Dudley car park transfer of illegal guns and ammo, court told

Undercover police officers secretly watched the alleged transfer after the two men parked their cars alongside each other outside the Sainsbury's store in Lawnswood Road, Kingswinford.

Sadaquat Ali got out of a VW Sharan and went to the passenger side of a silver Seat with Jermal Simpson at the wheel, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

He leant into the vehicle before returning to his car clutching something to his stomach and drove off, said Mr Martyn Bowyer, prosecuting. The Seat left the scene soon afterwards.

Four minutes later Ali was surrounded by armed police and arrested at gun point as he drew up on the driveway of his home in Madeley Road, Dudley.

An Adidas shoe box containing two semi automatic replica Glock handguns, adapted to fire live ammunition, together with 12 live bullets, was found in the footwell of the front passenger seat. He has pleaded guilty to acquiring or purchasing the guns and ammunition, the jury heard.

Simpson's Seat was stopped by armed police in Moss Grove, Kingswinford less that ten minutes after the supposed transfer of the weapons. Almost £2,000 cash was discovered hidden under one of its seats, continued Mr Bowyer.

Mobile phones were taken from the two arrested men who each travelled alone. Forensic checks revealed 24-year-old Simpson had been in regular contact with Sunny Dhatt, aged 26, during the run up to the supermarket car park meeting while Ali had been making and receiving calls to and from Khalad Uddin, 35, it was said.

But there was no direct phone contact between Simpson and Ali before, it was claimed, the transfer of weapons took place on August 3 last year.

The prosecutor maintained: "Simpson was the delivery boy and Ali had been the collector with the strings being pulled from a safe distance by their puppet masters, Uddin and Dhatt, who directed the transfer."

What appeared to have been a dummy run had been organised at the same time and place 24 hours earlier, said Mr Bowyer.

Police saw Dhatt and Uddin with each other in the beer garden of a pub in Dudley Road, Kingswinford on two separate occasions in July, the second of which was a week before the alleged weapons exchange, it was said.

Uddin was arrested at his home in Scholars Mews, Oxford on October 19. Several mobile phones and a bullet proof flak jacket were also found at the address. Dhatt was detained while visiting a BMW dealership in Enfield eight days later.

Simpson from Parker Street, Bloxwich, Dhatt of no fixed address, and Uddin all deny conspiring to sell or supply prohibited firearms and ammunition between April 1 and August 4 last year.

Simpson further pleads not guilty to selling or transferring two 9mm handguns and ammunition on August 3. The trial continues.