Following a tip off about teenagers with guns, police officers raided properties in Birmingham, West Midlands, discovering a cannabis factory at one address and recovering knives, nun-chucks and an air rifle at another. Click on media link to read full report.

Get Reading, 24 January 2012

An armed gang attacked a man in Southcote, Reading. The victim was assaulted as he walked home. The men punched him and brandished a firearm, but eventually left without stealing anything.

Two armed robbers raided a shop in Nuthall, Nottinghamshire. The offenders reportedly threatened staff with a knife and a suspected firearm before escaping with cash.

Daniel Hibbert, aged 41, was handed a suspended eighteen-month jail term and ordered to carry out 240 hours of unpaid work after he pleaded guilty to possession of a Taser and its ammunition, and drugs offences. In July this year, police searched Hibbert’s home in Buxton, Derbyshire and found a Taser, ammunition, cannabis, cocaine, GBL (a pre-drug) and GHB (liquid ecstasy). Several invoices were also recovered that showed Hibbert had imported the GBL from the Netherlands.

A member of the public handed into the police a shotgun and ammunition found in a disused house in Bootle, Merseyside. The gun is being tested by forensic experts.

Following a joint operation between police and Border Force officers, three men have been jailed for a total of 40 years for plotting to import drugs and guns into the UK through the Eurotunnel. After a car seized in France in August 2017 was found to contain two loaded firearms, ammunition, a sound moderator and 990g of high purity cocaine, Michael Mgbedike and Kennedy Udo were arrested at the scene. Officers arrested Emmanuel Okubote and an unnamed woman early the next morning and charged them with firearms offences. Subsequently, Okubote’s fingerprints were found on a carrier bag that contained a loaded firearm recovered from an address in Forest Hill, South East London in January 2018 and on a bag containing a firearm recovered from a vehicle in North London. In addition, his DNA was retrieved from one of the guns. The three men had made several trips to Amsterdam during the months of July and August 2017 and police believe they imported prohibited firearms and drugs on at least three occasions. In November last year, Okubote was sentenced to 23-and-a-half years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply firearms with intent to endanger life, conspiracy to possess ammunition with intent to endanger life, conspiracy to supply class A drugs and possessing ammunition with intent to endanger life. This month, Udo was jailed for eight-and-a-half years on being found guilty of conspiracy to supply drugs and being knowingly concerned in the fraudulent evasion of a prohibition on the importation of goods. Mgbedike was sentenced to eight years after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply class A drugs.

Kendell Farrell and Donroy Joseph have been jailed for 17 and 23 years respectively after pleading guilty to three charges of robbery, aggravated burglary and seven firearms offences. The pair carried out a series of armed attacks over two days on people in their homes in Birmingham, West Midlands. They woke one female victim up pointing a gun at her head and grabbing her two-year-old son in front of her before escaping with mobile phones and tablets. They also used the gun to threaten a man who had just returned from hospital, hitting him around the head and stabbing him in the stomach. They then broke into student accommodation, threatened a woman with a knife and a gun, and smothered her with a pillow before Joseph sexually assaulted her. Meanwhile Farrell went into another room and stabbed another woman in the groin and her with a gun, escaping with her phone and bank card. Police later found a BB gun and pellets during a search of Joseph’s home.newtown