Three men armed with what looked like a handgun have robbed a convenience store in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. The trio threatened staff and demanded cash while brandishing the gun, before escaping with cash and alcohol.

A 12-year-old girl was found to have taken an imitation firearm that fired pellets to her high school in Manchester. Police were called and seized the weapon belonging to the girl's father, and the pupil was excluded while the incident was investigated.

Five males aged between 18 and 24 have been given Anti-Social Behaviour Orders banning them from being in certain areas of Oldbury and Quinton, West Midlands. The men were variously alleged to have attempted to throw a bollard from a motorway bridge onto the road; to have hit a woman with a chair at a fast food restaurant because of a 30-minute delay with the order; and to have threatened to kill the family of a supermarket worker. One of the men also reportedly held a gun to the head of a resident of the area and said, “Now you know what it’s like to have a gun to your head.”

Richard Fearn has pleaded guilty to using an imitation firearm to hold up a gold shop in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Fearn used a silver tube wrapped in a plastic bag to threaten the manager of the pawnbrokers, and escaped with £2,100.

Lauren Lafayette-Ede, 20, has been sentenced to four years in a young offenders' institution, her boyfriend Rhys Gregg-Ball has been jailed for eight years, and a 17-year-old has been sentenced to five years in a young offenders’ institution, for carrying out armed robberies on individuals selling watches throughout London. Lafayette-Ede contacted sellers of expensive goods through the internet and visited them in their homes, before letting her armed accomplices into the properties to carry out the robberies. In one attack, they held an Uzi submachine gun to the head of a victim, and in another discharged a taser to obtain the valuable items. They were arrested after a woman who was selling her diamond ring and her partner were able to overpower the robbers and call the police.

Michael Lloyd, 71, has been given a conditional discharge and been ordered to pay £120 costs for keeping three unlicensed shotguns in a locked cabinet at a warehouse in Bailiff Bridge, West Yorkshire. Police discovered the weapons after a planned search of the premises. The certificates for two of the guns had expired the day before the raid, but the other weapon belonged to a friend of Lloyd who had passed away in 2006, and was confiscated.

Four men have been jailed for a total of 44 years for their involvement in planning to use a remote-controlled car to bomb a Territorial Army base in Luton, Bedfordshire. The four men were arrested after a surveillance operation and a series of raids on their homes in the town. They were found to have discussed making an improvised explosive device for an attack on the centre and other potential targets, organised military training trips, gathered travel documentation and cash, and discussed sourcing a firearm.

Three men with a gun are reported to have assaulted a man after breaking into his house in Watford, Hertfordshire. They allegedly threatened the victim and escaped with cash, leaving him with minor injuries. Armed officers were sent to the scene and later ascertained that the assailants had not in fact used a firearm,  in what reported to be a targeted attack.

Police officers allegedly used a taser gun to arrest a suspect after a number of businesses were all raided in one night in Epworth, Lincolnshire. The incident followed a number of other break-ins and attacks of vandalism in the town over recent years.

Two men have carried out two armed robberies in the space of four days at businesses in Cambridgeshire. The masked pair threatened a worker with a gun and pepper spray, escaping on foot with alcohol, cigarettes and over £1,100 in cash from a convenience store that had also been robbed three months earlier. The men later used a stun gun and a pistol to threaten employees at a service station and stole an undisclosed amount of cash and cigarettes.