A 22-year-old man found with an an arsenal of deadly firearms, and drugs, also posed with guns wearing a mask "glorifying" what he had. JJ Logan Cross was arrested after a yellow cardboard box of guns and ammunition were found in a storage unit in Meadow Road, Beeston, on December 11, 2021.
The guns were: A shortened Russian Baikal 27E-1C bore shotgun, a Webley Mk VI revolver, a Smith and Wesson 'Double Action First model' revolver, and a Colt DA .41 revolver. Cross's fingerprint was on the flap of the box and the triggers of each firearm, Nottingham Crown Court heard on Thursday (January 26).
The rental of the unit had been taken over by an innocent party to store building materials. Cross visited this man's address, wearing a balaclava, and rang the door bell - but left before he answered the door.
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Another man associated with the defendant went to the man's home and asked him for the box of guns back - but he was informed they were in the hands of the police. Those visits to his home were recorded on CCTV.
The investigation led police to search Cross's home in Camrose Close, Bilborough, where "deal bags" were found, cash, and a key in his bedroom to a garage in Radford Bridge Road, Beechdale, the court heard.
Police used the key and found safes, phones, cash, a hydraulic press, and rounds of ammo (which were not live), and drugs. The search turned up 800 grams of heroin with a wholesale value estimated between £29,770 and £44,170, or at more than £80,000 if sold at street level.
High-purity cocaine was found with a value between £2,116 and £5,160 on the streets. Criminal property in the form of £7,625 was seized.
Cross, who has three convictions for five offences, but nothing for drug trafficking, pleaded guilty to possessing prohibited firearms, ammunition without a firearms certificate, possessing heroin and cocaine with intent to supply, and possessing criminal property - the cash.
Simon Eckersley, mitigating, said of the drugs: "He accepts he involved himself deliberately for financial gain". Cross's total sentence was nine years.
Judge Stuart Rafferty, King's Counsel, said: "JJ Logan Cross, yours is a difficult case to sentence, because on the one hand you, for reasons only you will ever know, came into possession of an arsenal of lethal weapons against a background of you trawling the internet for information regarding firearms, posing with them wearing what might be described as the all too familiar disguise of a mask or otherwise, and therefore be regarded as glorifying what you had.
"They were not just firearms, they were loaded firearms, and one was a firearm converted; the sawn-off shotgun. I don't suggest you converted it but someone had.
"There is only one use for a firearm like that - it is to commit crime. It doesn't matter that the cartridge in the back of that gun could be lawfully possessed, that weapon particularly had the ability to kill, if not maim, but, then again, did each of the various weapons".
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