British Ex-Soldier Finds Gun, Turns it Into Police, Is Arrested For It

http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/...nding-gun/article-1509082-detail/article.html

No good deed goes unpunished, eh? Convicted by a jury of his peers no less...

Good God.

There has got to be something else. What I just read can't be the actual truth. The jurors didn't understand something. Anything.

This ties into a Panorama episode I just saw today where people being brutally attacked are essentially ignored by the police and the attackers get a slap on the wrist in the form of a complaint notice.

The UK is just flipping insane. Man finds gun. Man turns gun in to police. Man gets arrested for having the gun?

Yeah. There's got to be something else to this. Several years ago, an old lady came into the PD one day. Her husband had died and had several guns. Her sons didn't want them, she didn't want to sell them, and she didn't want them.

She packed the guns and several hundred rounds of ammo in a suitcase and brought them down to the station. I was working the admin desk that day and the thought of arresting her never even entered my head. Hell, I was grateful 'cause I got 100 free to me 30.06 cartridges.

Every story I can find says the same thing. There is even one story complaining about how the big papers and television are ignoring this story.

It's the UK so I'm leaning towards it being true simply because the UK has and is doing a lot of crazy things regarding crime laws and it would not surprise me in the least that this was true.

I have no doubt in my mind that this all went down exactly as described.

Although, to be honest, I'm not even British and I would NEVER have done it like he did it, because I have heard enough bad news from over there to expect the worst.

I would have left it alone, and then called the cops and said, "There's a suspicious looking bag in my backyard" and let them handle it.

Of course, in my opinion, the fact that a prosecutor even bothered to file charges in the first place proves to me that there was never any consideration for justice at any time.

We need a "Come, Apophis" smilie.

:ele:

Ah! Thanks, sweetie.

The fuckers should be kneecapped.

With the gun in question for poetic justice.

Well, the lesson to all you Brits here is... if you find a gun, keep it. And never, EVER, try to do the right thing.

Remember, folks, this is the country that produced Dan Leach.

Weak troll is trolling truthfully.

Un-fucking-believable. This guy harms NO ONE, tries to do the right thing, follows the law to the best of his understanding, and is going to get FIVE YEARS (at a minimum!) in prison (not to mention a criminal record) for his trouble?

Those of you in the UK should be DEMANDING this injustice be immediately corrected.

If he had just called the police and told them there was a gun on his property, would he still have been arrested for possessing a firearm? It takes a sick prosecutor to do something like this.

So it would seem Britain has moved into the "beyond hope" column.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen, he'll be here all night!

Moral of this story: don't trust the English police. Even if you're an honest citizen and your intentions are good, they'll see you're thrown into prison if you're not in perfect compliance with the law.

Better just to not get involved.

You don't have jury nullification?

^^^ Even if they do, juries have a nasty habit of obeying the judge's instructions.

The judge may well have told the jury, "If you find that Mr. Clarke had the gun in his possession for any amount of time at all, you must find guilty, no matter what you feel his intentions were".

So what is the citizen supposed to do if they find a gun on their property? Call the cops? What's to stop the cops from arresting them for having a gun on their property?

Holy fuck, did I wake up in the Bizzaro Universe this morning?

That is utterly disgraceful. A good man, who served his country, wants his neighborhood to be safe and has great intentions basically gets ass raped by the police, the very people who are supposed to be protecting good people like that.

He should have gone out into the street and blown a random passer-by's head off with it.

He'd most likely serve less time.

We need to nuke Britain from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Seriously this is the most fucked up thing I've ever heard.

I mean I expect police to be stupid, but he was also convicted by a jury???!!!??

Forget jury nullification. The judge should have said, "fuck this. You stupid arse of a prosecutor. Why are you wasting my time with this? Case dismissed."

Fair enough, but as you pointed out, the real problem here is the lack of discretion and judgment on the part of the police. This is a problem that rears it's ugly head in this country too. Things like this make me furious. What is the point of the law if not justice? How can a people trust their police and courts when things like this are allowed to happen? There should be riots over this kind of shit.

That's too bad. Apparently, you can be imprisoned if your interpretation of possession is faulty...