Maurice Allen, 47, and Damien Cobain, 41 of Durham Police force were charged with misconduct in public office and remanded on unconditional bail until they appear for trial at Newcastle Crown Court on September 25.
PC Allen who has served the police for nearly 29 years was also charged with 16 counts of thefts related to various firearms. Cobain had served with the force for eight years. Both were exposed after the owner of a weapon questioned during a robbery revealed he had bought a gun direct from the police.
An investigation was launched in February by Durham Police’s professional standards department eventually leading to the officers being suspended and then arrested.
British police officers have a history of involvement in gun enabled crime as described in the Philip Etienne and Martin Maynard (these names are pseudonyms) book - The Infiltrators. The controversial publication reveals the true story of how in covert police operations officers posing as drug dealers dealt in guns, stolen high-performance cars, stolen passports and actually traded vast quantities of drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and crack.
Other books like Untouchables—Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism in Scotland Yard, by Michael Gillard and Laurie Flynn also shed light on how the British police recruit, train and then pay colluding African agents like Delroy Denton to sell drugs and guns in the African community.
Denton then went on to rape and murder 24-year-old trainee beautician Marcia Lawes by stabbing her 18 times after breaking into her Brixton residence
In the case of British police officers, Allen and Cobain, evidence already shared in the public domain strongly suggests that their actions were primarily motivated by a desire to profit from gun crime. Their long term theft and subsequent sale of weapons reveals a callous contempt for life and total disregard for the potential harm they could cause innocent people – especially young children.
In 2008, a 23-year-old man called Ellis Hammond living in southeast London hit the news after his US delivery for a Taser weapon was intercepted by authorities. Hammond was a serving Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) at the time.
It was reported that “A search of his home uncovered a CS gas canister, a police retractable baton, a knuckle duster, eight combat knives, four BB guns, one replica AK47 assault rifle and one pair of police issue handcuffs. Along with the hardware was British National Party literature, 25-30 imported US t-shirts bearing nazi and white power symbols and hardline racist and nazi slogans, a copy of The Turner Diaries, the book by the late William Pearce that has served as a blueprint for nazi terrorism in the USA and, to top it off, a BNP membership card.
Simon Darby, a BNP spokesman, said: “We have dozens of police members and that is just the ones who tell us what they do. Some of our members are quite senior, above inspector level.”
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) conceded that some members will have gone undetected.
A national newspaper reported that workmates “covered up for the police officer when the BNP supporter was caught with an arsenal of weapons”
Hammond admitted firearms charges and was left off with a conditional discharge.
Toyin Agbetu, head of social policy at Ligali said; “the distinction between Police and BNP was already blurred, now with both engaging in armed criminality it becomes essential we as a community organise for self defense”.
Today those who supply the lethal weapons to young Africans are varied. The criminal armourers range from officers working for the British police and army to middle class european families and Asian drug dealers.
- In 2000, an arsenal of weapons was reported ‘stolen’ from a Ministry of Defense armoury at Larkhill barracks in Wiltshire and sold to criminal gangs across the UK. Two of the army issue handguns from the haul of 28 Browning handguns and 12-bore shotguns were found alongside a silencer fitted Mach 10 submachine gun in the possession of a violent criminal gang dubbed the ‘African Crew’ by the media.
- In 2003, two Asian drug dealers were jailed for running a weapons factory in Birmingham. Shabir Hussain, 29, of Fladbury Crescent, Selly Oak, Birmingham, and Mohammed Shabir, 31, of Park Lane East, Tipton used the basement of their homes to convert blank firing pistols into fully-working guns and supplied weapons to criminals across the UK in areas such as Manchester and Bristol.
- In January 2004, father and son William Mitchell Greenwood, 76, and Mitchell Verne Greenwood, 42, from South Wingfield, Derbyshire were found guilty of supplying criminals with hundreds of deactivated guns and “kits” to convert them into live weapons. During 1998 and 1999, the Greenwoods offered an array of sub-machine guns and pistols to detectives. The Police who secured the arrests of 40 other people and recovered a total of 420 firearms following their investigations estimate as many as 3,000 weapons sold by the family were likely to still be in the hands of criminals.
- In December 2004, former IT specialist Michael Patrick, 42, of Halter Slade, Wigston, was jailed after being filmed by Sky News selling an Uzi 9mm gun to an undercover journalist for £2,000 in Chiswick, west London.
- In May 2005, Lance Corporals Michael White and Anthony Creswick bought and sold illegal pistols and ammunition while on a tour of duty with the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment based at Warminster, Wiltshire. Corporal Darren Clemie is said to have offered them 30g of cocaine for two pistols, which the British soldiers intended to sell on for a profit. Lance Corporal White has admitted charges relating to the buying and selling of weapons and ammunition and supplying cocaine. Lance Corporal Brent Campbell has admitted a single charge of attempting to buy two semi-automatic pistols.
