How a teenage murderer got 79 knives delivered to his door

Omar Khan was murdered in a drug deal gone wrong. One of his teenage killers bought 79 knives, swords and machetes, including the murder weapon, in the months leading up to the attack. How was a 17-year-old boy able to amass deadly weapons worth more than £1,000 from a UK-based website?

The teenage killer of Omar Khan – who is beginning a 20-year-minimum sentence – used his mother’s ID to buy 39 hunting knives, 15 machetes and 12 swords, among other items, and get them delivered to his home in Luton.

All were bought from an online retailer, linked to another murder in 2022.

The company, DNA Leisure, sold knives due to be outlawed later this year.

Based on the outskirts of Luton, just six miles (10km) from the murder scene, it is run by one-time Junior Apprentice candidate Adam Eliaz, who insisted he had done nothing wrong.

Police are concerned at how the boy, then aged 16, was able to order so many weapons and how “there was no challenge at delivery”.

Det Insp Justine Jenkins, of Bedfordshire Police, who led the investigation into Mr Khan’s murder, said that was a “massive loophole”.

“I’m always surprised that weapons like that can be sent in the post and just delivered,” she said.

Another “massive concern”, she added, was where the killer’s weapons had gone.

So far, all police have recovered is a single sheath.

The sheath belonged to the weapon that killed Mr Khan, 38.

It was found near a parade of shops in Luton, where he and his partner Cheyenne Barnes were stabbed in the early hours of 16 September 2023.

They had been carrying kitchen knives, intending to rob their drug dealers – but one came armed with a 15in (37.5cm) hunting knife.

A trial jury heard it was among weapons worth more than £1,000 that he bought from DNA Leisure.

The boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons, placed 13 transactions over nine months. The 65 products, which included several knife sets, amounted to 79 blades.

Police only discovered the link to the company during door-to-door inquiries, when a neighbour said they had accepted a package for the teenager’s address.

During the trial, the boy said some of the blades he ordered were confiscated; some he lost, others he sold.

Det Insp Jenkins said she was seeing more hunting knives and machetes used in fatal attacks, especially by “younger offenders”.

They were, she added, “horrific weapons” and “horrendously large”, making them “totally more dangerous” than kitchen knives.

“If you stab someone with a weapon like that, the likelihood of hitting a major organ is obviously increased,” she said.

Asked whether there was an “arms race” for bigger weapons, she said: “I’m not sure it comes down to that. I think it’s probably a little bit down to how accessible they are.”

DNA Leisure has previously said that “we age-check every order” and “we report all suspicious purchases”.

The company is owned and run by Mr Eliaz, who appeared in the 2010 series of Junior Apprentice, then aged 17.

He had left school at 16 and was described on the show as “running his own business selling fishing and camping equipment”.

Two years later he was interviewed by Angler’s Mail after opening a new fishing tackle shop in Watford, around the same time he started DNA Leisure.

Mr Khan’s murder is not the first committed with a blade bought from DNA Leisure by a juvenile.

In 2022, Ronan Kanda was murdered with a sword purchased from the retailer using false ID.

Mr Justice Akhlaq Choudhury, who sentenced Ronan’s killers in Wolverhampton last year, said: “It is disturbing that a 16-year-old could so easily purchase such items online.

“The businesses engaged in this kind of trade should reflect on their facilitation of knife crime and the devastating consequences for the lives of so many.”

It has been reported that Post Office staff did not check the killer’s ID when he picked up the weapon.

Julie Taylor is painfully familiar with the impact of knife crime.

In the corner of her Chelmsford kitchen is a pile of bright red bleed kits.

The 59-year-old has installed hundreds of the medical packs – designed for use after stabbings – since her grandson died.

Liam was murdered with what witnesses described as a zombie knife or machete in 2020. He was 19.

Mrs Taylor has welcomed a law change in England and Wales that is due to ban certain blades.

But looking at DNA Leisure’s website, she accused the company of chasing “greed and profit”.

Several blades on the site likely to be caught by the ban were marked as part of a “massive stock clearance”, with some sold at a discount.

They include the Anglo Arms Intrepid, with an 8.78in (22.3cm) blade and serrations on one side, which was marked down from £29.95 to £23.95.

The stricter ban will outlaw blades over 8in (20cm) long if they also have other features, such as more than 2in (5cm) of serrations or more than one hole in the blade.

“It’s greed – greed and profit – ‘these knives are going to be banned, so let’s get rid of them quick, so we don’t lose our money,’” Mrs Taylor said.

She added those behind DNA Leisure needed “to come and live my life for a week and see how my family is after my grandson lost his life to a knife like that”.

“Then perhaps they will grow a conscience, because until it happens to them, they are not going to realise how bad this is,” she said.

Prof Iain Brennan, a criminologist at the University of Hull, said promoting knives likely to be outlawed was “cynical” and “irresponsible”.

Selling weapons so cheaply was “putting profit before public safety”, he said.

“They can’t be accused of causing the violence – I think that’s a really important thing to say – but they are enabling violence through the sale of low quality, cheap weapons.

“And I think they need to consider what is responsible retail.”

In a statement, DNA Leisure said it complied “with all current UK legislation relating to the sales of bladed articles, including the laws relating to remote sales and age verification”.

Referring to Mr Khan’s murderer, it added: “The person in question committed fraud and made orders under their mother’s name and used her ID to purchase from us.

“We used an age-verified courier to deliver the parcel. We did not break the law in any way.”

DNA Leisure said the “vast majority” of its customers “are normal, law-abiding individuals” and that “a knife isn’t a weapon, unless a person turns it into one”.

DNA Leisure added: “We would welcome the government to extend this scheme to all our bladed products.

“Should they agree this, we’ll surrender our entire inventory and stop selling bladed products immediately and forever.

“This is quite the opposite of your accusation of being in business for ‘greed and profit’.”

Bedfordshire Police said officers were “working closely with retailers” to ensure laws were followed and “preventing these weapons from ending up in the wrong hands”.

The force’s Just Drop It Campaign encourages parents to be “extra vigilant around their child’s behaviour” and encourages conversations with children about the dangers of knife crime.