MOD guard stole AK-47 ‘as a souvenir’

 A Ministry of Defence guard stole a working AK-47 rifle from a museum at his barracks as a “souvenir”, a court heard, as he was spared jail.

Philip Bowler stored the Kalashnikov AKS-47M1 in his wardrobe after he took the gun from the Royal Military Police Museum.

Portsmouth Crown Court heard that the former Army serviceman took the rifle from the museum at Chichester Barracks, where he worked, when it closed in 2005, before deactivating it.

Judge Roger Hetherington spared Bowler the normally mandatory minimum five-year term for having an AK-47 and imposed a 16-month jail term suspended for two years, 100 hours’ community service and 20 rehabilitation days.