- In 2006, a gang of european gun smugglers were jailed after their weapons factory was broken up by a police investigation code named Operation Carbon. Robert Paul Tyrer, aged 51, of Hyde Road, his brother Jamie Richard Tyrer, aged 36, also of Hyde Road and 55-year-old Kenneth Lloyd of Stockport Road imported blank-firing and gas pressure pistols from Germany and took them to British firm, DMC Engineering on Pollard Street, Ancoats, where Qualified engineer David McCulloch converted them into live-firing weapons.
Detective Inspector John Lyons from the Armed Crime Unit, said: “The firearms imported were bought for between £50 to £80 each and by the time they were converted were sold on for up to £700… They were used across the country and a number of them have been linked to criminal incidents in Merseyside, Manchester and further afield.”
- In May 2006, three Lithuanian men caught smuggling an “assassin’s armoury” of converted tear gas guns into Britain. Andrius Gurskas, 26, of no fixed address, Orestas Bublilauskas, 34, of Chigwell, Essex and Darius Stankunas, 34, from Sheffield had hidden twelve Baikal semi automatic pistols fitted with silencers and a large amount of ammunition in the modified fuel tank of a Vauxhall Astra.
- In August 2006, Andrius Rauba, 36 was arrested after his house was raided and evidence found proving he had been buying low-powered Baikal “alarm pistols” permitted by Lithuanian law for £10 and then converting them and even fitting silencers before selling them on for £300. By the time they reached the UK, British police believe they were retailing for around £1,500 a time.
- In June 2007, registered gun dealer Michael Shepherd, 56, was found not guilty at the Old Bailey of 13 charges involving vintage guns advertised on the internet. He was arrested after police from Operation Mokpo raided his home in Dartford, Kent in September 2006, where they found about 900 guns. The Elvis fanatic and former carpenter was charged after selling guns to two undercover officers and providing bullet components. A legal technicality meant that his defending QC, Ian Glen, could successfully argue that selling components for bullets was not against the law because all the parts were freely available. Mr Shepherd’s firearm’s registration has been suspended by Kent police.
- In July 2007, two men were jailed for trying to smuggle two Czech assault rifles along with 460 rounds of ammunition into the UK. The guns which had been broken down into components were discovered during the search of a car at Dover docks.
In July 2007, officers from the Thames Valley Police force seized weapons, ammunition and gun-making tools during a two-week long search of outbuildings and land behind a Berkshire property on Basingstoke Road, Three Mile Cross, south of Reading. Police said two outbuildings at the rear of the house appeared to have been used as a workshop and testing centre to manufacture both ammunition and firearms.
- In December 2007, Lance Corporal Ross Phillips, Lance Corporal Ben Whitfield and Private Shane Pleasant were jailed their role in an illegal gun smuggling syndicate run by British troops in Iraq. The soldiers were from the 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment. Sentencing, Judge Advocate General Colin Burn said the offences were “very serious” and that the men “to a greater or lesser degree were at the end of a chain which started with smuggling lethal weapons out of Iraq for profit.”. The money-making plot to smuggle guns out of Iraq to organised crime syndicates in Germany saw at least one British soldier trade handguns such as Glock pistols for drugs on at least six occasions. The drugs were then sold onto other British soldiers serving in Iraq.
- In 2008, Grant Wilkinson was imprisoned for running an illegal arms factory converting replica submachine guns into lethal weapons.
- In September 2009, Paul Alexander, a 53 year old retired British army sergeant and martial arts expert who trained in jungle warfare and claims to have worked with the SAS pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, converting imitation firearms into real guns, possessing or manufacturing prohibited ammunition, cultivating a cannabis plant and money laundering. He lived in a £2.5 million mansion, had more than 33 different aliases.
Alexander converted replica guns at factories in an Essex village and Bath and then sold them for as little as £1,500 a time, complete with ammunition, silencers and carrying cases, in what police have described as “assassination kits”. A police raid on his country mansion, which he took on with a £9,000 deposit in cash and paid another £3,800 a month in rent despite no evidence of him ever having had a proper job since leaving the army, uncovered 28 firearms and more than 10,000 bullets.
External Links
Gun sale probe officers in courtThe InfiltratorsPayout for undercover police shot by drugs gangBNP weapon stash racist was copperArmed racist Ellis Hammonds police links kept from court
Man who ran illegal gun factory sentenced to lifeAnalysis: Where the guns come from
PC Allen who has served the police for nearly 29 years was also charged with 16 counts of thefts related to various firearms. Cobain had served with the force for eight years. Both were exposed after the owner of a weapon questioned during a robbery revealed he had bought a gun direct from the police.
An investigation was launched in February by Durham Police’s professional standards department eventually leading to the officers being suspended and then arrested.
