A shop in Barnet has been ordered to pay almost £10,000 after staff sold a kitchen knife to two 15-year-old police cadets without asking for any identification.
Segu Razeen, the manager of Pound Island on Vivian Avenue, pleaded guilty to selling the knife to the teenage cadets, who were acting as test purchasers in an undercover operation.
The sale went through in December last year with no age verification and no request for ID, the court heard. The sting was organised by Barnet Council’s Trading Standards team working alongside the Metropolitan Police as part of Operation Sceptre, the national police crackdown on knife crime.
Pound Island was fined £6,000 and ordered to pay £1,696.22 in costs to the council, plus a £2,000 victim surcharge — a total bill of £9,696.22.
Failings uncovered in court
The prosecution laid out a string of failings at the shop. There was no Challenge 25 policy in place, no staff training records, no refusal log, no till prompts reminding cashiers to check age, and no appropriate signage warning about age-restricted sales.
What retailers are expected to do
Trading Standards teams expect every shop selling age-restricted goods to have a written policy, trained staff, and a paper trail proving both. In practice that means Challenge 25 posters on the door, prompts built into the till system so cashiers are reminded to check age before the sale completes, a refusal log recording every turned-away customer, and regular refresher training recorded on file.
Retailers who can show they took all reasonable precautions may have a legal defence if a sale slips through; those who cannot — as was the case at Pound Island — face prosecution of both the individual seller and the business. The £2,000 victim surcharge imposed here is the statutory maximum, reserved for cases the court treats as serious.
A company director told the court that since the incident, measures had been put in place to reduce the risk of further offences, including discontinuing the sale of smaller bladed articles such as pocketknives and certain types of lighters.
Test purchases keep coming
Barnet’s Trading Standards team said businesses across the borough had previously been given detailed advice on the safe storage and sale of knives, including guidance on age-verification procedures and the record-keeping needed to demonstrate due diligence.
Why selling knives to children is a serious offence
It is illegal in England and Wales to sell a knife or bladed article to anyone under 18, and retailers are expected to be able to prove they took all reasonable precautions before making a sale. The standard defence is Challenge 25 — the same policy used for alcohol sales — under which staff ask for ID from anyone who looks under 25.
Trading Standards teams across London run regular test-purchase operations using teenage volunteers, often police cadets, to check whether shops are following the rules. A failed test can lead to prosecution of both the individual seller and the business, as this case shows.
Operation Sceptre
The undercover operation was run as part of Operation Sceptre, the Met’s national week of action against knife crime. The campaign combines enforcement with education, and test purchases like the one in Barnet are a staple tactic — councils use them to make sure retailers understand that selling blades to children carries real consequences.
The prosecution comes during a busy week for London’s courts. A Greenwich museum was at the centre of a map-theft prosecution, while a Beckenham shop family received an outpouring of neighbourhood support after being targeted by hate-crime leaflets.
The council has said it will continue carrying out undercover test purchases across the borough and urged retailers to review their age-verification procedures immediately.
