DECEMBER 2007 - SUMMARY

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From the reports recorded by GCN, 48 victims were killed in gun attacks in England and Wales and 5 died in Scotland during 2007.  Another five people were shot dead during operations by armed police officers.

• Gun Deaths and Injuries - During late December three men died after being shot in incidents in Newtown (Birmingham), Hartcliffe (Bristol) and Southwark (south London).  Another man died when he was shot by police officers after he had threatened a member of the public with an Uzi-style weapon in Stansted (Kent).

• Two police officers were shot and injured during December (see below).

• In London a teenager was injured when he was shot in Shepherd's Bush and another teenager recovered after being seriously injured in a shooting in Wandsworth.  A 16-year-old was shot in both legs in Kirkdale (Merseyside).

• A man received serious injuries in a gun attack in Smethwick (West Midlands) and a man was in hospital after being shot in Toxteth (Merseyside).  Three men were seriously  injured when they were shot in a pub in Congleton (Cheshire).  A man was shot in the buttocks in Grange Town (Teesside).

• Police - During a month in which an inquest concluded that a police officer in Shrewsbury had been unlawfully killed by a man armed with a legally-owned gun, which he owned despite previous convictions, police officers were exposed to a number of situations involving firearms.

• Officers shot dead a man who had threatened a member of the public with an Uzi-style military rifle in Stansted, Kent (see above).

• Police officers were fired at in a number of incidents.  A female officer was hit in the leg after responding to reports of a robbery at a pub in Bamber Bridge (Lancashire) (two men have been arrested) and a male officer was shot during a surveillance operation in New Cross Road (south east London) (two men have been arrested).  A man was charged with attempted murder after a gun was fired at an officer in Ardwick (Greater Manchester).  A police officer had a gun pointed at him when a car was stopped in Didcot (Oxfordshire) and another officer was threatened when four people were arrested after a robbery in Westhoughton (see below).

• Armed Hold-Ups and Assaults - Three men armed with a shotgun and a knife robbed a bank in Little Lever (Bolton).  A shot was fired during a ram raid on a bank in Cradley Heath (West Midlands).

• There were robberies and attempted robberies in which guns were allegedly used at supermarkets in West Didsbury and Westhoughton (four people were arrested) (both in Greater Manchester), an off licence in Wigan, a convenience store in Bromsgrove (Worcestershire) and bookmakers in St Helens (Merseyside) and Bloxwich (West Midlands).  A service station was robbed by a man armed with a knife and a handgun in Hopwood (Worcestershire).  A woman police officer was injured after two men robbed a pub in Bamber Bridge (Lancashire) (see above).

• A masked gang stole cash from a motorist in Whitefield (Lancashire).  A man was pistol whipped and robbed of his jacket and money by a man in Rushden (Northamptonshire).  A gang threatened a man walking home in Wisbech (Cambridgeshire) and a pizza delivery man was robbed at gunpoint in Hindley Green (Wigan).

• Masked burglars broke into a house in Hesketh Bank (Lancashire) but fled empty handed.  A man was tied up and threatened at his home with a handgun by a gang in Woodhouse Park (Greater Manchester).  A teenage boy had two guns held to his head at his home in Thornton Heath (south London) by a gang who stole his puppy.

• Other Incidents - Shots were fired at houses in Longsight (Manchester) and Maryhill (Glasgow), and a window was damaged by a shot fired at a house in Rushden (Northamptonshire).  Gunshots were also fired at a pizza shop in Dovecot (Merseyside).

• A gang of up to 25 masked men carrying guns was seen patrolling streets in two areas of Greater Manchester (Moss Side and Whalley Range).

• A man has appeared in court charged with possession of a firearm after incidents in Jedburgh (Scottish Borders).  Armed police took part in a major search in Annan (Dumfries & Galloway) for a man wanted for firearms offences.

• Thefts and Gun Finds - A replica of a M16 assault rifle was stolen from a house in Madeley (Shropshire).  An air rifle was among items stolen during a spate of burglaries in Ripley (Derbyshire).

• Police recovered a firearm and ammunition during raids in Carlisle.  Police made three arrests after a shotgun and a military-style rifle were found at a property in Huyton (Merseyside).  A shotgun and ammunition were recovered from a garden in Lydgate (Oldham) (four men were arrested).

• Police seized a gun and heroin from a property in the Black Isle.  A semi-automatic machine gun, cannabis and other drugs were recovered during a police raid on a property in Ramsgate (Kent).  A Taser gun and cannabis were recovered by police from a property in Houghton Regis (Bedfordshire). An air rifle belonging to a former tenant was found at a property in Weston-super-Mare (Somerset) filled with drugs, faeces and rubbish.

