Raphael Salau and Victor Agostinho have been jailed for nine years each for a violent attack on two workers during the armed robbery of a business in Newham, east London. The masked pair pushed an imitation gun into the chest of a staff member, telling him it was real and demanding cash. When the victim shouted for help, the gun was pointed at the neck of a second employee who pushed it away before both victims were sprayed in he face with liquid ammonia and the assailants fled in a getaway vehicle. They were witnessed and followed by a passer-by and an off-duty police officer who provided a description of the vehicle that led to their arrest less than two hours later. The pair were found in possession of a bottle of ammonia, an air pistol and ball bearings as well as a handwritten note demanding cash and threatening to shoot.

Tyson Newland has been jailed for nine years after pleading guilty to possessing a handgun and ammunition and Dominique Alexander has pleaded guilty to possessing a sawn-off shotgun and ammunition in north London. Firearms officers recovered the handgun after they stopped Newland as he was travelling in his his car and he attempted to get rid of a sock containing the weapon while struggling with police. The investigation led police to the property occupied by Alexander and her daughter at which they found the illegally-shortened shotgun and 30 rounds of ammunition.

Malachi Lawrence has been jailed for six years for keeping a loaded gun, a cannabis factory, ammunition and a stun gun at his home in Birmingham, West Midlands. Police discovered the drugs, ammunition and taser during a search of the property, while the gun was found in a search of his person that revealed the illegal firearm hidden in his underwear.

A man with a gun has held up a travel agents in Boston, Lincolnshire. He threatened staff and escaped on foot with cash, leaving the victims shaken but uninjured. A 28-year-old woman has been arrested suspicion of robbery and a 61-year-old man was also arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit robbery.

Lyndon Stein has been jailed for 13 years after carrying out a series of robberies throughout England in one seven-week period and engaging in heavy drug use after he escaped from prison in Buckingham. After his escape from the minimum-security institution he used an imitation gun constructed from a tube place inside a plastic bag and sometimes a knife to threaten mainly female members of staff at shops and banks. He made threats to kill and shoot and escaped with a total of £34,000, before he was eventually arrested after robbing a convenience store in his home town.

Henry Gaskin has been jailed for five and a half years after pleading guilty to possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence on a travellers' site in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. He shot a 21-year-old man in the abdomen with a walking stick built to fire .410 bore shotgun cartridges, leaving him in need of many weeks of hospital treatment to remove 16 shotgun pellets from around his heart, and from his kidney, liver and lungs, and to repair tears to his stomach and intestines. Police recovered the dismantled walking stick and four cartridges in a search but as the victim would not testify, neither Gaskin, nor his daughter and son Sammy Josephine Gaskin and Henry Gaskin, could be charged with attempted murder.

The body of a man who went missing with his licensed shotgun after being accused of sexual offences has been found shot dead around 30 miles from his home in Worcester. The 53-year-old was discovered by a member of the public with his gun four days after he was seen leaving his home in distressed state when police questioned him about the allegations made against him. He was a licensed shotgun holder and survival expert who often went camping in remote areas, and it had been hoped he may have been doing this when he went missing.

Armed officers were deployed after reports of a man with a firearm in Exmouth, Devon. A 24-year-old man was arrested after a three-hour search on suspicion of an aggravated burglary, which is believed to have involved four to six people and during which a pellet gun was allegedly fired.

A 39-year-old man has been arrested after he prevented another man from leaving a property in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. He held the victim captive for four hours after police went to the house to reports of concerns for his safety, but he eventually surrendered and was arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment. Officers also recovered a gun from the house, but it had not been discharged and no one was injured.

A gun was reportedly brandished by one man at another and towards onlookers during an argument between the two men on a residential street in Taunton, Somerset. Police were called to the scene and after a two-hour search officers arrested a man on suspicion of possessing a firearm in a public place and drink-driving.