Police have sights on illegal weapons

Until recently people could buy blank firing revolvers, mainly used at sporting events, without having to get a licence. However, some pistols have been converted so they can fire live bullets and that type is being banned.

Two Olympic .380 BBM revolvers, which were handed in at Hessle police station, were put on show at Queens Gardens police station in Hull yesterday to publicise the amnesty – which lasts until June 4.

Anyone caught with such revolvers after that could face a five-year prison sentence under the Firearms Act 1968, officers said.

Mr Myhill said the guns would be first be chopped up and then melted down at a smelting works in Huddersfield. The metal could then be used to make anything from girders to rails. He said: 'They have been on the market some time and the Forensic Science Service were getting quite a few in that had been converted and used by the criminal fraternity.'

The guns can be handed in at police stations across the Humberside Police area.

Picture: Terry Carrott.