Man spared prison after rifle, bullets and drugs found in raid

POLICE found a rifle with dum dum style expanding bullets and 46 cannabis plants when they raided a man’s house.

Mark Knight, 46, yesterday pleaded guilty to possessing the ammunition and a firearm without a certificate as well as producing cannabis when he appeared at Caernarfon Crown Court.

Prosecutor Claire Jones said Knight’s home in Ty’n Gors, Cemaes Bay, Anglesey, was raided on June 30 last year.

The gun 22 calibre self-loading rifle had been tested and fired by police and was found to be in working order, she said.

Miss Jones said the gun was kept in a caravan and a total of four American bullets which expand on impact in Knight’s home.

Defence barrister Michael Davies said the gun was a “memento” which he’d received from his uncle and had been kept for 10 years.

Mr Davies said: “It might have been a fairground gun. He had no criminal intention. He just had it to remind him of his uncle.”

Mr Davies said that Knight formerly ran a kitchen fitting business but suffered from a condition known as restless-leg syndrome, a debilitating illness which prevented him from working.

He had taken cannabis to alleviate his painful condition and the drug allowed him little sleep.

Mr Davies said: “He was a useless cultivator of cannabis. He’d given up on it. There was no evidence the gun had been fired by him.”

Recorder Simon Mills said: “The illegal possession of firearms and ammunition is of great concern not only in North Wales but UK-wide.

“In the wrong hands it could have led to death or catastrophic injury or used by criminals to threaten or endanger life.”

Warning Knight that he had come close to being sent to prison, he gave him a 16-month sentence suspended for two years and ordered him to attend a thinking skills course with the probation service.

There was an order made for the destruction of the drugs, ammunition and gun.