Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

General cycling advice ( NOT technical ! )
Colin Stanley
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by Colin Stanley »

thirdcrank wrote: ... If you carry just about anything intending to be naughty with it, you may be in trouble, no matter how innocent its normal purpose.


I try not to carry a rolled up newspaper....
F70100
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by F70100 »

Interesting thread. I did wonder (after the event) what might have happened when I took my wife's favourite chefs knife (a Sabatier with 10 inch blade) to be sharpened. I took it to Looses cook shop in the centre of Norwich where they have a sharpening service. I had phoned in advance to ask if I needed to make an appointment but they said no, just bring it in and we'll do it whilst you wait. I did take the precaution, for my own safety to take it in a plastic knife guard and kept it concealed about my person so as not to cause alarm. Reasonable cause open to interpretation of course but...

Regarding ferries and the tunnel, we took our caravan through the tunnel last year complete with its well equipped knife drawer to which we had access throughout the crossing. It never occurred to us to "declare" them. I suspect that no caravanners or motorhomers are challenged about knives on ferries either. Perhaps if you had a trailer for the bike with camping gear in you would be ok.
thirdcrank
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by thirdcrank »

Colin Stanley wrote: ... I try not to carry a rolled up newspaper....


I'm sorry for not making this sufficiently clear. :oops:

Possession of a newspaper - rolled up or otherwise - is irreproachable in the great majority of cases. However, possession of a newspaper - again rolled or otherwise - with the intention of using it to commit an offence may amount to a criminal offence in itself. eg, if somebody set off to commit arson and included in their fire-raising kit a newspaper they may well fall foul of s3 of the Criminal Damage Act 1971.

Possessing anything with intent to destroy or damage property. .
A person who has anything in his custody or under his control intending without lawful excuse to use it or cause or permit another to use it—
(a) to destroy or damage any property belonging to some other person; or
(b)to destroy or damage his own or the user’s property in a way which he knows is likely to endanger the life of some other person;
shall be guilty of an offence.


http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1971/48/section/3

Note that a key element is the person's intent.

The point that I obviously failed to explain properly before is that if somebody intends to commit any of a number of crimes listed under several statutes, then possessing something which they intend to use in connection with the commission of the offence is in itself an offence. These are measures aimed at the prevention of crime. If they go on to commit the full offence before their intentions are detected, then prevention has patently failed. It's often hard to know somebody's intention. There was a time when a court was entitled to make certain assumptions in this regard, but that has largely been changed. Clever criminals don't divulge their intentions and use carefully chosen explanations or remain silent if arrested on suspicion. That leads, almost inevitably, to widespread bans on the most innocent of items.

Of course, you were only teasing (I think. :? ) And I'm only explaining the law / being a jobsworth depending on POV.
Brucey
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by Brucey »

what I found interesting was that the two links (both purporting to be representing the official line) which I gave early on in this thread were different in that one mentioned the 'without good reason' clause and the other did not mention any such thing; it just (rather baldly) stated that it was 'illegal to be in possession of xyz' without mentioning any exceptions other than those which had arisen through legal precedent. The latter if anything tended to broaden what might be regarded as an offensive weapon, although I guess anything could be if it is used in a given fashion....

cheers
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Brucey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thirdcrank
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by thirdcrank »

The Prevention of Crime Act, 1953 is generally regarded as the principle legislation dealing with offensive weapons, which it defines as:

... any article made or adapted for use for causing injury to the person, or intended by the person having it with him for such use by him or by some other person.


http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eli ... /section/1

(I'd emphasise that that's only the definition of an offensive weapon. The extent of the prohibition of possessing offensive weapons is earlier in the same section of the Act and can be found with the same link.)

