The film director, her toyboy and a police swoop over the assault rif le in their basement
THEY have never been the most conventional of couples.
But even for Sam Taylor-Johnson, 47, and her husband Aaron, 24, alarming your neighbours with an M16 assault rifle takes some beating.
A passer-by spotted the weapon through a basement window of the £15million London home owned by the artist-turned- director and her actor husband – triggering a full-scale raid by armed police.
It was only after a dozen heavily armed officers had stormed the property – detaining two innocent bystanders for an hour in the meantime – that the riddle of the high-powered weapon was explained.
The couple’s agent revealed the M16 rifle was a ‘certified and fully decommissioned’ one given to Mrs Taylor-Johnson by, of all unlikely things, an international peace charity.
According to a Metropolitan Police source, the couple now face being talked to by officers for wasting police time and resources.
They will also be advised that leaving the rifle in full view of the street was ‘irresponsible’.
Neither Mrs Taylor- Johnson, who is directing the film version of Fifty Shades Of Grey, nor her husband, best known
‘Bundled into an unmarked car’
for wielding an array of lethal weapons in the gory Kick-Ass films, were at home when the incident happened.
The alarm was triggered shortly before midnight when a man claiming to be an ex-Iranian soldier spotted the M16 rifle on an office table in the basement window of their home in North London.
A neighbour, Phil Cowan, 47, was passing at the time and saw armed officers swoop on the house. He said: ‘I was just walking my dog and saw an old man looking down into the couple’s basement window.
‘I looked down and was shocked at what I saw – a gun lying on a desk.
‘The older gentleman said he was an ex-Iranian soldier and said it was a machine gun. He called the police. Two minutes later we were bundled into the back of an unmarked police car.
‘Then a whole load of armed police came. I’ve never seen anything like it. They covered the area brandishing guns. Nobody appeared to be in to let them into the property so they deliberately let the alarm off.
‘They then had to wake up a magistrate judge to get a warrant to enter the property. I believe they broke in round the back. When I returned the next morning, the gun was gone from the desk.’
He added: ‘I think it’s shocking that so much police time and money was wasted. As a resident in the same street here for almost 20 years I am appalled that anyone should think it’s acceptable behaviour to possess guns of this type – much less leave them on public display.
‘The area is a family orientated one with low crime and a great sense of community.’
A police spokesman later said officers did not break into the property because they were let in by a friend with a key.
Yesterday the couple’s spokesman said the gun had been given to Mrs Tay- lor-Johnson by the charity Peace One Day, which turns decommissioned rifles into works of art to promote non-violence, and was in her basement studio.
Mrs Taylor-Johnson, formerly known as Sam Taylor-Wood, began working with Peace One Day in 2012 when she and a number of other artists agreed to transform an AK-47 assault rifle into a work of art.
They are now working on a similar project involving M16 assault rifles.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: ‘Local officers and officers from the Met’s Firearms Unit attended and were let into the property to examine the firearm. It was confirmed that the firearm was a deactivated M16 rifle.’