Worthing men admit internet arms sale (From The Argus)

Worthing men admit internet arms sale

2:46pm Tuesday 10th June 2008 in

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Two men who dug up guns and bullets from Europe's battlefields and sold them on the internet have pleaded guilty to firearms offences.

Jay Howe and Paul White admit possessing a range of weapons and ammunition, including a stungun, a revolver and a pistol, without owning the relevant licences.

Many of the guns and bullets had been made safe, although a quantity had not.

They were among a massive array of weaponry discovered, during a police raid in December 2005, at two lock-up garages owned by the men.

Howe, 43, and White, 42, ran a website called dugup.co.uk and spent years venturing across Europe, including to the Somme, with metal detectors to recover the artefacts.

After importing them to Britain, without being rumbled by customs officials, the duo then sold the weaponry to military enthusiasts.

They were only caught after police were tipped off by post office workers.

Detectives raided the garages near Heene Road, Worthing, and found so many weapons they needed more than two days to sift through it all.

Yesterday, at Chichester Crown Court, Howe, a former soldier from Worthing, pleaded guilty to four counts of owning guns and firearms without a licence. White, a bus driver, also from Worthing, admitted six charges.

The pair had faced 14 charges each and between them pleaded not guilty to 18, which the prosecution later offered no evidence for.

They are due to be sentenced at the same court on July 1 and could face jail terms of up to five years.

Both Howe and White claimed it had been a hobby that had "spun out of control", during an exclusive interview shortly after they were arrested.

Howe gained a degree of fame in metal detecting circles after discovering a stash of gold coins on the South Downs in 1999.

He told The Argus: "I became an Indiana Jones character and once I'd been bitten by the treasure bug, I just went mad.

"I bought top-notch equipment and we went off to the Philippines and Burma in search of gold. We really thought we were going to be rich. We got loads of offers from all over the world from people who knew my name.

"They were quite often from America, from people wanting Second World War artefacts and relics. I went off to the continent and got them.

"We began to accumulate a lot of bullets and weapons and various other things."

Dugup.co.uk was taken off-line after their arrest but is now back up, selling legal military artefacts.