Episode 2 Crime and Punishment

Today on Crime And Punishment...

Armed police!

Armed police are an ever-more frequent sight.

But, as we'll find out, the police connection with guns goes back a very, very long way.

And one of the biggest jewel heists in the last 60 years,

and how the police foiled it.

One of them said, "I was 12 seconds from payday."

What he didn't know, of course,

was he was 12 seconds from nothing.

Here in Birmingham, like our other big cities,

gun crime on these streets is a growing problem.

So it's reassuring that police firearms teams are highly trained

and ready to roll at a moment's notice.

Armed police on the streets - still a very unusual sight in Britain.

We've been informed that somebody that's wanted

for recently pointing a firearm at a police officer during an incident

has recently been arrested by a firearms team on public transport.

They have been found to be in possession of possibly the firearm that was used in the incident

and pointed at officers at the time.

So we're attending the location.

The two suspects have been arrested, but we need to recover the firearm.

Apart from having threatened a police officer earlier,

even carrying a gun in a public place is an offence.

When Steve arrives, another firearms team has already taken possession of the gun.

It was taken off him while he was on the bus.

OK, all right.

-They don't want it forensic...?

-No, it was taken off him.

-They've been locked up?

-Yep.

Louise Proffitt is making sure that the gun is now safe.

This is an air rifle.

What we need to do is make sure the weapon's clear

so we can hand it to an armed officer.

You're looking for a magazine,

and you're looking to see whether there's any rounds in the breach.

I can't look down here, just purely because of the angle it's at,

so what I'm going to do is, into the ballistics bag I've got here,

is just fire off the action.

I'll just put it into fire and fire it off.

And that, we can see, nothing's come out of the barrel.

I can put that safe and hand that to an arms officer.

Armed police! Drop the weapon!

Armed police! Drop the weapon!

These days, whenever a job comes in to the police which could involve firearms,

specialist police officers are called in.

They're part of an elite firearms squad,

and they're there to protect members of the public, and keep their unarmed colleagues safe.

It is a dangerous job, in relation to the fact that we're dealing with people with firearms.

The way that I look at it, I know what I'm dealing with.

I know that when I turn up at an incident,

the chances are that person may have firearms,

may be violent towards others and officers,

and that is a consideration.

The difference being is that when you're on your neighbourhood and you're front line policing,

you don't necessarily have that information.

With firearms officers on the road around the clock in armed response vehicles, or ARVs,

they're rarely more than 10 minutes away from a call for help.

It wasn't always so.

A policeman was shot dead and another seriously wounded in Coventry today

as they tried to stop two bank robbers.

In 1988, unarmed police officer Gavin Carlton was murdered

when he was called to an armed robbery at a bank in Coventry.

He was the 17th unarmed officer to be killed that decade,

and his violent death helped to bring about a massive change

in the way firearms policing was organised.

No longer would unarmed police be sent to face criminals with guns without armed protection.

The training officers undergo nowadays

compared with that from 30 to 40 years ago is worlds apart.

It's fair to say that they're some of the most highly trained officers in the country.

Training to become an ARV officer can last up to nine to ten weeks,

and beyond that there's continual refresher training, whereas previously, it was very minimal.

The level of a couple of hours maybe, a couple of days per year.

Gavin Carlton's death came just two years after another tragic incident in the West Midlands.

A five-year-old boy dies in a house in Birmingham,

shot by a bullet from a policeman's gun.

West Midlands police say the shooting was a tragic accident,

with an officer's gun going off by mistake.

Officers had gone there, apparently to arrest the dead boy's father.

The boy, John Shorthouse, was shot in the chest and died before reaching hospital.

As a police officer searched under a bed,

he rested his gun hand on top of the bedclothes.

The gun went off, and the result was disastrous.

An appalling tragedy. One of the main reasons that the firearms units have developed in the way they have.

The organisational of firearms policing underwent a complete overhaul.

It's now all done through a specialist unit.

Guns that 50 years ago would have been kept in a locked cabinet on a police station wall

are all housed in a special armoury, and rigorously checked in and out.

Louise Proffitt is one of five women in West Midlands Police firearms unit.

When she joined the force 16 years ago, she knew nothing about guns.

It took an open day aimed especially at women officers

to get her interest.

We were able to shoot the weapons, see how we felt about that,

because a lot of us, the only time we've ever seen a gun is on TV.