British police officers have a history of involvement in gun enabled crime as described in the Philip Etienne and Martin Maynard (these names are pseudonyms) book - The Infiltrators. The controversial publication reveals the true story of how in covert police operations officers posing as drug dealers dealt in guns, stolen high-performance cars, stolen passports and actually traded vast quantities of drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and crack.
Other books like Untouchables—Dirty Cops, Bent Justice and Racism in Scotland Yard, by Michael Gillard and Laurie Flynn also shed light on how the British police recruit, train and then pay colluding African agents like Delroy Denton to sell drugs and guns in the African community.
Denton then went on to rape and murder 24-year-old trainee beautician Marcia Lawes by stabbing her 18 times after breaking into her Brixton residence
In the case of British police officers, Allen and Cobain, evidence already shared in the public domain strongly suggests that their actions were primarily motivated by a desire to profit from gun crime. Their long term theft and subsequent sale of weapons reveals a callous contempt for life and total disregard for the potential harm they could cause innocent people – especially young children.
In 2008, a 23-year-old man called Ellis Hammond living in southeast London hit the news after his US delivery for a Taser weapon was intercepted by authorities. Hammond was a serving Police Community Support Officer (PCSO) at the time.
It was reported that “A search of his home uncovered a CS gas canister, a police retractable baton, a knuckle duster, eight combat knives, four BB guns, one replica AK47 assault rifle and one pair of police issue handcuffs. Along with the hardware was British National Party literature, 25-30 imported US t-shirts bearing nazi and white power symbols and hardline racist and nazi slogans, a copy of The Turner Diaries, the book by the late William Pearce that has served as a blueprint for nazi terrorism in the USA and, to top it off, a BNP membership card.
Simon Darby, a BNP spokesman, said: “We have dozens of police members and that is just the ones who tell us what they do. Some of our members are quite senior, above inspector level.”
The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) conceded that some members will have gone undetected.
A national newspaper reported that workmates “covered up for the police officer when the BNP supporter was caught with an arsenal of weapons”
Hammond admitted firearms charges and was left off with a conditional discharge.
Toyin Agbetu, head of social policy at Ligali said; “the distinction between Police and BNP was already blurred, now with both engaging in armed criminality it becomes essential we as a community organise for self defense”.
Chain of Death: Grant Wilkinson, the Mac 10 submachine gun, Delroy Denton (S011 agent for British Police force)
Where the guns come from
Today those who supply the lethal weapons to young Africans are varied. The criminal armourers range from officers working for the British police and army to middle class european families and Asian drug dealers. - In 2000, an arsenal of weapons was reported ‘stolen’ from a Ministry of Defense armoury at Larkhill barracks in Wiltshire and sold to criminal gangs across the UK. Two of the army issue handguns from the haul of 28 Browning handguns and 12-bore shotguns were found alongside a silencer fitted Mach 10 submachine gun in the possession of a violent criminal gang dubbed the ‘African Crew’ by the media.
- In 2003, two Asian drug dealers were jailed for running a weapons factory in Birmingham. Shabir Hussain, 29, of Fladbury Crescent, Selly Oak, Birmingham, and Mohammed Shabir, 31, of Park Lane East, Tipton used the basement of their homes to convert blank firing pistols into fully-working guns and supplied weapons to criminals across the UK in areas such as Manchester and Bristol.
- In January 2004, father and son William Mitchell Greenwood, 76, and Mitchell Verne Greenwood, 42, from South Wingfield, Derbyshire were found guilty of supplying criminals with hundreds of deactivated guns and “kits” to convert them into live weapons. During 1998 and 1999, the Greenwoods offered an array of sub-machine guns and pistols to detectives. The Police who secured the arrests of 40 other people and recovered a total of 420 firearms following their investigations estimate as many as 3,000 weapons sold by the family were likely to still be in the hands of criminals.
- In December 2004, former IT specialist Michael Patrick, 42, of Halter Slade, Wigston, was jailed after being filmed by Sky News selling an Uzi 9mm gun to an undercover journalist for £2,000 in Chiswick, west London.
- In May 2005, Lance Corporals Michael White and Anthony Creswick bought and sold illegal pistols and ammunition while on a tour of duty with the 3rd Battalion The Yorkshire Regiment based at Warminster, Wiltshire. Corporal Darren Clemie is said to have offered them 30g of cocaine for two pistols, which the British soldiers intended to sell on for a profit. Lance Corporal White has admitted charges relating to the buying and selling of weapons and ammunition and supplying cocaine. Lance Corporal Brent Campbell has admitted a single charge of attempting to buy two semi-automatic pistols.
