Guns and ammo dealer locked up for 30 YEARS for fuelling 'death and mayhem'

A rogue firearms dealer who supplied illegal handguns and home-made bullets linked to more than 100 crime scenes including three murders has been jailed for 30 years.

Paul Edmunds, 66, imported a Colt pistol used in a fatal shooting at a London nightclub and supplied ammunition used in two other killings and an attempt to shoot down a police helicopter.

One round of unfired ammunition was found on the ground at the murder scene of 18-year-old Kenichi Phillips, who was shot dead in a Birmingham street in March 2016, at one of 107 crime scenes linked to the pensioner's trade.

The teenage shooting victim's parents were sat a few feet away from Edmunds in the public gallery today.

Edmunds, of Bristol Road, Hardwicke, Gloucestershire, was arrested at his home in 2015, where he had three armouries and made bullets to fit antique weapons.

The registered gun dealer, who said in an interview he did not care who he sold to, was found guilty in November of conspiracy to supply firearms and ammunition and smuggling banned Colt handguns into the UK from the United States.

Jailing 'cavalier' Edmunds, Judge Richard Bond told the pensioner: "You ran roughshod over your legal responsibilities as a registered firearms dealer."

In wider remarks calling for tighter firearms regulations, directed at MPs, the judge added: "Unfortunately it takes just one person, as this case shows, to act in breach of the trust placed in them.

"Death and mayhem follow."

WATCH: Police explain how Edmunds' trade worked

The judge told Edmunds: "You were at the top of the chain of supply of handguns and ammunition to criminal gangs.

"Without your actions the numerous handguns and hand-loaded ammunition would not have found their way on to the streets of the United Kingdom.

"Quite simply, you were the lynchpin to this conspiracy and without you it could not have been carried out."

Edmunds, standing in the dock dressed in a formal white shirt, stood silently and did not react as he was jailed.

A two-month re-trial earlier this year heard Edmunds and middleman Dr Mohinder Surdhar acted together to supply antique revolvers and custom-made ammunition to criminal gangs.

For his part, physiotherapist Surdhar, from Grove Lane, Handsworth, Birmingham, admitted conspiracy to supply firearms and ammunition between 2009 and 2015 before Edmunds' trial.

The 56-year-old will be sentenced on Friday.

However, father-of-two Edmunds, had denied hand-crafting bullets for use in supposedly obsolete vintage weapons, including 19th century revolvers, which he brought into the country legally.

But the jury saw through what the prosecution called a 'multiplicity of deception', also convicting the pensioner of possessing a prohibited air pistol and perverting the course of justice by filing down a bullet-making tool to destroy potential evidence.

As well as importing antique weapons, the gun fanatic also imported hundreds more modern prohibited firearms from the United States, having falsified customs paperwork.

The judge, in remarks on current gun legislation, said he had been 'aghast' to hear from one legally-registered firearms importer, who gave trial evidence, how packages were 'not always checked' by UK border officials.

He said this 'lax attitude', "means that those who can lawfully bring weapons into this country can do so without them being properly checked".

Judge Bond said: "Are the public aware that there is legislation to prevent the sale of scrap metal for cash, whilst an antique firearm can be bought and sold for cash, and the seller is not obliged to keep any record?"

Andrew Fisher QC, prosecuting, told the trial jury 'tell-tale' marks on ammunition found at crime scenes linked the rounds to tools used by Edmunds.

At sentencing, Mr Fisher added that since October 2017, there had been 13 more recoveries of weapons and ammunition linked to Edwards including a .38 calibre Colt pistol, found in Birmingham on November 6.

He added that of 280 guns known to have been imported, there was 'no trace' of 207 of those, adding "it can be properly inferred they have gone into the criminal market".

Edmunds, a former photographer, had denied unlawfully importing antique firearms into the UK, claiming he had never made and supplied live cartridges for the weapons.

But the court heard how Edmunds, who has two adult sons, supplied guns and live bullets to criminals through Dr Surdhar, who he met at a gun fair.

The jury were told Edmunds' bullets were recovered following the Birmingham murders of Derek Myers in 2015 and Mr Phillips, in 2016.

Detectives discovered that one weapon - imported on November 14 2013 - was used five weeks later in a Boxing Day fatal shooting at the Avalon nightclub in London.

Four of Edmunds' bullets were recovered from the victim's body.

Following the pensioner's arrest, 100,000 live rounds were seized from the armoury inside his garage, while seven wheelie bin-loads of gun and bullet components were recovered from a bedroom and attic.