Sentence will stand Guns kingpin serving time
An underworld armourer won’t face more time in jail.
Prosecutors said the 10- year sentence given to Andrew Steven was far too lenient.
Steven ran an illegal gun shop from his flat in Ayr’s Mill Street.
And, as we have already reported, he even stashed a sub- machine gun and rifle barrels just feet away in the River Ayr.
Appeal Court judges have now ruled his 10- year jail sentence was sound.
The former soldier reactivated a host of lethal weapons over 20 years and sold them on to serious organised crime figures.
Steven, 53, ran the ‘ cottage industry’ by reactivating guns that he had bought online.
These included a sten sub- machine gun, a Sig Sauer pistol and a rifle. One weapon – a King Cobra revolver – was discovered close to a murder scene in Glasgow in 1993.
Steven and the others eventually came under police surveillance.
Police raided Steven’s home in March 2015 seizing a haul of guns, tools and ammunition.
The arsenal included a deadly Colt M16 which could discharge 600 rounds a minute.
Steven admitted a total of 92 charges and he received a variety of jail terms, all to run concurrently.
Appeal court judges said the trial judge imposed a sentence close to the maximum in relation to each group, but did not impose that maximum because Steven was a first offender.
The sentences were ordered to run concurrently because the offending constituted a course of conduct.
Last week the Appeal Court ruled: “Having regard to all the circumstances of this case, whilst the court does regard the sentences as being lenient, it does not consider that they were unduly so. It will therefore refuse this Crown Appeal.”