Man jailed for trying to hide shotgun and bullets at Coventry industrial estate

[dutchman]

"This type of weapon is a scourge on our society," says judge



A Coventry man who tried to hide a sawn-off shotgun and bullets designed to rip through internal organs has been jailed for six years.

The ‘dum-dum’ bullets, which are banned under the Geneva Convention due to their devastating effect, were ditched on waste land in the city, along with the gun, by Sean Walsh.

The 27-year-old, of Binton Road, Wood End, was jailed after a jury at Warwick Crown Court found him guilty of possessing a prohibited firearm and possessing expanding ammunition.

Jailing Walsh, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC told him: “Somehow you came into possession of those items, and you decided to put them away, keeping them for another occasion.

“Whether they were being kept for your purpose or another person’s matters not one jot.

“This type of weapon is a scourge on our society.”

Prosecutor Scott Coughtrie had told the jury that Walsh had tried to hide the “single-barrel shortened shotgun and four rounds of prohibited ammunition” on waste ground belonging to Beckett’s Food Ltd, on the Alderman’s Green Industrial Estate.

Directors Tim Cornes, Phil Shelley and Steve Rutherford spotted a motorbike on private land next to their premises in Heyford Close in October 2015.

Mr Shelley said they then saw the man on foot on the far side of the land searching for something, but he ran off when the police arrived.

In one bag officers found a sawn-off shotgun, some cartridges and four rounds of soft-nose expanding metal-jacketed rifle bullets, commonly known as ‘dum-dum bullets,’ which expand on impact.

And Judge Lockhart commented: “They cause catastrophic injuries. They are banned by the Geneva Convention, as well as being banned in this country.”

The jury took just 75 minutes to convict Walsh of both charges.

[rebbonk]

Six years! Yet the guy who murdered his cousin in a drunken rage only gets 5 years? - Something not quite right here to my mind.