Murder weapon gunsmith jailed for life

A MAN who supplied machine guns used in nine gangland murders was jailed for life yesterday — and the sentencing judge warned the death toll caused by his weapons would rise further.

Grant Wilkinson, aged 34, was ordered to serve a minimum term of 11 years after a jury found him guilty of running a gun factory supplying lethal Mac-10 weapons to criminals, mainly in London.

He adapted blank-firing replicas into live-firing guns in a garden shed in Berkshire before they were sold on and used by criminals including the gang that killed Pc Sharon Beshenivsky in Bradford in 2005.

Judge Zoe Smith, passing sentence at Reading Crown Court, said: “The scale of this criminal enterprise is unprecedented in this country. The roll call of deaths and injuries is horrific.

“Some 30 to 40 of these weapons are still unaccounted for, and regrettably but doubtlessly, the roll call of death and serious injury will continue to rise.”

Wilkinson set up his factory as a money-making enterprise in 2004, his trial heard. He modified the weapons in the backyard of The Briars, a derelict house at Three Mile Cross, near Reading, which he rented out to tenants as a cover for his criminality. The guns have since been linked to 52 of the 58 Mac-10 shooting incidents since 2004.

Denis Burke, of the Thames Valley Crown Prosecution Service said the racket “met the demand nationally of the criminal fraternity. The firearms have since been used in all of our big cities, especially London”.