Bid to strip ammo-stash squaddie of assets
An assets’ blitz on a disgraced Paisley soldier will go ahead later this year.
Shamed Royal Highland Fusilier Brian Wright, 31, was jailed for 30 months last February after he was caught with a massive stash of ammo, drugs and money at his parents’ home in the town.
Wright, from Greenhill Road, Ferguslie Park, had amassed magazines of live 9mm ammunition, boxes of 9mm bullets, boxes of shotgun shells, around £15,500 worth of ecstasy in crystaline form, £ 2,900 in cash and a belt of 150 blank rounds.
The authorities revealed they were chasing the former combat infantryman under tough proceeds of crime legislation.
Now the serviceman is facing a series of hearings beginning in September, as the Crown step up their efforts to have him stripped of his ill gotten gains.
Defence agent John Brannigan said: “Progress is being made with several sources, however, certain witnesses are proving difficult and, when contacted in this matter, I have been met with short shrift.”
Mr Brannigan asked for between 12 and 16 weeks to gather necessary information for the court, which was accepted by fiscal depute John Penman.
Sheriff Susan Sinclair said the first hearing will start in September, with two further hearings slated for October and November, where prosecutors will set out how much is being sought in the recovery action.
Wright, who served in Afghanistan, had stashed the gear in a holdall and carrier bags in a wardrobe at the house he shared with his parents, Alan and Anne, in Ferguslie Park.
However, he was rumbled when cops from Paisley’s Mill Street office, acting on intelligence from a confidential informant, turned over the soldier’s room after obtaining a search warrant in the bust in November 2015.