A war hero who hoarded an arsenal of guns and ammo is tonight beginning a jail sentence - at the age of 78.

Harry Jones was secretary of the Tameside Gun Club for nearly 40 years and was a trusted authority on weaponry.

But his obsession with firearms led to him amassing a terrifying arsenal of illegal weapons, including nine handguns and an Al Capone-style Tommy gun - all in full working order.

The former RAF veteran’s hoard could have caused carnage if it had fallen into the wrong hands.

As well as the illegal weapons, police found his collection of legally-held carelessly firearms strewn around his Dukinfield home, including semi-automatic rifles lying on his bedroom floor and a deactivated machine gun by the settee.

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Former RAF armourer Jones, of Dain Close, was awarded a service medal for his conduct during the Aden Emergency in the early sixties and has held a lifelong interest in military history and memorabilia.

It took officers four days to sort the international collection of guns, shells and helmets which filled every room in his house, and an Army lorry was needed to remove it.

But Jones, described by his lawyer as ‘a good man’, has now been jailed for two years at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court after admitting charges of possessing prohibited weapons.

The search of his home was prompted by a routine check of the Tameside Gun Club’s premises at a converted army facility in Mossley , back on July 9, 2014,

Prosecutor Henry Blackshaw revealed that there was one locker which officers were unable to access, which belonged to John Robson, a 71-year-old engineer from Preston.

(Image: GMP)

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When officers forced entry to it they found turret machine guns from Lancaster bombers, wing-mounted machine guns from Spitfires, and nine buckets containing sub-machine gun components and armour piercing ammunition.

Robson had scavenged eight cannons from WWII crash-sites, potentially disturbing war graves, after sneaking onto private land up and down the country.

He admitted firearms offences alongside Jones, but was spared jail.

The court heard that while police were examining the find, Jones pulled up at the gun club’s premises. Knowing he kept weapons at home, police asked to go and search his property.

There, he gave them the first of the illegal weapons they were to recover - a Walther PP he kept under a pile of clothes in the hallway.

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The ‘Tommy Gun’, which was in a violin case, and other illegal handguns were also recovered.

Legally held ammunition was kept in carrier bags in the hallway and kitchen in what Mr Blackshaw described as a ‘chaotic and cluttered’ house.

“There was a deactivated heavy machine gun next to the settee which his adult daughter was sleeping in, pointing at the patio doors”, Mr Blackshaw said. “The house was absolutely full of military paraphenalia. The Tommy Gun was in the master bedroom.

“There was a violin case on the floor, which when opened had the component parts of a Thompson sub-machine gun, and ammunition for it, 19 rounds.

Patented in 1915 by General Thompson, and developed to be a trench clearing weapon, after the war the Tommy Gun became the weapon of choice of Probition-era gangsters in America”, the prosecutor added.

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Three legally held semi-automatic .22 rifles in soft cases were also lying on the bedroom floor. Jones had gun safes - but none of the illegally held weapons were kept in them.

Instead, ‘they were secreted around the property in a way they wouldn’t be found by a routine inspection’, Mr Blackshaw said.

Jones, who in civilian life had worked as a mechanical engineer, later told police that he had taken up to ‘nine to 11’ handguns into his possession over the years.

He said in each case he had been handed them by strangers. As a registered firearms dealer, he was entitled to have guns surrendered to him by the public.

But instead of handing them over to the police, as he was duty-bound to do, he took them home and kept them.

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“His reason for retaining these guns”, Mr Blackshaw said, “was that he had a hope that when there was a change of government, ‘the Connies’, as he called them, would be returned to power - which he was right about - and that firearms law would be relaxed, so he would be able to possess such guns lawfully.

“He plainly, from the tone of his interviews”, resented the change in the law, which he blamed on political opposition to the Conservatives.”

The court heard Tameside Gun Club was one of only ten in England and Wales which had the authority of the Home Secretary to hold sidearms of ‘particular value’ on its premises - so as club secretary Jones was a trusted man. He had a lengthy relationship with GMP’s licensing unit, and he was also a skilled armourer who had the ability to make his own ammunition.

Patrick Cassidy, defending, said Jones had joined the RAF in 1958, had served in Aden (Yemen), Libya, Malta and Malaya, and had an interest of military history that spanned from the Boer War.

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He had never been in trouble, had a history of raising money for charity, and had been secretary of the gun club since 1978. Mr Cassidy said the state of his house reflected the ‘certain decline of assiduousness’ which had led to the offending.

“The malevolence is borne of his interest and fascination in military conflict, and not in any way, shape or form a connection with criminal activity”, Mr Cassidy added.

He would never ever have engaged in any activity which placed anyone at risk. Your Honour is sentencing a good man who is elderly, without any criminal intent to do harm - the fall from grace for Harry Jones has already been considerable.”

Recorder John Bromley-Davenport QC, sentencing, accepted defence arguments that the aircraft machine guns hoarded by Jones’ co-defendant, John Robson, were unusable, that the ammunition didn’t fit, and were kept securely at the club in the mistaken belief its license would cover his possession of them.

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Robson, who admitted charges of possessing a prohibited weapon and ammunition was sentenced to 18 months behind bars, suspended for two years, with 150 hours unpaid work. But while the judge said there were also exceptional circumstances that allowed him not to impose the mandatory five year minimum jail sentence in Jones’ case as well, his case was so serious he had to go to jail.

“He knew what he was doing”, the judge said of Jones. “He knew he was holding prohibited weapons without a licence. He knew he ought to hand them into police, he knew perfectly well he should have kept them secure .As it happens, good fortune allowed that no harm came to them in the sense they didn’t fall into the hands of criminal, but there was always the risk.

“To keep items of this kind in a shed or bedroom floor was completely irresponsible, particularly for somebody who was to a large extent in a position of trust in relation to his role within the gun club.”