Moves to control gun crime enforced

It is now an offence to get someone to carry or hide a weapon on your behalf, carrying up to 10 years' imprisonment for firearms and four years' for knives.

Selling or buying a "primer" - a key component of ammunition - also became a crime, unless legitimacy criteria are met. Anyone caught offering to "unblock" - or re-programme - a mobile phone faces up to five years in jail and/or an unlimited fine.

Since 2002 it has been an offence to re-programme a phone but police had difficulty enforcing the law because they had to catch someone in the act.

Handsets have a unique 14 to 17-digit number, the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI), which is blocked from its owner's network within minutes of being reported stolen. Other networks also aim to block the handset within 24 hours, rendering the phone useless.

But illegal unblocking software is available on the internet, and the service - which is legal when the handset owner is switching networks - is freely advertised on the high street.

Under parts of the 2006 Violent Crime Reduction Act the range of offences for which a firearms offender can be given a mandatory minimum five-year sentence was also extended.

New powers for police and trading standards officers mean licensees can be fined up to £10,000 and have their licence suspended for up to three months if they are caught selling alcohol to underage children three times in a three month period.

Football banning orders - which force hooligans to hand over their passports before an international game - were made a permanent part of the law. The maximum period of a banning order increases from three years to five.

Home Secretary John Reid said: "The Government's priority is to give police and communities the tools they need to tackle violent crime. These new powers are the latest step, an example of how the Government is working to make us all safer, putting the interests of ordinary people first."