- In 2006, a gang of european gun smugglers were jailed after their weapons factory was broken up by a police investigation code named Operation Carbon. Robert Paul Tyrer, aged 51, of Hyde Road, his brother Jamie Richard Tyrer, aged 36, also of Hyde Road and 55-year-old Kenneth Lloyd of Stockport Road imported blank-firing and gas pressure pistols from Germany and took them to British firm, DMC Engineering on Pollard Street, Ancoats, where Qualified engineer David McCulloch converted them into live-firing weapons.
Detective Inspector John Lyons from the Armed Crime Unit, said: “The firearms imported were bought for between £50 to £80 each and by the time they were converted were sold on for up to £700… They were used across the country and a number of them have been linked to criminal incidents in Merseyside, Manchester and further afield.”
- In May 2006, three Lithuanian men caught smuggling an “assassin’s armoury” of converted tear gas guns into Britain. Andrius Gurskas, 26, of no fixed address, Orestas Bublilauskas, 34, of Chigwell, Essex and Darius Stankunas, 34, from Sheffield had hidden twelve Baikal semi automatic pistols fitted with silencers and a large amount of ammunition in the modified fuel tank of a Vauxhall Astra.
- In August 2006, Andrius Rauba, 36 was arrested after his house was raided and evidence found proving he had been buying low-powered Baikal “alarm pistols” permitted by Lithuanian law for £10 and then converting them and even fitting silencers before selling them on for £300. By the time they reached the UK, British police believe they were retailing for around £1,500 a time.
- In June 2007, registered gun dealer Michael Shepherd, 56, was found not guilty at the Old Bailey of 13 charges involving vintage guns advertised on the internet. He was arrested after police from Operation Mokpo raided his home in Dartford, Kent in September 2006, where they found about 900 guns. The Elvis fanatic and former carpenter was charged after selling guns to two undercover officers and providing bullet components. A legal technicality meant that his defending QC, Ian Glen, could successfully argue that selling components for bullets was not against the law because all the parts were freely available. Mr Shepherd’s firearm’s registration has been suspended by Kent police.
- In July 2007, two men were jailed for trying to smuggle two Czech assault rifles along with 460 rounds of ammunition into the UK. The guns which had been broken down into components were discovered during the search of a car at Dover docks.
In July 2007, officers from the Thames Valley Police force seized weapons, ammunition and gun-making tools during a two-week long search of outbuildings and land behind a Berkshire property on Basingstoke Road, Three Mile Cross, south of Reading. Police said two outbuildings at the rear of the house appeared to have been used as a workshop and testing centre to manufacture both ammunition and firearms.
- In December 2007, Lance Corporal Ross Phillips, Lance Corporal Ben Whitfield and Private Shane Pleasant were jailed their role in an illegal gun smuggling syndicate run by British troops in Iraq. The soldiers were from the 3rd Battalion, The Yorkshire Regiment. Sentencing, Judge Advocate General Colin Burn said the offences were “very serious” and that the men “to a greater or lesser degree were at the end of a chain which started with smuggling lethal weapons out of Iraq for profit.”. The money-making plot to smuggle guns out of Iraq to organised crime syndicates in Germany saw at least one British soldier trade handguns such as Glock pistols for drugs on at least six occasions. The drugs were then sold onto other British soldiers serving in Iraq.
- In 2008, Grant Wilkinson was imprisoned for running an illegal arms factory converting replica submachine guns into lethal weapons.
- In September 2009, Paul Alexander, a 53 year old retired British army sergeant and martial arts expert who trained in jungle warfare and claims to have worked with the SAS pleaded guilty to two counts of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, converting imitation firearms into real guns, possessing or manufacturing prohibited ammunition, cultivating a cannabis plant and money laundering. He lived in a £2.5 million mansion, had more than 33 different aliases.
Alexander converted replica guns at factories in an Essex village and Bath and then sold them for as little as £1,500 a time, complete with ammunition, silencers and carrying cases, in what police have described as “assassination kits”. A police raid on his country mansion, which he took on with a £9,000 deposit in cash and paid another £3,800 a month in rent despite no evidence of him ever having had a proper job since leaving the army, uncovered 28 firearms and more than 10,000 bullets.
Merchants of Death (top, downwards): Kenneth Lloyd, Robert Tyrer and Jamie Tyrer, Shabir Hussain and Mohammed Shabir, William Mitchell Greenwood and Mitchell Verne Greenwood
External Links
Gun sale probe officers in courtThe InfiltratorsPayout for undercover police shot by drugs gangBNP weapon stash racist was copperArmed racist Ellis Hammonds police links kept from court
Ligali is not responsible for the content of third party sites
Man who ran illegal gun factory sentenced to lifeAnalysis: Where the guns come from
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Click here to speak out or read (1) comments about this articleOfficers posing as drug dealers dealt in guns, stolen high-performance cars, stolen passports and actually traded vast quantities of drugs such as cocaine, ecstasy and crack.
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