Police draw a blank after gun spotted in film director’s house

FIFTY Shades of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson was left red-faced after police were called to her home when a passer-by spotted a machine gun on a desk inside the house.
Sam and Aaron Taylor-JohnsonSam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Sam and Aaron Taylor-Johnson

The gun, a deactivated M16 assault rifle, had been given to the film-maker and photographer as part of an art project.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed officers were called after the gun was spotted through a window of the north London house shortly before midnight on Thursday.

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Taylor-Johnson, who is working on the film version of the erotic best-seller, met her actor husband Aaron when he played John Lennon in her Beatles film Nowhere Boy.

A spokeswoman for the couple said: “The firearm was located in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s basement studio and has been confirmed as a certified and fully decommissioned M16 assault rifle that was provided to Mrs Taylor-Johnson by the international charity Peace One Day as part of an art project entitled Peace One Day M16.

“The project, curated by Jake Chapman, consists of new works by some of the most celebrated names in contemporary art, all of whom are transforming fully decommissioned M16 assault rifles.”

No arrests have been made, and a spokesman for Peace One Day confirmed the gun would be auctioned at Bonhams in London on October 17 as part of a fundraising drive.

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Taylor-Johnson is not the first celebrity to attract police attention over a firearms alert. Spaced actor Nick Frost, who played Territorial Army obsessive Mike in the Channel 4 comedy, sparked a police raid when he took a gun home to practise a scene.

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