Would Your Stores Pass? Operation Sceptre and the Truth About Knife Sales to Under-18s

Would Your Stores Pass? Operation Sceptre and the Truth About Knife Sales to Under-18s

Operation Sceptre is a national, UK-wide police campaign that runs twice a year to tackle knife crime through a combination of enforcement, education, and intervention. Alongside weapon sweeps, youth engagement and knife amnesties, police and Trading Standards are running targeted stings on retailers to see if knives are being sold illegally to under-18s.

Those tests are exposing uncomfortable truths for businesses.

Recent activity has shown the scale of the problem. In West Mercia, officers carried out over 200 visits and ran test purchases at 42 retailers; 15 of those failed to challenge a young person for ID before selling a knife. Almost 300 knives surrendered across Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire in just one week.

In the Thames Valley area, Trading Standards officers working with police used underage volunteers across Bracknell Forest, West Berkshire and Wokingham and still saw knives sold without any age checks.

In North Wales, Police Cadets tested 23 shops in Wrexham, Llandudno and Conwy – nearly half failed, and in Wrexham only one of eight stores challenged for identification. In Wrexham, this could mean 7 knives sold to underage customers, ending up in the hands of vulnerable customers.

All of this is happening despite very clear law: it is illegal to sell knives and certain other bladed or sharply pointed items – such as kitchen and utility knives, axes, machetes, swords and some gardening tools – to anyone under 18. Many retailers also have Challenge 25 policies on paper, but Operation Sceptre is revealing that those policies are not consistently followed on the shop floor.

At Serve Legal, we’ve seen a sharp increase this week in urgent knife-sale audit requests, in the wake of these stings. Clients are realising that they cannot rely on assumptions or training records; they need evidence of what actually happens when a young person tries to buy a knife in their store.

Our recent work has included arranging bespoke site visits within days, using underage and young-looking auditors to mirror police and Trading Standards operations. We’re not just recording pass/fail – we are capturing who served the customer, what was said, whether ID was requested, and how clearly staff understood the rules. This detail is helping businesses pinpoint where things are breaking down: particular regions, store formats, shifts, or teams where compliance is consistently weaker.

The stakes for businesses are high. Headlines such as “stores caught selling knives to children” are becoming more common, and the reputational damage can be severe and long-lasting. Customers, local communities, stakeholders, franchise partners and investors are all paying attention. More importantly, the human cost is real: an unlawful sale today can contribute to serious harm tomorrow.

There is also growing regulatory and legal pressure. A failed test purchase can lead to investigations, enforcement action and ongoing scrutiny. For repeat offenders, the consequences will only get tougher.

Serve Legal fully supports Operation Sceptre and the focus it brings to responsible retailing. We are proud to work with clients who want to be part of the solution and use independent testing to drive change, not simply to tick a box. By turning live test data into clear, actionable insight, we help businesses strengthen training, tighten processes and prove due diligence to regulators and law enforcement.

If Operation Sceptre has highlighted gaps in your knife-sale compliance – or if you simply don’t know how your stores would perform under scrutiny – now is the time to act.

Get in touch with Serve Legal if you’d like support to audit knife sales, protect your customers and safeguard your reputation.