Two men jailed after being arrested with a loaded gun at Warwick Services

A GUN and a sinister clown mask were found in the boot of a rental car after armed police arrested the driver and his passenger at Warwick Services on the M40.

When Akelle Charles and Ricardo Thomas were arrested, officers also found 15 rounds of ammunition in the boot of the car.

Investigations found the gun had previously been used in a shooting in London.

The car had been driven up from the capital to Wolverhampton late on 26th October, last year - the day before the pair were arrested.

Charles and Thomas stopped in the Cannock Road area of the city on the afternoon of 27th October, before heading onto the M40 and stopping at Warwick Services where they were arrested, just before 9pm.

The pistol, which was recovered from a black Nike bag, was forensically examined and linked to bullet cases left at the scene of a shooting in London a month earlier, where a number of shots were fired at a house.

Charles’ home was just over two miles from the scene of the shooting, although there was no evidence linking him to it.

Messages recovered from the men’s phone suggested they both had heavy involvement and knowledge of firearms.

Det Insp Amar Patel, from the West Midlands Regional Organised Crime Unit, said: “These men were heading back towards London at the time of their arrest with a loaded firearm, gloves and a mask in a car hired in someone else’s name.

“We’ll never know what their plans were, but we have taken a loaded gun and two dangerous men off the streets.”

Thomas of St Albans Road, Smethwick, and Charles, of Devonport Road, London, both 33, admitted possession of a firearm and ammunition.

At Birmingham Crown Court yesterday (Tuesday), Thomas was jailed for eight years and Charles was jailed for six years and nine months.