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Hundreds handed in during firearms amnesty in north east Hampshire

Press Releases

Published: 22/04/2010


 


A two week amnesty giving residents in north east Hampshire the chance to hand in firearms and ammunition to the police has been hailed a success.

Between Friday, April 2 and Sunday, April 18, 119 firearms, 1126 rounds of live ammunition and 420 rounds of blank ammunition were handed in at the nine stations taking part.

The amnesty was launched following a triple shooting in Aldershot in December 2009. Julie Harrison and Maisie Harrison-Copland were unlawfully killed on December 29 by Julie’s ex-partner and Maisie’s father, Andrew Copland, who then committed suicide.

Since the tragedy happened, there was concern within the community that such a shocking crime could happen and that someone could have access to a gun and use it in this way.

At the inquest into their deaths, it was revealed that the gun that was used in this incident was found by Andrew Copland in 1998 while he was working as a builder in Frimley Green.

Chief Superintendent Mark Chatterton, Commander of the North and East Operational Command Unit, said: “We launched this amnesty in response to community concerns about gun ownership and a lack of knowledge about handing firearms in and we have been extremely pleased with the response we have seen.

“This was never about violent crime; we were responding to a community concern about gun ownership and I am extremely pleased with the response we have had.

“We wanted to give people the opportunity to hand in any illegal or unwanted firearms and ammunition and it is satisfying the people heard our message, walked into a police station and handed these weapons in.

“Hampshire Constabulary is rated excellent at suppressing gun crime in the police report card. Although the amnesty is now finished, we have many ongoing initiatives running across the force to educate young people about the dangers of carrying knives and weapons which continue throughout the year.

“As we anticipated, a large number of the weapons handed in are BB guns or imitation firearms. Almost 70 per cent of all incidents that our firearms officers attend involve knives and imitation firearms and one hour of policing a firearms incident costs the equivalent of 27 hours of local beat policing.

“Some of the guns that we seize are so realistic that a firearms officer would not immediately be able to decide if it were real, and therefore have to treat every gun incident as if the weapon is real.

“As the families of everyone involved in this tragedy stated when we launched the amnesty, it anything good can come out of this, it would be that nobody else loses a loved one in this way.”


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