• A woman was arrested after police found a prohibited stun gun under a bed at her home in Epping (Essex).

• Guns Used in Crime - A report revealed that the gun used in the attempted murder of a female police officer in Nottingham in 2006 was stolen from a British military base or smuggled from Afghanistan or Iraq.  Military police have launched Operation Plunder to prevent soldiers smuggling weapons and ammunition from Afghanistan and Iraq into Britain.

• The legacy of convicted father and son William Greenwood and Mitchell Greenwood who were jailed in 2004 for supplying deactivated guns with instructions and kits for their conversion to live firearms was reported by The Observer.  Guns from the two men have been traced to at least 65 crime scenes.

• Convictions (see also Imitation Guns and Airgun) - Two brothers face life sentences after being convicted of the attempted murder of a man who was shot in Lemington (Newcastle-upon-Tyne).

• Three people were jailed for terms of between four and nine years for their part in a fake kidnap plot involving an attempt to extort £300,000.  The two men involved had firearms, a 9mm gun and a sawn-off shotgun.

• A man from Southall (west London) was jailed for five years after pleading guilty to several charges of firearms and drugs possession.

• A man was given a 12-month suspended jail sentence after a pump-action shotgun, prohibited in Britain, was found in a military cabinet at his home in St Judes, Plymouth.  He was also ordered to complete 100 hours of unpaid work in the community.

• Airguns - A 16-year-old was shot in the head with a pellet gun in Cwmbran (two people have been arrested and two air weapons recovered).  Two elderly women were hit by airgun pellets in separate incidents in West Moors (Dorset).

• A woman who died after losing control of her car near Basildon (Essex) may have been the victim of an airgun attack, according to her family.

• A van driver was stopped by a gang of teenagers in near Tranent (East Lothian) who then damaged his windscreen with a shot from an airgun.

• A man was arrested after cars and other property were shot at from a house in Kells (Cumbria).

• Airguns (Convictions).  A teenager is facing a life sentence after admitting murder for battering his victim in the face with the butt of an airgun and then shooting him three times in the head (see August 2007 Incidents) in Winchburgh (West Lothian).

• A 17-year-old who shot a 9-year-old in the head and a 16-year-old in the eyelid with an air pistol in Edinburgh was given 225 hours community service.

• A man who pointed an airgun at police and threatened to shoot them in Bathgate (West Lothian) has been jailed for four years.

• A man was given a six-month jail term for a firearm and public order offence after he held a .22 air pistol in one hand and a steam iron in the other and said he would kill two victims in a verbal confrontation in Hartlepool.

• A fourteen-year-old schoolboy who shot another teenager in the leg with an airgun in a street in Harlow (Essex) was placed under supervision of a probation officer for 18 moths, a condition being that he attends offending behaviour work sessions.

• Two men have admitted shooting a man with an air rifle in Aberdeen.

• One of two men who terrified passers-by when violence flared between them at a Gloucester pub and were fined £1000 each and given 200 hours' unpaid community work had gone to his home and fetched an air rifle during the dispute.

• Imitation Guns - A man was arrested after police officers were confronted by a man with an imitation firearm making threats to kill in Leasowe (Wirral).

• Two teenage cousins faced charges of affray after an incident in Ribbleton (Lancashire) in which an imitation gun was allegedly involved.

• Paintball guns were used in attacks on a hotel in Tenbury Wells (Worcestershire) and on a police station and a car in Chippenham (Wiltshire).

• Police seized 31 BB guns at a shop in Oldham in a crackdown on BB and replica guns.  Thirty two BB guns were seized by police and trading standards officials from a car boot sale in Rufforth (York).

• Imitation Guns (Convictions) - A 17-year-old girl and two men have been jailed after a fellow employee of the girl's was robbed at gunpoint in Belvedere, south London.  Police found an imitation gun at a flat associated with the two men.

• A man has been detained for possessing an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence after an attack on a school minibus in Bradford.  He is to be transferred to a hospital to be assessed by a psychiatrist.

• A man admitted a number of offences after firing two shots from a replica pistol from his car in Dumbarton.

• A pensioner was sentenced to a suspended six months prison sentence after he fired an imitation firearm at youngsters near his garden in Stratford-upon-Avon (Warwickshire).

• Incidents Involving Animals - Gun attacks on animals reported in December included the killing of two pigeons at an allotment in Gorleston (Norfolk), the shooting dead of a dog in Salford, the death of two swans shot with an airgun in Inchinnan (Renfrewshire) and injuries to a number of cats in attacks with air rifles and, in one instance, a BB gun.

 

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