Police demand tougher sentencing

The home secretary, John Reid, was quick yesterday to let it be known that he was "not unsympathetic" to a police demand to lower the age - from 21 to 17 years - at which the minimum mandatory five-year sentence is imposed for carrying a gun.

Cressida Dick, the commander of Scotland Yard's specialist crime directorate, made the case that when Operation Trident - which tackles gun crime in the black community - was set up the average age of gun offenders was in the late 20s.

"Unfortunately we are now seeing, not just in London but nationally as well, many more young offenders involved. We believe, since there are so many offenders in their teenage years, that [the mandatory minimum five-year sentence] should apply to people between 18 and 21."

Her demand for much tougher sentencing was echoed by Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, who pressed the home secretary to back the move. "He has agreed to look at that proposal sympathetically," he reported.

But against the backdrop of British gun laws, which are already among the strongest in Europe, if not the world, this move would represent only a slight tightening of the ratchet.

The five-year minimum sentence for carrying a gun already applies to those aged 18 and over - at least that is what parliament intended. Doubt was cast after an appeal court judgment last March.

As it is, 16- and 17-year-olds already face a three-year mandatory minimum sentence for carrying a firearm, so the net effect of the Met's demand for tougher legislation is less than first meets the eye. In practical terms it will clarify the law so that it is clear that parliament intended that 18- to 21-year-olds should be liable to the five-year mandatory minimum, and will extend it to cover 17-year-olds.

London police first voiced their fears last summer that the capital's gangs had now set up "youth sections" and were grooming teenagers to be gun runners, to avoid the mandatory sentences handed out to over-18s carrying a gun.

But existing laws already anticipated this situation. The Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006, which came into force in November, provides for a prison sentence of up to 10 years for someone who tries to escape prosecution by entrusting a gun to somebody else, particularly a child.

The Home Office said the weight of the sentence reflected the fact that using children in this way presented particularly serious dangers. "In addition to the risk of injuring themselves with the weapon and being arrested for possession of the weapon, they may in the longer term be drawn into gun and knife crime as a result of their early association with weapons."