'SLAP on the wrist' sentences for shops that sell knives to youngsters are undermining efforts to cut crime,according to a councillor.
Just yards from a secondary school, a teenager was sold a knife by a worker at this Pimlico shop (right).
Mahesh Patel handed over the potentially-lethal knife to a 16-year-old during a sting operation at Pimlico Hardware, in Lupus Street.
The shop is just yards from the newly-opened Pimlico Academy.
At City of Westminster Magistrates' Court last Wednesday, Patel did not appear in court but it was proved in his bsence that he had sold the knife to a minor.
Patel, who no longer works at the shop, was ordered to pay fines and costs totalling £665.
The company Pimlico Hardware Ltd admitted the same offence on March 18 and was given a conditional discharge for a year and ordered to pay £500 in costs.
A second shop in Paddington was also prosecuted for the same offence last Thursday. Adam Smith sold a blade to an underage buyer at the Under a Tenner shop in Praed Street. He admitted the offence and was ordered to pay a fine of £150 and £60 in costs.
The sting operations were carried out by Westminster Council, using an undercover 16-year-old girl.
The council has criticised sentencing by City of Westminster magistrates, who had the power to imprison the offenders for up to six months or to issue fines of up to £5,000.
The council's cabinet member for community protection, Cllr Daniel Astaire, said: "It's scandalous that these shops have been let off with nothing more than a 'slap on the wrist' despite the very real threat posed by knife crime.
"It sends out completely the wrong message at a time when local authorities and the police are doing all they can to stigmatise the image of carrying knives by young people.
"In Westminster we have relatively low levels of knife crime but if we're to keep it that way we need the courts to fully back our efforts."
The council has carried out more than 60 test purchases in the last year.
