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The Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2026

S.I. 2026/836 · Made 15 July 2026

Original text. legislation.gov.uk does not revise statutory instruments, so later amendments are not shown here. Changes made to it are listed under each provision when known.

This Statutory Instrument has been made in consequence of a defect in S.I. 2025/681. It is being issued free of charge to all known recipients of that Statutory Instrument.

CRIMINAL LAW, ENGLAND AND WALES

Made 15th July 2026

Coming into force 16th July 2026

The Secretary of State makes this Order in exercise of the powers conferred by section 141(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 1988f1.

In accordance with section 141(11E)f2 of that Act, a draft of the instrument was laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

Annotations to the whole text

Footnotes

f1

1988 c. 33.

f2

Inserted by section 43(4) of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 (c. 38).

Contents

  1. 1Citation, commencement and extent
  2. 2Amendment of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988
  3. Signature
  4. Explanatory note

1Citation, commencement and extent

(1)

This Order may be cited as the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) (Amendment) (England and Wales) Order 2026.

(2)

This Order comes into force on the day after the day on which it is made.

(3)

This Order extends to England and Wales.

2Amendment of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988

(1)

The Schedule to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988f1 (descriptions of weapons to which section 141 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 applies) is amended as follows.

(2)

In paragraph 1B(3)(b)(ii) (secondary straight cutting edge)—

(a)

for “5%” substitute “105%”;

(b)

omit “or shorter”.

Signature

Sarah Jones

Minister of State

Home Office

15th July 2026

Explanatory note

(This note is not part of the Order)

This Order amends the description of the weapon sometimes known as a “ninja sword” which is a prohibited weapon listed at paragraph 1(u) of the Schedule to the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (Offensive Weapons) Order 1988 (S.I. 1988/2019).

Article 2(2) amends the description of the secondary straight cutting edge so that its length is no more than 105% longer than the width of the blade immediately after the handle as illustrated in the diagram below.

Illustration

If the width of the blade immediately after the handle is 4cms then 105% of the width is 4.2cms. Therefore the length of the secondary cutting edge cannot exceed 4cms + 4.2cms= 8.2cms.

A full Impact Assessment has not been prepared as this amendment makes a minor correction to the legal description of a ninja sword and aligns the legislation with the policy intent. Although the revised legal definition amends the description in the original instrument, it does not change any of the impacts assessed in the original 2025 Impact Assessment, and therefore assessed impacts remain unchanged.