I think it's fair to say that most of the difficulty arises over things which are made for an innocent purpose, but which might just as easily be used as a weapon. The so-called Yorkshire Ripper used a ball-pein hammer (and it's a source of considerable regret that the provisions of this Act did not prevent his crimes.) Countless tradespeople have a legitimate reason to possess Stanley knives (with apologies to Colin :wink: ) but they have the potential to be used to cause terrible injuries.
Tangled Metal
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by Tangled Metal »

At the end of the day if any official wants to make it official then the law as it stands gives them enough means to confiscate and/or arrest the person with a knife. Part of this process may lead to the officer's assessment to be tested in a court or other legal action. If the courts agree with the officer you've lost the knife and possibly got a conviction. If the courts disagree with the offence having been committed the knife owner has no conviction but almost certainly has lost his/her knife without recompense. Well that's my interpretation from what I've read online from people who either had these things happen to them or from people who seem to know a bit about the relevant laws and procedures, like Thirdcrank. With the cost of some knives ppl buy and indeed carry to legitimately use that loss of the knife is a big thing. There's some expensive knives out there.

I think it's a good example of the build up of laws in that what is the definitive situation has arisen through the combination of several laws spread over many centuries I think. This breeds confusion among the law enforcement and even legal professions. Well the latter probably ok with it all because it may earn them work sorting it out for a client.
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bovlomov
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by bovlomov »

It seems to me that restrictions on carrying knives have two effects: to cause great inconvenience to reasonable people, and to make the knife a fetish object for unreasonable people. It is illegal to stab someone with a knife (or anything else). Forbidding the carrying of knives has not stopped people stabbing eachother.

Every child should have a penknife. Perhaps if children had a healthier relationship with knives they would get less of a thrill from carrying them.The blade and the hammer are the original human tools (unlike guns); it seems anti-human to stop us from carrying them. We shouldn't need an excuse. "I carry a knife because I am human" should be enough.
thirdcrank
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by thirdcrank »

bovlomov wrote:It seems to me that restrictions on carrying knives have two effects: to cause great inconvenience to reasonable people, and to make the knife a fetish object for unreasonable people. It is illegal to stab someone with a knife (or anything else). Forbidding the carrying of knives has not stopped people stabbing eachother.

Every child should have a penknife. Perhaps if children had a healthier relationship with knives they would get less of a thrill from carrying them.The blade and the hammer are the original human tools (unlike guns); it seems anti-human to stop us from carrying them. We shouldn't need an excuse. "I carry a knife because I am human" should be enough.


A lot of that reflects my own instinct but I fancy substituting "firearm" for "knife" would reflect the thoughts of some people in the United States.

I think it's also important to be aware that in English law, a person can get a long way with the preparations to commit a crime before they might be found guilty of an attempt. Whatever the effects that these laws have on reasonable people - and I'm sure that one is to demonstrate that something is being done, even when it isn't - at least they allow the police etc to intervene at an early stage, rather than encouraging them to wait for the full offence to be committed. Part of the problem for the legal system is identifying the baddies when they portray themselves as being reasonable people themselves.
AlaninWales
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by AlaninWales »

bovlomov wrote:It seems to me that restrictions on carrying knives have two effects: to cause great inconvenience to reasonable people, and to make the knife a fetish object for unreasonable people. It is illegal to stab someone with a knife (or anything else). Forbidding the carrying of knives has not stopped people stabbing each other.

Every child should have a penknife. Perhaps if children had a healthier relationship with knives they would get less of a thrill from carrying them.The blade and the hammer are the original human tools (unlike guns); it seems anti-human to stop us from carrying them. We shouldn't need an excuse. "I carry a knife because I am human" should be enough.