And then we did some judgmental shooting,

the thing that we might be expected to deal with,

to see where our decision process took us.

At the beginning of that day, I probably wasn't that interested in the firearms department.

By the time I got home, I very much was.

I'd suddenly found something that I'd got an interest in,

and sort of given me that buzz again.

She's now been in firearms for three years and she loves it,

despite the immense pressure of the job.

I've not come across anything yet I can't do that I've been asked to do.

There's only your own personal bridges you have to cross.

Training is intense and continuous.

We're looking for an individual who's able to deal with the huge burden of responsibility,

but also be able to confront, and deal with,

probably the high end of aggression an officer would face.

It's an extremely difficult job, which demands a huge level of training.

When they attend an incident, they make judgments that will be pored over by barristers, legal advisers,

for years, depending very much on the circumstance and decision they've made

in the heat of the moment, in a matter of seconds.

It's a huge responsibility, which they're trained to deal with.

As well as putting themselves in the firing line,

armed police officers always know that the day may come

when they'll be called upon to fire at a living target.

And that could come at any time.

We'll be back on the streets later with Louise and the firearms team.

Still to come on Crime And Punishment: One of the biggest jewel heists in the last 60 years

and how the police foiled it.

It would have made the Great Train Robbery look like pocket money.

Every day, police on the street could be faced with confiscating tools like this and guns like these.

Here in Bristol Prison, there are seven wings.

This is G wing, where senior officer Mark Stroud and his team

have to keep a lid on 140 men, all cooped up in one place.

It's 7.30 in the morning on G wing.

Senior officer Mark Stroud is holding his daily briefing session.

My role here at Bristol is to run G wing.

We have roughly 140 prisoners, and 20 staff.

I run the wing on a day-to-day basis, and make sure that, hopefully, everything runs smoothly.

We've got to make a different role boards, four landings,

and these are the current amount of prisoners we've got on those landings,

with the top row of 130 being on the wing.

This one here's broken down a little bit more.

Out of the 140 we can hold, we've got four high-risk prisoners,

they've been risk assessed so they can't share a cell with someone else.

Technically, we've got no bullies and victims on the wing at the moment.

Three people on ACCT books,

they're the people we monitor for self-harm and suicide.

But we have got nine enhanced prisoners,

so their behaviour is deemed to having more privileges than the standard prisoner.

20 young offenders, 18 to 21 year old,

and right at this moment, we've got four spaces on the wing.

Morning.

At eight o'clock sharp, after breakfast packs have been handed out and eaten,

the doors are unlocked for prisoners to shower, clean cells and hand in applications.

I'll put your name forward. What are you in for?

Prisoners can apply for work duties, education courses or enhanced status.

Been enhanced, they get to wear their own clothing.

They get extra visits, and more time out of their cell.

It's a control measure for ourselves.

We can always remove it as well if their behaviour deteriorates at all.

G Wing has to cater for a very wide range of prisoner.

Some are young and full of energy. Others are short-stay, waiting to be allocated elsewhere

for their sentencing in court. And if they don't fit easily

into any of the other wings at Bristol, they end up here.

Right, what's this here?

Right, OK. Where's that? Up in the medical arch, is it?

We're everything to a prisoner here.

We're their mothers, their fathers, people that discipline them,

and at times we're their friends.

We talk to them, deal with their problems,

and by doing that we've built up a really good rapport with all the prisoners on the wing.

Rather than just shut people behind doors now,

we send them on the right pathways for when they get out.

Things seemed to be a lot harder ten years ago, for some reason.

I think that was a lack of engagement back then.

Last call, food choices!

8:30, and it's time for the morning exercise.

You all right, yeah?

One in five prisoners is rubbed down to ensure no weapons

or illicit items are taken to the yard.

Oop, what do you need this for? What's this for?

-I'm taking an exam today.

-Taking an exam?

-Thank you.

-There you go.

Don't go hurting someone with that, all right?

-Go on, Watts, off you go.

-Not all prisoners exercise.

Some go to this school classroom or workshop, whilst others are sent to court.

On a daily basis, we usually send in and out around 30 to 50 prisoners,

different magistrates and different crown courts around the southwest area.

Prisoners from my wing have come out for an hour's exercise, an hour out in the fresh air.

Gives the prisoners a chance to burn off steam and tends to settle the wing down a bit more.

