Boy buys machete in online test

The teenager bought four knives in the experiment

A 14-year-old using his own credit card was able to buy four knives online during research by trading standards officers, a council said.

He bought a 15ins (38cm) machete for £1.70 during the supervised purchase to test how easily it was for youngsters to buy knives online.

Staffordshire County Council called the results of its trading standards officers' experiment "alarming".

It said research suggested thousands of knives went on sale online each day.

The research group MarkMonitor found more than 9,000 knives went on sale on online auction sites over a three-day period in August.

More than half of these could be bought instantly with no warnings or restrictions, it found.

A total of 219 offences involving knives were committed in Staffordshire last year, the council added.