POTENTIALLY lethal weapons were on sale at a Needham Market car boot sale just days after a police knife amnesty was launched, The Evening Star can reveal.

POTENTIALLY lethal weapons were on sale at a Needham Market car boot sale just days after a police knife amnesty was launched, The Evening Star can reveal.

A stall at the weekly event was legally offering several knives for sale from as little as £3 as well as a mini crossbow and realistic “semi automatic rifle” airguns.

Suffolk police launched a knife amnesty last Thursday as part of a national campaign to rid offensive weapons from the streets.

Despite this Steve Tucker, 52, of Claydon, set up stall in Needham Market at the weekend to sell knives and other weapons.

Mr Tucker told The Star he was “getting rid” of an old collection of air rifles and knives he had collected over the years and that he kept the knives locked up and refused to sell to anyone under 18.

He added that he had even approached police for advice on the legality of selling the goods before setting up stall.

“I approached the police and to be honest it was a joke,” Mr Tucker said.

“They didn't know what the law was themselves.

“I looked it up on the internet and saw the legal age for obtaining knives is 16 but I sell to ages of 18 and over to make sure.”

Mr Tucker says he feels the current knife amnesty is a “waste of time”.

“What is the point of having a knife amnesty when you are not going to ban shops from selling them?” he said.

“Ninety per cent of knives in amnesty bins are kitchen knives anyway.

“To be honest it is not the knives that are dangerous it is the person using it - the same as a gun or a crossbow.”

The knife amnesty comes at a time when knife crime is at the top of the national agenda with attacks and The Evening Star revealing on Saturday how a Felixstowe primary school had been offered personalised penknives to sell.

The amnesty came after the death of 15-year-old schoolboy Kiyan Prince who was stabbed outside a school in Edgware, north London.

On Saturday 19-year-old first-year university student Tom Grant, from Churchdown, in Gloucestershire, died after being stabbed on board a Virgin train travelling from Glasgow to Paignton in Devon.

Thomas Lee Wood, 21, of Skelmersdale, Lancashire, appeared in court yesterday charged with Mr Grant's murder and will appear at Carlisle Crown Court on June 7.

In the early hours of yesterday a man in his 20s was fatally stabbed in a Birmingham street and, on Friday, a 14-year-old boy suffered serious injuries after being stabbed in the stomach outside a school in Birmingham.