Today, some officers are going to burn off a bit of steam, too.

Who's playing? You three, who else? Lidders? Is Lidders playing?

He was going to. One, two, three.

There's to be a five-a-side football match challenge between staff and prisoners.

Mark's quietly confident.

We've got an unbeaten run at the moment. We've lost one game,

but I have got to say, me and me Cody weren't here at the time,

so we're going to try and keep up the good work.

While on the pitch, they look for some searching passes,

officers Fowler and Elliott look for something entirely different.

The cells in G Wing have to be routinely searched to make sure nothing untoward is taking place.

We are looking for drugs,

escape equipment like sheets made up into ropes, weapons...

They're quite ingenious. They do have a lot of time on their hands to sort of think of these things,

whereas you and I and normal, everyday person, wouldn't even dream about doing it.

I've put my hand on the wall, which a big paper on, put my hand through to the next cell before now.

We did find a complete still up on B Wing once, didn't we?

A whisky or an alcohol fermenting. It were behind one of these boards.

We used to have boards on the walls. Now it's just a painted square.

But when we had boards, it were made of this, and cork.

They'd carved out, the inmate had taken the board off and carved into the wall,

and God knows where he got the copper piping from,

but he actually managed to get all the copper piping and aerials and made a still out of it.

But on this occasion, the cell is clean.

And that concludes that.

And the footy has also concluded, with a clear victory for the staff.

It was a good little run around. And it does the world of good for staff and prisoners.

-And the right result?

-4-0 I think, in the end.

-Was it four or fire?

-Four!

All right, I know I weren't that good, but calm down, only four.

4-0 to us. Cheers.

Now it's back to G Wing for 11 o'clock clean-up, and then lunch handouts.

Ali. Chris.

Who are you in there with? Who are you in there with? You're in there?

All prisoners will be back in their cells by 12:20 for roll-call.

The staff are planning a special lock-in.

Extra officers are coming in to help Mark's team rifle through

every cell to reclaim all the prison kit that's been smuggled away over the last few months.

Prisoners have been warned about the purge.

But it's potentially a volatile situation,

and no-one's quite sure how they'll react.

In the year 2000, thieves hatched an audacious plan to steal a priceless diamond

on display at the Millennium Dome. It was a plot that turned into a triumph for old-fashioned policing.

Good evening. Five men who tried to put off the biggest robbery in history

have been jailed today for a total of 74 years.

They tried to steal £200 million worth of diamonds on display at the Millennium Dome.

To get away with that amount would have put them on a status that was,

in criminal terms, right at the very top.

It would have made the Great Train Robbery look like absolute pocket money.

This would've been the big one that people would've spoken about.

The robbers didn't get away with it and it was a coup for the Flying Squad.

The investigation was big and meticulous.

Well over 200 police were waiting in and around the Dome,

most of them armed.

They'd had the gang under surveillance for five months.

The raid lasted less than a minute.

John Shatford, then Detective Superintendent in the Flying Squad,

was the man who led it.

12 years on, he cannot believe how daring a raid it was.

The plan was good. What went wrong for them was we got a whisper about it.

We started to pick up what was happening, and we did that, I must say, by detective work.

On this, we had no informants telling us what was happening.

This was the glittering prize -

the flawless 203-carat Millennium Star, displayed with 11 other diamonds

behind armoured glass in a special bomb-proof vault.

The gang leaders were William Cockram, on the left, and Raymond Betson.

They came to recce the Dome as tourists with video cameras.

We were actually filming them, and they had families with them.

They had a pram, a pushchair, I remember.

It was ladies and men together, the happy, perfect family scene with a video going around.

Of course, what they were planning, that was their intelligence they were gathering.

What they didn't know, of course - we were filming them,

gathering intelligence of them filming their own intelligence.

If the Dome was the target, how could they get away?

This was how - a speedboat, bought at a marina in Kent,

the invoice cheekily signed Mr Diamond.

Shatford had been ready to ambush them twice before,

but each raid was aborted. Now he knew why.

We realised that the times these robbers hadn't committed the crime in the past,

the tide was not high enough. They needed a high tide to get away on this river.

If it wasn't high, they wouldn't be able to make their escape from across there.

So that was critical.

So on the day it took place, the tide was at its highest.

Then, on the morning of November 7, he knew he was right.

