The Infer Trust makes every effort to record and categorise the firearms incidents reported in the UK but we recognise that it is not a complete record.
If you are aware of a gun incident which is not listed please notify us. You can do this by either sending us the link for an on line report, or a hard copy of a press article to our address.
BBC News, 30 April 2013Two prisoners escaped when the van in which they were being transported to court for sentencing was attacked by a group of armed men as it travelled through Salford, Greater Manchester. A car rammed the side of the van, and a group of masked men armed with axes and a sawn-off shotgun used the weapons to smash the van windows. The driver was dragged from the vehicle and the prisoners escaped on a getaway motorbike and in a car which were later found abandoned. The van guards and another prisoner were left shaken but unhurt by the attack and a man and a woman have been arrested. Both men were later found and arrested and a number of other people were also arrested and charged for their involvement in the ambush (Daily Mail, 10 May 2013).
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Get Rea
Get Reading, 26 July 2010 Martin Wynne has been jailed for 12 months for brandishing a gun in a bar in West Reading. He got involved with another group of customers and went home and collected a ball-bearing handgun that looked like a genuine weapon. He returned to the bar and confronted the barmaid and threatened to shoot a man he had grabbed earlier. He admitted one count of having an imitation firearm with intent to threaten.
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Basildon Canvey Southend Echo
A man allegedly forced his way into a home in Southend, Essex and threatened the male occupant with an Airsoft gun while trying to steal his phone. Click on media link to read full report.
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A firearm was reportedly recovered from an address in Yiewsley, West London where armed police arrested two men on suspicion of robbery. Enquiries are ongoing.
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Telegraph and Argus
Jahanzeb Ismail has been jailed for five and a half years after attempting to rob a petrol station in Bradford. Ismail used part of a vacuum cleaner as a replica firearm, attempting to hold up the cashier. However, his victim -- who believed he was under threat of a firearm -- activated his panic button and Ismail fled emtpy-handed. Ismail, who had apparently been under the influence of alcohol and drugs during the attempted robbery, was also jailed for seven years in 1999 for manslaughter after he accidentally shot and killed a woman with a handgun.
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Metro
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BBC News
Douglas Urquhart has been handed a custodial sentence of 46 months after admitting possession of four illegal handguns and four air rifles without a certificate. In May this year, police officers searching Urquhart’s home in Loanhead, Midlothian, discovered four blank-firing starting pistols in a secure room in a basement garage. The court heard that the pistols, ordered online from Spain, are illegal in the UK because they can easily be converted to fire real ammunition. Urquhart had previously applied for a shotgun licence and an air weapons licence; he was denied the shotgun licence because he did not have a sporting need and he claimed not to have realised his application for the air gun licence had been rejected.
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Liverpool Echo
Police attended a residential area in Litherland, Merseyside following reports of shots being fired, allegedly by the riders of two scrambler bikes. No one was hurt, although one house sustained damage. Officers investigating the incident later found a firearm on nearby land.
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Mail Online
Armed police officers responded following reports of a man holding a woman hostage at a residential address in Dartford, Kent. A negotiator tried to engage with the man but, after a stand-off, two shots were fired inside the property. The man and woman were taken to hospital with wounds believed to have been caused by a handgun. The woman has since died from her injuries, while the man remains in a serious condition. Kent Police has made a mandatory referral to the Independent Office for Police Conduct as officers were at the scene at the time of the shooting.
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