Obsolete police-issue body armour sold on eBay

Unsafe body armour that has previously been used by police forces is being sold as “police-issue” body armour on websites such as eBay.
Police body armour is made of materials that degrade over time, and usually has a shelf life of between three to five years. Most body armour over that age becomes ineffective, but due to difficulties in effectively disposing of the materials, some body armour is appearing for sale online.
The re-selling of former police wear came to media attention recently when a company based in Suffolk bought German “fragmentation” vests, removed the armour within them and put them into new vests, selling them online as stab proof vests. Many customers purchased them unaware that they were not effective. When it was found that they were unsafe, the product was recalled and the company was fined £20,000.
“But when the company has sold 3,000 vests at £100 each, that’s just a small percentage of the profit it made from an unsafe product,” said David Chandler, business development manager at Vestguard UK Ltd, the largest exporter of body armour in the UK.
Mr Chandler said that it is essential that forces have the best possible recycling or disposal programme to ensure that old equipment does not fall into the wrong hands. In some cases, the armour for sale even names the force it claims used the equipment; currently eBay has items from Essex Police on sale.
“It is obviously not good for a police force to be named in this situation, and it had not given permission for its name to be there,” said Mr Chandler.
“But people are lulled into a false sense of security. They are buying a vest thinking, well if the police wear it then it is going to protect my life, but actually, no it’s not anymore as it has passed that safe date.”
Due to the lack of legal safeguards on sites such as eBay, customers can buy these products without the seller having to provide any history or guarantees.
“There is no guarantee that these items still have the properties to protect against ballistic threats,” said Mr Chandler. “In some cases they are so degraded they are no more protective than a T-shirt.”
Mr Chandler said that forces must look at the way that they are recycling and disposing of their goods, to make sure that there is no risk that such equipment will find its way into the public domain.
“It is very difficult but there are manufacturers that have spent money on research and development to come up with good solutions. We offer a free service to dispose of the goods – we will arrange to have them collected, taken away, recycled and a certificate is produced to let them know that they have been put beyond use as body armour and they then have that safeguard, there are checkable records in place.” 
An eBay spokesperson told Police Professional that the sale of stab vests which use official police insignia are banned on eBay.co.uk.
“On the rare occasion that these specific items appear for sale on the site, we work quickly to remove them,” said the spokesperson. “While we do allow the sale of stab vests which do not use police insignia, we are always willing to review our policies in light of legitimate concerns.”