The gang were filmed heading towards the Dome, not in a car but in a stolen digger.

What happened totally astonished me, even with all the planning.

It drove around, and we thought, well, what's happening here?

And then it almost started to rock forward and back.

All of a sudden, it just drove straight for the outer perimeter gate,

crashed straight through the gate and was heading towards the Dome.

It was just going, "This is stopping for no one."

And lo and behold, it crashes through the Perspex doors,

the large doors of the Dome, straight inside.

It goes hammering around to the front of where the diamonds were and stops.

The Dome had just opened - 600 visitors and staff, and, out of sight, more than 100 armed police,

many disguised as cleaners with their guns in bin bags.

In seconds, two of the gang are beside the glass cabinet housing the gems.

They fire the nail from the nail gun into the reinforced glass over the diamonds,

and follow that up with banging it with a sledgehammer.

Now, we were told by the manufacturers that that could withstand phenomenal pressure.

They were actually able to get through that in seconds.

Another of the gang revs the digger's engine

while a fourth hurls smoke grenades.

Suddenly, armed police surround them.

Operation Magician has started.

In the chaos, onlookers are told to keep back.

Officers know the two men inside the vault are trapped.

Now they're challenged by armed police and forced to lie down.

The damage they've inflicted on the armoured glass is spectacular.

The Millennium Star was ready to be grabbed.

When we actually captured the robbers after and arrested them,

one of them said, "I was seconds..." I think he said.

"I'm 12 seconds from payday."

What he didn't know, of course, was we'd swapped the diamonds

and he was 12 seconds from NOTHING.

The night before, the police were so confident that the raid would happen

that they'd switched the Millennium Star with a fake.

We have our own launches along this river,

so we gave the order to move in and stop the boat,

intercept the getaway boat.

The same is going on inside the Dome, and they are captured.

Operation Magician was a huge success,

but Jon is worried that budget cuts and reduction in man power

might make the same level of police commitment difficult today.

The easy option would be to say, "Well, let's not do it,

"let's put marked cars down there, let's frighten these away."

That's not what policing should be about -

policing should be about getting in there when you have the intelligence,

dealing with it and dealing with it properly and boldly.

For the robbers, it wasn't supposed to end like this.

The judge said they'd played for high stakes

and knew what the penalty would be if they failed.

They were all found guilty and jailed.

As for the real Millennium Star, it went back on display.

On G Wing, here in Bristol Prison,

we've been following senior officer Mark Stroud.

So far, things have gone quite smoothly,

but now Mark has an unpopular job on his hands.

It's coming up to 2pm on G Wing.

All prisoners are in their cells.

At this time, usually, they would be let back out to exercise,

work or go to class, but not today.

Senior Officer Mark Stroud has called for a special lock-in -

he wants to reclaim all the prison kit

that has been smuggled away into cells over the last few months.

At two o'clock, we go on a bit of a...

A bit of a raid through the cells, excess kit.

Inappropriate material, take it off the walls.

Shouldn't take too long, but no-one's unlocked whilst we're doing it.

There are 70 cells to get through.

Got excess stuff in there, fella?

No, no.

I'll be in in a minute.

Prisoners have been warned about the purge,

but arguments may still develop with staff,

and the potential for tension to escalate is very real.

I'll keep a general overview of everything, make sure it all runs smoothly

and be there for another staff member in case anything does happen.

The search is well under way.

Some enhanced-status prisoners who work as cleaners

gather up the items that officers have found.

Tend to find prisoners hoard stuff for some reason.

There's plenty to go around for everyone.

But there'll be stuff coming out of cells left, right and centre.

Clothes, flasks, mattresses,

even chairs soon start to fill the trolleys.

It's not Pepsi Max, that's for sure.

Ah, it's only disinfectant. I thought it was something else.

Things have gone well so far, but on the two's landing,

some prisoners resent the intrusion and Mark has been called in.

-They rushed in my cell.

-No-one rushed in, they asked you to take a seat.

What, one, two, three, four, five?

Take a seat. They're taking kit from your cell.

-There ain't no excess kit.

-Sorry?

-There ain't none.

Well, there seems to be a fair bit going out right now, don't there?

Mark is an expert at calming potential blow-ups,

and exerts his authority when needed.

-Right, this is the bit you ain't going to like.

-What?

-That thing on your head.

