Why CAN'T we stop this deadly trade in the tools of murder?

It was a crime which mined every parent’s worst nightmare – a child in his death throes, calling for his mum, his life slipping away on a cold station platform.

That was 14-year-old Justin McLaughlin in October 2021, trying to get to his feet but failing; his lips turning blue; saying ‘I need my mum, I need to go home’; his friends around him sobbing. ‘Leave me, I am a goner,’ he finally told them.

The youngster had been stabbed through the heart by a teenager he had never met. In Glasgow’s High Street station, he and his friends had tried to flee from Daniel Haig, then 16, but Justin had tripped.

Before he could get up Haig plunged a kitchen knife into his chest.

If ever there was a watershed case to concentrate minds on eliminating the scourge of knife crime among Scotland’s young people, this devastating scene was surely it.

But then the same could have been said about the death of Bailey Gwynne, 16, in Aberdeen six years earlier.

He too was stabbed through the heart – this time in a corridor during his lunch break at Cults Academy after teenage banter turned sour. A brief scuffle ensued, and Daniel Stroud pulled a folding knife from his pocket and thrust it into his classmate.

Stroud had bought the weapon – and others – online, which prompted the then education secretary John Swinney to call for tighter restrictions on online delivery regulations.

The boy often brought his weapons to school and showed them in secret to fellow pupils. None said a word to their teachers about his alarming knife obsession and one of Scotland’s most shocking school tragedies played out to its conclusion.

The two fatal stabbings were both potential wake-up calls for a nation with far too many teens in the grip of knife culture.

They were clear evidence of a deadly threat which could arise from nowhere and end a life on the spot. Yet, five years after Justin and a decade after Bailey, the threat is not receding – it is spreading.

New figures this week reveal a rise of almost 60 per cent on the previous year in the number of under-18s found with knives by police using stop and search powers.

During 2025/26, there were 145 instances of youngsters with blades, including some as young as 11. The figure for 2024/25 was 91.

The dramatic increase cannot be explained by Police Scotland conducting more searches. In 2025/26, there were almost 10 per cent fewer.

David Kennedy of the Scottish Police Federation (SPF) has claimed officers are now ‘walking by’ people who are carrying knives.

‘They don’t have the same powers of stop and search,’ he told the BBC. ‘We’re not involved in crime prevention any more, we’re reacting.

‘We need to get back to preventing and the only way you do that is getting the police back into communities.’

Who knows whether police ‘walked by’ the 17-year-old who murdered John McNab, 22, last September? The teenager repeatedly stabbed him with a 20-inch ‘Rambo’ knife in an unprovoked attack in Edinburgh’s Leith.

It was revealed in court Mr McNab had begged ‘Please, please don’t. I haven’t done anything’ seconds before the frenzied blade attack.

What is certainly known is knives just like this one are available online from UK websites for as little as £44. It is also known his killer – who cannot be named for legal reasons – was out on bail at the time for a separate attack in which he slashed a 16-year-old at Portobello Beach.

The same question might be asked about the 13-year-old who stabbed Kory McCrimmon, 16, in Glasgow’s East End in May 2024.

The pair were associated with rival gangs and had fallen out over a £50 debt. They exchanged threats on social media before agreeing to meet for a ‘confrontation’.

Large numbers of youths – many carrying weapons of their own – turned up to witness the dismal spectacle of a boy barely into his teens chasing Kory around and stabbing him in the heart.

After the boy admitted culpable homicide last year, judge Lord Mulholland told him: ‘I have been in and around these courts for more than 40 years and I have seen the tragedy of this case played out so many times.’

Amen Teklay and Kayden Moy, two young victims of knife crime

He added: ‘All for a stupid gang fight over a sum of money. It is utter madness.’

And yet, as this week’s chilling new figures bear out, the madness is intensifying.

The killer, who was ultimately sentenced to five years detention, is one of many teens who have posed on social media brandishing their weapon – in some cases, the very blade with which they go on to take a life.

Kayden Moy, 16, from East Kilbride, was murdered by three teenagers at Irvine Beach in Ayrshire last year in another eruption of violence involving rival gangs.

Two of the killers, Jay Stewart, 18, and a 15-year-old – who cannot be named for legal reasons – had their calling card on social media well before they carried out their atrocious act. In one image they pose together with scarves covering much of their faces. Stewart holds a Rambo-style machete while the 15-year-old holds a bottle of Buckfast and a knife.

The three sought out Kayden and his friends at the beach and began hurling rocks at them. When Kayden confronted them, he saw one produce a knife and tried to flee, but slipped and fell. That was when Cole Turley, 18, stabbed him twice in the side.

The trio ‘cuddled’ and shook hands as they fled the beach, which was packed with teenagers. Kayden died in hospital later that day.

The thugs went on to celebrate by creating a sick rap song mocking their victim.

While Turley admitted murder his accomplices were found guilty on the charge at the High Court in Glasgow last month. All three will be sentenced on July 21.

This week, yet another court case sparked by the stabbing of a teenage boy through the heart reached its conclusion. The victim was 15-year-old Amen Teklay who lived in Glasgow but was originally from Eritrea.

