RESTRICTION OF OFFENSIVE WEAPONS ACT, 1959 (AMENDMENT) (Hansard, 6 December 1960)

§ Mr. Barnett Janner (Leicester, North West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the law in relation to exposing for sale of flick knives and other dangerous weapons. I should like, first, to thank the House, and the many organisations and individuals throughout the country for the assistance which they gave in enabling my colleagues and myself to introduce the Bill that was ultimately passed as the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act, 1959. It is quite clear now that that Act has succeeded in almost entirely removing the danger of use of flick knives—by young people, in particular.

It is not unusual, as the House knows, and as you would know, Mr. Speaker, that an interpretation by the courts of the meaning of certain words can make it necessary to amend the law so that a flaw that was not noticed at the time when an Act was passed can be removed. The Divisional Court, in the Queen's Bench Division on 10th November, came to an interesting decision in the case of Fisher v. Bell. The facts of this case were that a policeman walking past a retail shop in Bristol, saw a flick knife in the window with a ticket on it marked, "Ejector knife, 4s." He went into the shop and informed the shopkeeper that he would be reported for offering a flick knife for sale, and the shopkeeper replied, "Fair enough."

The question before the Divisional Court was whether the exhibiting of the knife in the shop window with a ticket behind it constituted an offer for sale within the meaning of Section 1 of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act, 1959. That Section reads: Any person who manufactures, sells or hires or offers for sale or hire, or lends or gives to any other person— (a) any knife which has a blade which opens automatically by hand pressure applied to a button, spring or other device in or attached to the handle of the knife, sometimes known as a 'flick knife' or 'flick gun' … shall be guilty of an offence … 1075 I cannot do better than read part of the report in The Times of 11th November, which said that the Lord Chief Justice … confessed that when he first read these papers he was inclined to the view that to say that a knife displayed in a window like that, with the price attached to it, was not an offer for sale, was just nonsense. It was there inviting people to buy it, but any statute must of course be looked at in the light of the general law of the country and Parliament, in its wisdom in passing an Act"— and here it must be collective wisdom, because the Bill was not opposed at any stage— must be taken to have known how the law had interpreted certain words. It was clear that according to the ordinary law of contract the display of an article with the price upon it in a shop window was merely an invitation to treat, not an offer for sale, acceptance of which constituted a contract. That was the general law of the country. Not only that, but it was to be observed that in many statutes and orders which prohibited selling and offering goods for sale, it was very common to insert the words 'offering and exposing for sale', the words 'exposing for sale' covering the display of goods in shop windows. In several statutes, two of which had been cited to the Court, Parliament, when it desired to enlarge the ordinary meaning of those words included a definition section enlarging the ordinary meaning of 'offer for sale' to cover other matters, including the exposing of goods for sale with the price attached. In those circumstances his Lordship had been reluctantly driven to the conclusion that no offence was here committed. It is generally thought, of course, that if an article for sale is put in a shop window with a price on it the retailer or the shopkeeper is bound to sell it to 1076 the individual who comes in, but, in law, that is not the position. The shopkeeper is not bound to sell any article exposed in his window, strange though it may seem to the ordinary layman.

This, Sir, not being an offer for sale, I seek to put this omission right by a very short amending Bill which will require the insertion of only two or three words in the appropriate Section of the Act. It is interesting to note that the Weights and Measures Bill—a very compendious Bill—at present being dealt with in Committee in another place, is drafted without the insertion of similar words, and that Amendments have there been tabled to insert these words. It would appear from this that I am in very illustrious company indeed in having omitted the words from the original.