103 firearms handed into West Mercia Police during surrender campaign

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Tuesday, 6 August 2019 22:39

By Shaun Moore

Police in West Mercia have seen more than 100 firearms handed in as part of a two-week surrender campaign.

The Firearms Surrender launched on July 20th in a bid to encourage people to hand in any unwanted or illegal firearms to police.

During the fortnight numerous weapons were handed in and 41 rounds of ammunition.

Those surrendering firearms did not face prosecution for illegal possession and will remain anonymous.

But if further examination of a surrendered firearm reveals a link to a crime, this will be investigated.

Following the surrender, Superintendent Mel Crowther said: "We have been really pleased with the public response to this campaign and we'd like to thank every person who has taken this opportunity to surrender a firearm for us to dispose of safely.

"It is great to see that there are so many people as committed as we are to making our region even safer and protecting people from harm.

"Although we don't have a major gun crime problem within the region, we do have a large number of legally owned firearms and other older firearms in people's possession and unfortunately these sometimes fall into the wrong hands and end up being used in crime.

"Every single one of these weapons handed in is one less opportunity for this to happen so thank you to everyone who took part."