Store cuts out knives after being rapped for illegal sale

Nov 19 2008 By Hannah Webster, Staines News

A hardware shop in Staines has decided to stop selling knives after being rapped for selling one to a 13-year-old girl.

But Pratima and Sanjay Patel, owners of P & Q Home Stores, in Friends Walk, say the move will not prevent knife crime.

Mr Patel, 48, who runs five hardware shops with his wife, said: "People who want to stab someone with a knife are not going to pay for it, they would steal it from me or their parents. It's the culture.

"It's society's problem, not shopkeepers'."

And the couple accused Surrey County Council's trading standards of entrapment after it sent the teenage girl into the shop to buy the 24cm kitchen knife as part of a test-buying operation.

Mrs Patel, 46, added: "They came in to try to trap us. I have a criminal record now, for what? For selling a knife."

Mr Patel told the Herald & News that as well as stopping selling knives, staff have been trained on selling everything at the shop, from liqueur chocolates to screw-drivers.

He said: "If these are the sorts of games Trading Standards are going to play, it's not worth it, but people now complain that we don't sell kitchen knives."

Mrs Patel was fined £500 plus £140 costs, while staff member Sagar Mehta was fined £200 plus £140 costs by Staines magistrates on October 22, after admitting selling the knife to the teenager in April without asking for official identifi-cation .

But Mr Patel said: "Mr Mehta genuinely thought the girl was 18.

"She came in on a busy day. He said he just looked up quickly, the next thing we know, we are criminals."

A Trading Standards spokesman said: "The team went into 14 shops that night and 12 of them refused to sell to the girl, so she clear-ly did not look older than her age. P&Q did not even ask her age.

"The shop at the time did have numerous customers in it, but there is no requirement for us to go in when there are fewer.

"Volunteers are scrutinised by the team manager before they are deemed suitable.

"If they are considered to look over the age they actually are, we don't use them." .