point of view. There are some sites where parents have left their credit card details and the children can just log on. I would not say Amazon, because I am not sure you could—I am sure you could buy a knife off there, but once people’s credit card details are stored, parents need to be careful with password protection. We ask, “How on earth was this ordered?” and they say, “Well, they’ve got access to my account. I just let them log on and buy whatever they want. I did’t realise it was going to be a weapon.” Likewise with the downloading of games, they say, “I didn’t realise—I just allowed it.” It is the element of parents’ trust of their children. Actually, they could prevent it.

[Nigel Huddleston]

Q Do you think there is sufficient awareness among parents of how to turn those verifications and approvals on and off?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: No, definitely not. I know that Thames Valley Police, and I am sure other police forces, have done a big media drive to talk about how you protect and put in restrictions. The generation in our mid-40s to 50s did not have it in our education at that point. Our children, who do, are far more educated on that system than we are. It is about whether people have been brought along with that, but we are really trying to give guidance. There was a big Facebook media campaign to say, “This is how you put those restrictions on,” to support them.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

Q Can I follow up on a couple of questions that you were asked earlier about acid attacks and corrosive substances? In your experience, who is carrying or even using acids and corrosive substances? In particular, do you tend to find that it is adults—18 or over—or is it sometimes also under-18s?

Chief Inspector Burroughs: We find it is under-18s. I think we have had one incident—I am talking only about Reading at the moment; I am not certain of the whole Thames Valley figures—where an assault has taken place with an acid, but we have seized items where liquid has been transferred to a drinks bottle, and it has been subsequently tested and found to be acidic.