Page 14 Daily Mail, Friday, September 6, 2019By Eleanor Hayward
Health ReporterNHS chief condemns illegal trade in deadly £20 blades
Call for action: Mr GriffithsTerrifying: A zombie knifeAN NHS chief slammed
retailers who are illegally
selling knives to children for
being ‘complicit’ in murder.
Martin Griffiths yesterday said
young people are able to buy
‘weapons of death’ on social
media and the high street.
The trauma surgeon regularly sees
teenagers with horrific zombie knife
injuries – huge weapons with ser-
rated blades that were made illegalin 2016. Mr Griffiths, clinical direc-
tor for violence reduction, told the
NHS Expo conference in Manches-
ter: ‘Zombie knives have no use
other than to cause serious harm.
‘These deadly weapons have no
place in society, and should not be
on sale online or on high streets.
Anyone selling zombie knives is
complicit in the serious injury anddeath that can result.’ Zombie
knives – inspired by horror films and
often advertised as collectors’ items- have been used in a string of
vicious attacks and killings and are
available online for as little as £20.
Mr Griffiths added: ‘The most
worrying injuries that I see are from
zombie knives. They are weapons of
death. Legislation exists, it has to
be enforced and there has to be a
mechanism to monitor the activity
on the websites and social media.’
It is illegal to sell a knife, blade,
razor blade or axe to under-18s.
But an investigation last week
found Tesco and Asda among
stores selling knives to children.
National Trading Standards
recruited children to make 2,
UK shopping trips. They were able
to buy knives almost 350 times.
Some 41 out of 100 test purchases
through online stores also allowed
children to buy a knife. None of the
supermarkets and reputable high
street stores sell zombie knives,
but they are available online.
Government ministers claim ease
of access is fuelling the knife crime
Simon Walsh from the British Medi-
cal Association said: ‘Robust action
to clamp down on the sale of weap-
ons designed to maim and kill, such
as zombie knives, is needed.’ Inde-
pendent MP Ian Austin said: ‘The
Government needs to ensure
national agencies are taking action.’‘They have no place
in society’Turkey threatens new
Europe migrant crisis
TURKEY’S president yesterday
threatened to unleash a new
migrant crisis on Europe.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to
‘open the gates’ and allow up to
3.6million Syrians to pour into
Europe if Brussels refuses to help
re-settle some of them.
He wants funds to relocate up to
1million refugees to northern Syria,
where Turkey is establishing a
designated ‘safe zone’.
It comes amid a surge in sea cross-
ings from Turkey to Greece. Last
week more than a dozen boats
carrying 600 people arrived.
Mr Erdogan said: ‘Give us logisti-cal support and we can go build
housing. This either happens or we
will have to open the gates.
‘Either you will provide support,
or excuse us, but we are not going
to carry this weight alone.’
EU leaders will be anxious to
prevent a return to the scenes in
2015, when more than 1million
people flooded into Europe.
Mr Erdogan also wants help from
the US, which is already helping to
set up the safe zone where 350,
Syrians have already been moved.
An EU Commission spokesman
said the bloc was already providing
‘substantial support’ to Turkey.WILD WEST BRITAIN
Daily Mail, Friday, September 6 , 2019Shops ‘help murder teens’
by selling zombie knives
epidemic and doctors warn school-
children can buy deadly weapons
online at the click of a mouse.
Mr Griffiths said: ‘We’ve seen an
increase in the number of stab
wounds, a decrease in the age of
the victims. The most common age
of a person with a knife wound in
our department is 16. The second is- That is decreasing every year.
‘I see a spectacular range of inju-
ries caused by a number of weap-
ons. We see devastating injuries.’
A new Act, to come in this year,
will ban retailers from delivering
knives ordered online to residences
after more than 1,000 children and
teenagers were admitted to hospi-
tal with stab wounds last year.
Under radical NHS plans trauma
surgeons will visit schools to talk to
children. Mr Griffiths said: ‘If all
we’re doing is treating wounded
people we’ve failed as a society and
as a healthcare institution. We
should all be about prevention.’
The surgeon runs a scheme at
The Royal London Hospital help-
ing victims, many of whom are
admitted in their school uniforms.
In six years, this has reduced the
number of young people returning
to the hospital with further injuries
from 45 per cent to 1 per cent. Dr