Firearms enthusiast dies before terror trial

Philip Andrew Luty, 46, was once jailed for four years after making a semi-automatic sub-machinegun in a workshop at his Leeds home as research for a book.

He was due to face trial after he had denied three charges of making a record of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism on a day or days before May 21, 2009.

The offences alleged he made a record of such information in the first charge of a document entitled Expedient Home-made Firearms being an instruction manual for producing home-made firearms, the second relating to Expedient Home-made Firearms Volume 2 and the third relating to a document on ammunition.

He was also accused of possessing a prohibited weapon on May 20, 2009, consisting of a collection of pipes which could be screwed together to produce a firearm from which a bulleted cartridge could be discharged.

The Recorder of Leeds, Judge Peter Collier QC said yesterday at Leeds Crown Court he was satisfied that Luty, of Bedford Mount, Tinshill, Leeds had died on April 8 and the indictment would be endorsed accordingly, “which brings this matter to an end”.

Miss Riel Karmy-Jones, prosecuting, said Luty was understood to have died from cancer. When he was 33 Luty was jailed for four years at the same court after he admitted manufacturing a prohibited weapon and having ammunition without a certificate.

His then counsel told the court he believed the gun laws in Britain were draconian and pointless because he could show that it was possible to make a weapon such as a semi-automatic sub-machinegun with simple everyday tools and equipment, and as a protest had published in America the details of how to do it.

Jailing him for four years Judge Trevor Kent-Jones said he accepted Luty had not intended any sinister use of the weapon.