A 16-year-old charged with his murder claimed both he and Amen were armed with short swords when they confronted each other in the city’s St George’s Cross area in March 2025. A 17-year-old friend of the 16-year-old was armed with a frying pan.

The younger boy claimed he did stab Amen but only in self-defence while the older boy said he did not attack him at all.

The jury was persuaded to return a not guilty verdict on the two boys, neither of whom can be named for legal reasons. Yet it is clear they turned up at a confrontation with weapons. It is also clear the 16-year-old had posed with his weapon in social media videos.

He was asked about it when he gave evidence at the High Court in Glasgow. He said he was ‘trying to build a persona’, adding: ‘It was ridiculous, I was 14 – I didn’t know.’

The court also heard that the 16-year-old regularly carried the weapon which he bought online for £40 in January 2025.

Nearly 11 years after Bailey Gwynne’s death, a clear pattern emerges. Children still arming themselves with blades bought online. Shows of bravado as they brandish their weapons to impress friends and intimidate enemies. Social media used as a forum for arranging showdowns.

And, as this horrifying trend gathers pace, the general secretary of the SPF claiming the loss of some stop and search powers is resulting in police ‘walking by’ knife carriers.

John McNab and Bailey Gwynne both died after knife attacks

He was referring to the abolition of non-statutory or ‘consensual’ stop and searches in 2017. Since the introduction of a new code of practice police searches must be intelligence-led and based on ‘reasonable grounds’.

The irony, perhaps, is that these weapons are positively flaunted online. Dr David Smith, a social psychology expert at Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University, believes some teenagers are using social media to present ‘an idealised version of themselves – maybe a more self-assured or threatening one, if they think this is what commands respect.’

He tells the Mail: ‘Social media channels can be highly alluring because they allow them some control over how they are perceived; they can curate and tweak their image.

‘In a way, this sort of posing is not dissimilar to other trends dedicated to self-transformation that can lead to terrible outcomes … it’s about building an identity that will get them noticed.’

He adds: ‘If users gain clout by posing with weapons online, the upvotes, or even some of the downvotes, depending on who they come from, act as a form of validation.’

At its worst, says Dr Smith, social media provides a ‘stage’ where teenagers can express aspects of the knife culture and ‘incentivise others to do the same for protection or power’.

There seems little question the culture is skewing crime figures.

While the Scottish Government says that, overall, youth violence is decreasing, a Police Scotland report last year revealed almost a quarter of the attempted murders between April and June involved an accused under 18. Separate figures reveal incidents involving offensive weapons in schools were up 16 per cent in 2024/25 to 267 cases – the highest since records began in 2017/18.

GMB Scotland union chief Keir Greenaway told the Mail last year that many school support staff had taken to wearing protective clothing, although this was predominantly to mitigate against bites and scratches.

As a direct response to the rising blade culture the Scottish Government and local authorities are introducing ‘bleed kits’ into schools. They contain emergency equipment, including a tourniquet, to help stem blood loss if pupils or staff are slashed or stabbed.

The campaign for their introduction was led by Lisa Petrie, mother of John McNab who was stabbed to death in Leith. The SNP pledged in their manifesto to roll them out in supermarkets, community centres and parks.

The move has been widely welcomed but the Scottish Conservative justice spokesman Stephen Kerr said it was ‘a damning indictment on the SNP’s failure to crack down on the epidemic of classroom violence’.

Mr Kerr told the Mail: ‘Far too many young people now believe they can carry a knife, buy one online and even boast about it on social media without facing serious consequences.

‘That culture of impunity has been allowed to take hold because the SNP has weakened deterrence through years of soft-touch justice, including sentencing policies that send entirely the wrong message to young offenders.’

Mr Kerr said police should also have stronger proactive stop-and- search powers in knife crime hotspots. ‘We should be giving officers every tool they need to prevent serious violence, not making it harder for them to intervene.’

He added: ‘The law on online knife sales also needs to be tightened and enforced with far greater rigour. The UK Government must close the loopholes that still allow under-age buyers to obtain knives. Social media companies also have a responsibility.

‘They should not be allowing criminality to be glamorised by teenagers treating deadly weapons as status symbols.’

He said politicians promised lessons would be learned following the death of Bailey Gwynne. A decade on, the bloody evidence indicates the reverse.

‘Young people are still buying knives online, carrying them on our streets and flaunting them online. That is an indictment of both governments.

‘The UK government must close the loopholes that allow under-age online knife sales, while the SNP government must restore deterrence, back the police by strengthening their powers and increasing their resources and stop sending the dangerous message to young offenders that they can get away with breaking the law.’

Daniel Stroud, the boy who stabbed Bailey to death, was freed at the age of 25 in February last year after serving nine years. Many imagined his appalling act would prompt a huge crackdown on blades held by teens. Instead he returned to a society more in thrall to knife culture than ever.

As for Daniel Haig, who stabbed Justin McLaughlin through the heart, he appealed his 16-year sentence in 2024, his lawyers arguing it was excessive.

A panel of three appeal court judges agreed and reduced his minimum term to 13 years. He could be free before he turns 30.

For the families of their victims there is no freedom. Lifetimes of heartache stretch before them. Bewilderment, too, no doubt. For the lessons – though they seem to scream at us – remain tragically unlearned.

j.brocklebank@dailymail.co.uk