AI
Thursday, June 03, 2021 4:15:30 PM
Plastic bottles should be redesigned in bid to stop acid attacks, research suggests
Government is urging manufacturers to change designs so bottles cannot hold corrosives without melting or changing colour
By Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR
3 June 2021 • 5:35pm
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/03/plastic-bottles-should-redesigned-bid-stop-acid-attacks-research/
Undated handout photo from 2018 issued by Thames Valley Police of Xeneral Webster riding away from the scene of the acid attack on Joanne Rand in High Wycombe, carrying a bottle of acid in what was thought to be the first acid killing in the UK CREDIT: PA
Manufacturers should redesign plastic bottles to prevent them being used in acid attacks, says a Government report, as the number of crimes involving corrosive liquids has more than doubled in five years.
Police recorded acid attacks have risen from 600 in 2016 to an estimated 1,500 in 2020 as criminals turn to the liquids as easily hidden and effective weapons, according to Freedom of Information requests to forces in England and Wales.
New laws introduced in 2019 made it an offence to have acid in a public place without a good or lawful reason and made it illegal for shops to sell a corrosive substance to anyone aged under 18.
However, the report has recommended that more needs to be done including a further offence of preparing for a corrosive attack when acid is placed into a sports drink or “squirty” bottle in preparation for a criminal act.
The report also proposed the Government should work with manufacturers to change the design of bottles so they could not hold corrosives without melting or the surface of the bottle changing colour if filled with acid.
“Evidence from the case file exercise and interviews with both experts and offenders, suggested that corrosives were regularly carried in sports drinks bottles,” said the report.
“One offender said he was surprised that in this day and age there was not some way that a bottle originally designed for a soft drink could be made to change colour or even melt if a highly concentrated corrosive was placed inside it.”
About | Acid attacks
Acid attacks are very rarely deadly, but victims may be left scarred, blinded, otherwise disabled and heavily traumatised
The substance used is usually sulphuric acid (“vitriol”) or nitric acid. Less commonly, hydrochloric acid may be used, which is less damaging to victims
Worldwide, some 80% of victims are women, according to Acid Survivors Trust International, with perpetrators often believed to be family members or men seeking revenge for sexual rejection
In the UK, men are more likely to be victims than women, which is believed to be due to gang violence. Reportedly, gang members carry acid concealed in a drinks bottle, where police are more alert to conventional weapons such as knives or guns
London is the UK’s centre of acid attacks – Metropolitan Police figure show over 1,800 assaults with a corrosive substance since 2010, with figures still rising year on year and 454 assaults reported in 2016
If you are the victim of an attack, remove contaminated clothing, try to wash the acid off with copious amounts of water as quickly as possible and seek first aid. Neutralising the acid with an equivalent alkaline substance risks a chemical reaction that may give you thermal burns as well as acid burns
....
The data, obtained by The Telegraph, shows criminals are not only using acid as a weapon to maim and disfigure their victims, but they are also using the threat of an attack to terrify and blackmail people.
In one case logged by Lincolnshire police a woman was coerced into having sex with a man who stalked her and issued death threats against her which included pouring acid over her head.
A survey of police forces uncovered more than 200 crimes linked to acid in just a two-month span, including death threats, assaults, blackmail and even rape.
When estimates are added in for the forces that failed to respond to the survey the total reaches 250 – or four acid attack crimes every day.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/03/plastic-bottles-should-redesigned-bid-stop-acid-attacks-research/
Government is urging manufacturers to change designs so bottles cannot hold corrosives without melting or changing colour
By Charles Hymas, HOME AFFAIRS EDITOR
3 June 2021 • 5:35pm
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/03/plastic-bottles-should-redesigned-bid-stop-acid-attacks-research/
Undated handout photo from 2018 issued by Thames Valley Police of Xeneral Webster riding away from the scene of the acid attack on Joanne Rand in High Wycombe, carrying a bottle of acid in what was thought to be the first acid killing in the UK CREDIT: PA
Manufacturers should redesign plastic bottles to prevent them being used in acid attacks, says a Government report, as the number of crimes involving corrosive liquids has more than doubled in five years.
Police recorded acid attacks have risen from 600 in 2016 to an estimated 1,500 in 2020 as criminals turn to the liquids as easily hidden and effective weapons, according to Freedom of Information requests to forces in England and Wales.
New laws introduced in 2019 made it an offence to have acid in a public place without a good or lawful reason and made it illegal for shops to sell a corrosive substance to anyone aged under 18.
However, the report has recommended that more needs to be done including a further offence of preparing for a corrosive attack when acid is placed into a sports drink or “squirty” bottle in preparation for a criminal act.
The report also proposed the Government should work with manufacturers to change the design of bottles so they could not hold corrosives without melting or the surface of the bottle changing colour if filled with acid.
“Evidence from the case file exercise and interviews with both experts and offenders, suggested that corrosives were regularly carried in sports drinks bottles,” said the report.
“One offender said he was surprised that in this day and age there was not some way that a bottle originally designed for a soft drink could be made to change colour or even melt if a highly concentrated corrosive was placed inside it.”
About | Acid attacks
Acid attacks are very rarely deadly, but victims may be left scarred, blinded, otherwise disabled and heavily traumatised
The substance used is usually sulphuric acid (“vitriol”) or nitric acid. Less commonly, hydrochloric acid may be used, which is less damaging to victims
Worldwide, some 80% of victims are women, according to Acid Survivors Trust International, with perpetrators often believed to be family members or men seeking revenge for sexual rejection
In the UK, men are more likely to be victims than women, which is believed to be due to gang violence. Reportedly, gang members carry acid concealed in a drinks bottle, where police are more alert to conventional weapons such as knives or guns
London is the UK’s centre of acid attacks – Metropolitan Police figure show over 1,800 assaults with a corrosive substance since 2010, with figures still rising year on year and 454 assaults reported in 2016
If you are the victim of an attack, remove contaminated clothing, try to wash the acid off with copious amounts of water as quickly as possible and seek first aid. Neutralising the acid with an equivalent alkaline substance risks a chemical reaction that may give you thermal burns as well as acid burns
....
The data, obtained by The Telegraph, shows criminals are not only using acid as a weapon to maim and disfigure their victims, but they are also using the threat of an attack to terrify and blackmail people.
In one case logged by Lincolnshire police a woman was coerced into having sex with a man who stalked her and issued death threats against her which included pouring acid over her head.
A survey of police forces uncovered more than 200 crimes linked to acid in just a two-month span, including death threats, assaults, blackmail and even rape.
When estimates are added in for the forces that failed to respond to the survey the total reaches 250 – or four acid attack crimes every day.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/06/03/plastic-bottles-should-redesigned-bid-stop-acid-attacks-research/
Join the InvestorsHub Community
Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.
