Posted on 07/22/2009 11:05:38 AM PDT by Stoat
Martin Bentham, Home Affairs Editor
Specialist officers raided the girl's home in Croydon
A 13-year-old girl has been arrested by armed Met police after a sub-machinegun was found in her wardrobe.
The weapon was discovered when a specialist anti-gang crime squad of 15 officers with hydraulic battering rams and combat shields raided the girl's home in Croydon.
She was detained on suspicion of possessing a firearm, an offence which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years for adults and three for juveniles.
The raid, which police say is likely to be followed by further arrests, will prompt renewed fears that older criminals are involving children in gun and gang crime and using them to look after weapons.
Police declined to comment on the background to the arrest but said the raid was part of an operation by the Aries squad in Croydon which targets criminal gangs.
A Met spokesman said: “A 13-year-old girl was arrested on suspicion of possessing a firearm and taken to a south London police station. The weapon was a sub-machinegun. She has been bailed and further arrests are anticipated.”
Sergeant Darin Birmingham, who led the raid, added: “We received information that the young man living here, who is a known gang member, had access to firearms.”
In the raid yesterday afternoon, armed officers sealed off the Monks Hill Estate in Shirley and people were told to stay in their houses. A hydraulic battering ram was used to force the door of the flat where the girl was in Tedder Road.
Good Lord. How old is that thing??
Any of my armorer friends identify this?
The Girl, The Gun and The Wardrobe.........................Sounds like a great movie plot..............
UK gun ban update
It’s an M-3 Grease Gun.
It looks like it’d jam after 2 shots-—like that thug gun the Tek-9
It looks like a WWII vintage sub-gun (a Sterling perhaps). They were made out of inexpensive stamped metal parts and cheaply finished. They worked however, effectively and reliably.
Leave it to a Freeper to be able to ID any firearm on sight. LOL
It's redneck Barbie!
Well, blimey mate, gun control is really working well in England, only kids and outlaws have ‘em
I would imagine that her father or grandfather probably served in World War II and brought that home with him as a souvenir.
I know that when I was a kid, maybe seven or eight, my uncle brought me a pineapple grenade as a souvenir. The explosives and the detonator had been removed, but otherwise it was real enough.
Big deal. The whole country is going to the dogs, Muslim gangs are running amok, burglars are getting suspended sentences, and these jerks have nothing better to do than to use hydraulic rams to break down the door and arrest a 13 year old for having an old family souvenir in her closet.
I was incorrect in suggesting it was a Sterling (a British weapon). Another FReeper properly identified it as a WWII US made M3.
But... but, I thought guns were ILLEGAL in England! How could an average citizen have one?!?!
Depends on the condition of the magazine. But if the magazine is in good shape, I would bet not. You’ve never seen a sturdier or simpler weapon than the M-3 grease gun.
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