-No, I'll take it off in my own time.

-No, don't come in my cell playing games.

-Listen, listen.

Right, take it off your head, or we'll remove it for you.

-Get me the clippers and I take it off.

-No, it doesn't work that way.

-Yeah, because... I've got a dodgy haircut.

-Right.

-Pass the clippers and then I'll take it off.

-Right.

-Simple as that.

-No, it doesn't work that way.

You take it off your head or the gentleman will take it off.

-No way. Hey! Come on. There it is, it's off my head.

-Thank you.

Mark has 12 years' experience as a prison officer.

The one genuine time I've been in fear

was when I was an officer back in 2000, on this wing, actually.

We used to be a Category A prison back then.

And one of these said Category A prisoners was probably about...

..6'8" and probably about 25, 30 stone.

He decided he'd wanted to fight a prisoner on the ground floor,

during our association period, when we had lots of prisoners out.

Staff, professional as they are,

restrained the two prisoners involved,

but when we were waiting for assistance,

a few of the other people that were outside

have kicked the staff when they were on the floor.

Myself being one of them.

I would say that's the only time I've had true fear in this job -

I feared I'd get hurt and the whole place would go off,

but I've enjoyed every day of it.

I'm not just saying that - even the difficult times I've enjoyed.

Problems have been solved and no-one's been injured.

For me, generally, that's a good day.

During the search, officers also remove indecent posters from the cell walls.

What is it with Michael Buble? Don't nobody like him?

I like him, I think he's a good lad.

Christmas thing you can sing along to in the background.

-Not too bad.

-Put it this way, my nan likes Michael Buble.

LAUGHTER

To me, to you.

The rest of the operation goes smoothly.

Oh, you didn't!

Oh, we did!

That's for an old mate. You took it off an old mate.

Mark's pleased with the result.

It's done surprisingly well, actually.

Had a couple of little gripes and little moans, but surprisingly well.

And we haven't got as much kit as I thought we were going to get,

so not too bad at all.

It's four o'clock, and with the major upheaval out of the way,

everybody can get back to the strict daily routine of the wing.

It's time to get ready for hot meals at five.

We'll just go up now and get the dinner and the lads will count it.

And bring it back.

A small, trusted team gets the food every day from the kitchen.

Er, liver and onion, cottage pie,

macaroni cheese, pasta

and that baguette.

Just make sure none of that falls.

I need a number one, me.

Tea time.

We're about to serve the tea-time meal to the prisoners.

They've pre-made a choice - they'll come through the servery,

take the meal and take it back to their cell and eat it.

To help avoid any accidents with hot food,

they come down one landing at a time.

I've got mashed potato, macaroni cheese, greens,

bit of brown bread, and my doughnut.

It's not too bad. Trying to keep my weight down -

I've got a strong-man competition this year. I can lift double my body weight.

-SHOUTING

-Shut up!

LAUGHTER

So, yeah, I've got a good chance of winning the competition.

Bit of association, fella. Association.

One of the best.

At 6pm every fourth day,

a landing's prisoners are allowed out for evening association.

Those with enhanced status - earned through good behaviour -

are out every night.

The most important thing about the association period

is it's really to let the prisoners maintain family ties...

feel a little bit normal themselves

and help to relieve some of the frustration some of these guys get

from being behind their doors all day.

Post is also delivered at this time.

Thank you. Good man. Well done.

At 7:15, everything's packed away

and prisoners are locked up for the night.

-Cheers, boss.

-Thanks, fella.

All the prisoners are now behind their doors,

which means accounting for every single one of them,

get the staff to say they're all there.

A little bit of admin to do,

and then the staff will be off duty.

See you later, guys. See you tomorrow.

That's it. That's the day done.

And, in just under 13 hours time, the daily routine starts all over again.

-Mark, we've just seen you in action.

-Yeah.

How would you describe your relationship with the prisoners in here?

OK. First and foremost, er...

we're the authority within the Prison Service.

But it goes a lot further than that.

Prisoners can't do anything without us at all -

they see us as mother, father, brother, sister, really.

Probation officers. A wide range of jobs we actually do.

And, to some extent, when we get them off their drugs,

alcohol, et cetera, we can become quite friendly with these guys.

I've seen you chatting to quite a few of them today, one in particular.

But you had a bit of a run-in with him almost seven years ago.

