Court hears flat was ‘guns supermarket’

A couple turned their one-bedroomed flat into a guns supermarket stocked with a sub-machine gun and hundreds of live rounds, a British court heard yesterday.

And police there claim an Irishman was acting as “middle-man” in a weapons deal, Snaresbrook Crown Court heard.

Armed police recovered a deadly Mac II machine pistol and 50 varieties of ammunition from the Hackney, London, home of Patricia Cremin, aged 43, and Mark Downs, aged 38, the court was told.

Seven hundred live rounds and 500 bullets were found in the couple’s home - among them hundreds of banned “dum-dum” bullets which expand on impact.

Detectives moved in after watching a third defendant, Mark Van Dinh, aged 26, allegedly entering the flat to buy the deadly weapon along with ammunition. During a two-day stakeout, officers also saw Irish “middle-man” Laurence McCarthy, aged 27, enter and leave the building, it is claimed.

Prosecutor Sallie Bennett-Jenkins told the court: “Police entered the flat and found significant amounts of ammunition. They also found a bullet press, thunder flashes, signal flares and gun powder and a lethal Mach II sub-machine pistol.

“This was seized from a Nike rucksack alongside rounds of ammunition wrapped in a T-shirt.

“It could be said the flat had been turned into an armoury - a kind of retail ammunition depot.

“There seems to be an element of acceptance in this case that the buyer Mr Van Dinh and the seller Mr Downs were involved in the buying and selling of a gun and ammunition on the day in question.

“And yet the middle-man, the person we say introduced the parties to one another - Mr McCarthy - says he was at the house for perfectly innocent and unconnected reasons.

“It may be a matter of glaring common sense that was not the case,” she said.

She said police had watched as McCarthy handed a rucksack to Downs.

“It was from an identical looking bag that police recovered the Mac II pistol,” she added.

Van Dinh was seen entering the flat on the second day of observations, the court heard. Following his arrest they found pictures of the gun and ammunition on his mobile phone.

“The gun and ammunition found in the flat would have had a street value of many thousands of pounds,” the prosecutor said.

The four were arrested July 20 last year.

Downs, of Nye Bevan House Estate, Hackney, has admitted conspiring to sell “a vast quantity” of ammunition - a charge denied by Cremin.

Cremin, who was living with Downs at Nye Bevan House at the time but is from Arbour Road, Enfield, also denies possessing ammunition.

Downs and Cremin deny possessing the submachine pistol - but Downs admits an alternative charge of possession of a handgun.

The three male defendants deny conspiring to possess a firearm with intent to endanger life.

McCarthy, of no fixed address but originally from Co Limerick, and Van Dinh, of Latimer House, Beaconsfield Road, Tooting, London, further deny conspiring to possess a prohibited weapon.

All the charges relate to July 20 and 21 last year.

The trial continues.