In this age of social media, new sentencing guidelines are being drafted to enforce tougher punishments on young people who film instances of knife crime and upload them to online platforms in England &Wales. Within gangs, this has become an increasingly popular method of humiliating victims and asserting dominance - something that the law is attempting to crack down on. This is only one of a number of ‘aggravating factors’ for judges and magistrates to consider when sentencing defendants convicted of possessing a blade or offensive weapon in public, or making threats.

The Scottish Crown Office has laid down the law when it comes to social media by producing guidelines to clarify what counts as a criminal offence through the media platform, with a warning that crimes on social media are taken as seriously as those offline.