Yep, funny old story.

The prisoner you're chatting about didn't want to leave Bristol Prison

and go to another establishment.

-And he's quite a big lad, bigger than myself.

-He's massive!

He is a big boy.

And we had to physically take him out of his cell

because he was barricaded in there.

Unfortunately, I was the first one through the door

and he'd barricaded part of the cell,

and I ended up going flat on my face

and he decided he wanted to kick me in the head quite a lot,

but I was lucky to have the protective equipment on.

Despite this attack,

I see you chatting to him almost like friends now.

You obviously don't - or you can't - bear a grudge.

Not at all.

Like you said, it's about seven years ago this happened,

and I've seen this gentlemen quite a few times since,

and we've built up that relationship since.

It was a bit funny when he first came back to prison,

but we got past that and, like you say,

we don't hold grudges here, we have to move on.

And just being here, what I've noticed is kind of the noise level -

the shouting, the banter, what have you, the music as well.

It's quite an intimidating place to work.

It can be, and we sort of take it for granted now,

but when I first started in the job here, for the first week,

I went home with a headache every single night.

And it's just grown on me over the time.

Not just sound, there's also a smell that prison officers get used to.

-Yeah, yeah.

-But, no, we get used to it and that's where I am now.

-You're doing a great job. Thanks for talking to us.

-Thank you very much.

As we've seen, the armed police in the West Midlands

have to be ready for anything.

We're going back to them now on the night shift.

And it turns out to be a very busy evening.

It's just before midnight.

Firearms officer Sergeant Steve Jenkins is out on the road.

The jobs are coming in.

We're currently making an address in western Birmingham.

There's been a report of a serious disturbance at a location,

somebody's home address.

During that altercation,

the injured party's saying

people have pointed a handgun at his head.

And they've now made away from the address.

Any report of a gun on the streets triggers an immediate reaction.

Two more armed response vehicles are already on their way.

Louise Proffitt is among the first to arrive.

SIRENS WAIL

Hello, have you called the police?

OK. Have the people left?

'Our first question is, "Are they still here?"'

We want to know, are they still here?

There was mention in the phone call there was a firearm.

On arrival, it is quite hectic, from the public's point of view.

Have YOU seen it?

Right. OK. You seen a gun?

'We have set information we need to get,

'and that's what we're doing when we get there.'

We have a look to make sure,

to see if we can see anything.

What we saw were three people, two clearly injured,

and quite a distressed female.

What did the man look like, that had the gun?

People are in shock.

The man's brother has been attacked with a baseball bat,

and is bleeding profusely from a head wound.

So, they've walked up? How many are there?

Four or five. All masked up, all in dark clothing. Didn't speak to you.

Did they go off on foot, or in a car?

Have you heard a car, at all?

And you've stayed inside since then?

The masked gunmen have fled the scene,

but could still be in the area,

and therefore are still a serious threat.

Other units have now arrived,

allowing Louise to go on the hunt for the armed gang.

They've got the dog with them, and he's got a good track.

A police dog unit has found a scent outside the house,

and have tracked it to the rear of the property.

Louise heads round to back them up.

Unfortunately, the dog finds nothing.

We've tried to do a track. The dog has initially just pulled off,

tracking up the road.

So, we've gone with a couple of firearms officers,

and just took us where he's took us to, the rear of the premises.

At which point, it's gone cold.

Most importantly, Louise can now be satisfied

the gunman is definitely no longer around.

Our job is then done.

There are no further risks with firearms.

Because they HAVE left.

We've conducted an area search with the dog.

It's no trace. They've left that scene.

On this occasion, no officer has had to decide

whether to open fire or not. But that isn't always the case.

When you're facing a gun, it's all about making split-second decisions,

and a life could depend on what decision you make.

Sergeant Wayne Bellamy has been in the firearms unit for 15 years.

Looking at that, is that real, or is it a replica?

That's the sort of decision we face.

Do we shoot, or don't we shoot?

If somebody pointed that at you,

in low light, or at night-time,

you would think that was real, and you'd probably shoot.

OK?

Wayne's had one close call.

Once incident, I came very close to pulling the trigger.

But, fortunately, didn't. And that all worked out.

That's the one I always think back to, and refer to.

And I think, "Oh, yeah that WAS close".

Some good shooting. Well done.

Fatal shootings are mercifully rare within the West Midlands Police area.