Actually in most circumstances it is. The original discussions in parliament about declaring knives an offensive weapon included specific reference to the fact that the legislation was not intended to prevent people carrying an "ordinary pocket knife"; this was allowed for by defining such as a foldable knife with a sub 3" blade. At the time (somewhere in Hansard, can't be bothered to find it now) there was discussion that this definition of course included such knives which locked open for safety purposes. The lockable mention did not make it into the legislation (one assumes the MPs knew that foldable car seats for example, lock in position and that this was an obviously normal use of the term 'foldable'). The 'ban' on locking knives comes 'only' from a court case where the judge had obviously not heard about foldable car seats. Unfortunately it sets a precedent which means that my safer pocket knives are generally illegal for me to carry (without good reason - e.g. heading off sailing). It is perfectly legal for me to carry a readilly foldable, sub 3" pocket knife and I generally do so. What rules private establishments such as clubs, pubs and airlines make are their prerogative and in order to use them, I have to obey their (extra) restrictions.
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georgew
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by georgew »

There is a knife which was specifically tailored to adhere to UK laws in that it is of the legal length and while it does not lock, it is designed to remain open under pressure.

http://www.heinnie.com/spyderco-uk-penk ... flat-grind
Tangled Metal
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by Tangled Metal »

I have seen some Opinels for sale with coloured wooden handles that look like they have a different collar design which does not appear to be lockable. It does not have the tapered groove that you rotate until it stops the folding action, also it doesn't have the one which stops the blade opening from a folded position. It looked like the collar was non-rotating. If they do these in the smaller sizes to meet UK laws then it is one option for UK use but that does not affect transit terminals into and out of the UK.

The spyderco UK legal folder conforms to laws and precedents through very careful design. I am not 100% clear on the mechanism but it appears to be a sun-3" blade that folds and has a special form of locking mechanism that is not considered to meet the criteria in law to be an actual locking mechanism. Certainly no sliplock mechanism or other standard locking mech. A good and well made knife.

BTW I did hear that some Scandinavian countries have peculiar laws to do with carrying them. I think there are other specific country legal knives out there too. Spyderco are big enough to be able to specialize their standard range of knives to meet specific country codes and a good enough company to make a good hash of it too.
Tangled Metal
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by Tangled Metal »

I nearly forgot, there are knives out there that have a finger choil (I think that is the name for the bit where there is a blunt finger shaped part of the blade beyond the folding hinge). This is used for fine control of the blade in a lot of knives that have them but it can also make the folding blade more secure when using it as the finger in that grip on the blade helps to prevent folding in use. If used right of course. Always possible to hurt oneself with a knife at any time.
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simonineaston
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by simonineaston »

Couple of post scripts to this thread...
On the way out of Plymouth, I was asked by UK border staff, "Do you have a knife with you?" to which I replied sweetly, "Yes, I have a small knife and fork set for my picnics" to which I was told, "That's fine." I was not asked to show them.
I can also report that the BF staff I chatted to at the welcoming kiosk told me that the border staff stop people if "they don't look right...you'll be OK", she said so I'll take that as some sort of compliment!
This time I only took my rounded-and-blunt butter knife Opinel #7 and later, I found it completely incapable of cutting sausage wrapping... :-( - I didn't even try cutting a tomato!
Next time I will throw caution to the wind & take my razor sharp #8 and employ the same trick of owning up to carrying the "knife and fork set" if asked, the ploy being based on i) looking like a boring old fart, and ii) setting the image of innocent non-threatening pleasure, in the mind of the no-doubt totally suseptable border staff ;-) by the mention of a picnic...
Anyone else unable to resist the strangely latrine-scented Brittany delicacy, the andouille? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30229697
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
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simonineaston
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by simonineaston »

thirdcrank wrote:...possession of a newspaper - again rolled or otherwise

When rolled, also known, in London, as The Milwall 'Ammer...
S
(on the look out for Armageddon, on board a Brompton nano & ever-changing Moultons)
Tangled Metal
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Re: Les couteaux... to carry, or not?

Post by Tangled Metal »

simonineaston wrote:Anyone else unable to resist the strangely latrine-scented Brittany delicacy, the andouille? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30229697

I thought at first that was the French sausage made of guts and offal that when you cook and then cut into it the innards practically spring out and you know you are eating intestines. Still it was nice but i haven't tried these ones.
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