Gun theft raider jailed for five years

A MORAY criminal who wanted to see his victim prosecuted after he ‘unwittingly’ stole a gun from her home during a break-in has been jailed for five years.

A judge told Guy Whitelaw that he had come to the view that exceptional circumstances did not exist in his case which would have allowed him to escape the minimum term laid down by Parliament for illegal possession of a firearm.

Lord Woolman told him at the High Court in Edinburgh on Thursday: "You knew what you were doing was wrong and you must pay the consequences."

The judge said the policy of the law was to deter any unauthorised person from having a gun.

"The unlawful possession and use of firearms is a grave source of danger to society," he said.

The judge also ordered that Whitelaw should be jailed for four months for carrying out the break-in and said that should be served concurrently with the term for the firearms offence.

Police found the weapon hidden in the garden of a house after they tracked Whitelaw down following the housebreaking.

But the court earlier heard that the thief "seemed anxious" that if he was to face a court for possession of the prohibited gun then his victim should also face proceedings if they did not have a permit.

Advocate depute Alison Di Rollo earlier told the High Court in Edinburgh that proceedings are being contemplated in relation to the householder and possible possession of a prohibited weapon.

The prosecutor said the stolen revolver had belonged to the victim’s late husband and "she had effectively forgotten it was there".

Unemployed Whitelaw (28) also known as McCall, admitted breaking into the 63-year-old retired woman’s home on March 19 this year in Forres and stealing jewellery, coins, money, a TV remote control and a handgun.

He also admitted illegal possession of a prohibited weapon which carries a minimum sentence of five years imprisonment under the Firearms Act unless exceptional circumstances can be shown.

Whitelaw told police that after he discovered he had stolen a gun, which was in a cash box in a safe, when he got away from the crime scene he immediately decided to bury it "because I can get five years straight away for it".

Ms Di Rollo said on the day of the break-in the victim had left her house secured in the morning to go out shopping.

But when she returned at noon she discovered entry had been forced with a pane of glass in the front door smashed allowing a thief to get to a key in the lock.

Property was disturbed in several rooms in the house and it was found that items had been taken from a locked safe.

The prosecutor said the key to the safe was inside a boot in a wardrobe and it required "some determination to locate".

She said that jewellery valued at more than £1,600 was taken from a chest of drawers, along with up to £1,700 in savings which was to fund a holiday and Christmas presents.

The advocate depute said: "Perhaps most significantly, the safe had contained a cash box within which was what is described as an old revolver which belonged to her late husband."

"She describes it as ‘really small’ and says that she had effectively forgotten it was there. That cash box and its contents had been taken," said Ms Di Rollo.

She said police enquiries led them to an address at 47 Anderson Crescent, Forres, where Whitelaw was staying, the following day. A search found jewellery, the TV control and the cash box stolen from the victim’s house.

During an interview Whitelaw, whose previous convictions include dishonesty offences, at first denied involvement in the housebreaking, but revealed information about the gun and later took police to his garden where he had hidden it under a tuft of grass.

"He seemed anxious that if he was to face prosecution for possession of the gun, the householder from whom he had stolen it should also face proceedings if they did not have a permit for it," said Ms Di Rollo.

He was asked what he had intended to do with the handgun and said: "I was actually thinking about just handing it into the police station."

But he added that he considered if he surrendered the weapon to the police it would put him at "the crime house" and he thought he would just bury it.

Ms Di Rollo said: "There is no evidence to suggest that the accused had any idea that a gun would be within the house and the Crown can accept both that he had no knowledge of its likely presence and that the accused did not discover that he had taken the gun until a short time after he left the scene when he opened the box containing it."

The stolen Harrington and Richardson 13 centimetre long, seven-shot revolver was found to be in poor external condition but was capable of firing.

Whitelaw’s solicitor advocate Ian Cruickshank argued that exceptional circumstances did exist in the case that could allow the judge not to impose the minimum five years imprisonment.

He said the Crown had conceded that Whitelaw would not have known the gun was in the house and that he had no knowledge of the presence of the weapon.

"Certainly it was never his intention to steal a firearm," he said.

He said Whitelaw was abusing heroin and alcohol at the time after becoming addicted to drugs following a stay in Aberdeen.