The last time it occurred, within this force, was 1996.

That said, every time an officer draws a weapon,

on the streets of the West Midlands,

there is potential for him to be confronted by somebody

who poses a threat that may ultimately end in a fatal shooting.

The training is designed to try and avoid that circumstance,

but occasionally it does occur.

And Paul is firmly against arming all police officers.

If one looks at the history of armed policing,

and looks at the reasons why we've moved to the ARV structure,

armoured response vehicles, with highly-trained individuals,

that's because previously,

officers with a lower level of training were carrying firearms.

Some appalling tragedies occurred.

If we were to routinely arm every police officer in the UK,

there's a strong danger such things would occur again.

You can't train every officer up to the standard my staff currently are.

GUNSHOTS

I'm not allowed to tell you exactly where I am,

but I'm deep underground,

where the West Midlands Police store confiscated weapons and firearms.

OK, Tony. Over to you. I'll get out the way.

Fire.

Bang! Woh! I saw that ricochet back!

This is called "the savage firetrap".

Tony is going to explain to us exactly what it does.

Tony, why did you just do that?

Ammunition that's seized by the police, from crime scenes,

needs to be tested,

and occasionally we fire a live round,

or alternatively, we will fire a primer into the bullet trap,

to make sure the ammunition is in fact live.

Based on that bang,

-I presume that was live ammunition?

-Oh, yes.

-Good job.

-This is just a fraction of the weapons in this storeroom?

-Yes.

-Can we see the rest?

-Yes, you can.

-Excellent.

Let's step into your office,

which is slightly different to most people's office.

Yes, we've got one or two added extras.

Loads of different guns, different shapes and sizes.

We see some shotguns in here. Is that an AK-47, as well?

-Yes, that's it.

-I won't touch you. I might be in trouble.

You have quite some bizarre stuff, as well.

Before we get to THAT,

what's the most popular weapon on the street at the moment?

At the moment, the main weapon used in crime is a converted pistol,

called a "Baikal".

It's a gas-firing weapon,

that's been converted to fire live cartridges.

If I just show you...

It IS unloaded.

They're imported from Eastern Europe, where they're available.

That's kind of a conventional weapon.

I know you have some quite odd stuff, as well.

Can you show us an example of that?

Something slightly unusual, is the walking cane.

Hang on, I've seen a walking stick that's a sword, but this is a gun?

This is a shotgun.

-So, that's where the bullet goes?

-Yes, one cartridge.

It's now cocked and ready to go. Turn the bezel.

-(No way!)

-Out comes the trigger...

TRIGGER CLICKS

..and fires.

Just goes to show,

don't mess with old people.

That's incredible!

It IS slightly unusual, yes.

I suppose the biggest thing for the police,

is trying to establish what's a fake, and what's a real gun.

Do you have examples of that?

It CAN be extremely difficult to tell the difference between

a live-firing weapon, and an imitation.

We've quite a selection there.

You can see the problems presented to officers out on the street.

Some of these are fake, and some of these are real?

Which one is which? What have we got here?

We've got one live-firing pistol, air pistols,

blank-firing pistols,

-and one cigarette lighter.

-HE LAUGHS

OK, so, a real gun,

a lot of air pistols, and a cigarette lighter.

I think the fake one is that one.

I think the real one

is this silver one, over here.

You're almost right.

You've got a real pistol.

Just show there's no bullets in it, again.

It is a deactivated weapon.

It's a real gun, that's been cut away and machined,

so it can no longer be used.

You could possess this, in your home, without a certificate,

quite legally.

OK, so close with that one.

It's not the real one. And then, the fake one?

That's an air cartridge pistol,

which is effectively an air weapon.

So, yes, you're right on that one again.

Tin air pistol.

OK, so where's the real, actual firing gun,

and where's the cigarette lighter?

I suppose this is the challenge the police have on the streets,

especially in the night -

deciphering what's real and fake, in a split second.

You've had a few seconds to stand, and look, and study,

and it's still EXTREMELY difficult.

So, we've got one live-firing...

-That's it!

-..nine millimetre weapon.

And one cigarette lighter.

This is the cigarette lighter?!

No way!

TRIGGER CLICKS

TRIGGER CLICKS

Have you got a fag(?)

That's it for today.

Join us next time, for more fascinating developments

in prisons and policing.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd