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Reverend Steven Hanna from St Elizabeth鈥檚 Church in Becontree handed the petition in to the local council. He aims to try and remove the defence of 鈥渄ue diligence鈥� for people who's shops sell to under 18s. The loophole means a traders can avoid being prosecuted by claiming they did everything they could to stop their shop assistants selling to the youths.

Barking & Dagenham Council recently conducted a trading standards operation to find out if shops would sell a knife to a 14-year-old volunteer. About 50% of the shops visited allowed the sale to go ahead.

The council is now also pushing the government to remove this defence from the law. It hopes that with enough signatures the government can force shops to significantly tighten their procedures, and stop children buying knives on the high street. The move comes as London experiences increasingly alarming levels of young people being killed with knives.

Councillor Val Rush, Executive Member for Community Safety, said:

鈥淣ow that over two thousand people have signed the petition, it is clear that there is a huge amount of local support to act against knife crime.鈥�

鈥淲e are sending a clear message that this legal loophole must be closed and that large shops should really take these responsibilities more seriously.听

鈥淭he people of Barking and Dagenham have shown that this is an important issue for them, and I hope that the Government will listen when we present the petition.鈥