A FORMER junior shooting champion has been jailed for 12 years for selling deadly guns and ammunition.
Connor Guyatt appeared in the Post as a teenager after winning national clay pigeon shooting medals.
Now 24, Guyatt has been jailed for turning his rented home in Bluebell Hill Road, St Ann's, into what the prosecution described as "an armourer's".
The extent of his enterprise was uncovered when police stopped his Mercedes CLK on the A453 on February 27 this year.
They discovered 12 rounds of ammunition and one spent cartridge inside a Gucci bag.
This led detectives to his home where he had been converting deactivated guns and making ammunition.
It is legal to buy and sell deactivated guns if they come with a certificate to prove they have been deactivated.
But Guyatt turned them into weapons that could be fired, and sold them.
"It was an armourer's," said Jon Foundation, prosecuting at Nottingham Crown Court.
Inside a tub of Celebrations chocolates in the living room was a Glock pistol and a loaded magazine of 25 rounds of 9mm ammunition.
"That was there ready to go if needed," said Mr Fountain.
There was evidence that two more deactivated Glock pistols had been converted. These were never found.
Judge Michael Stokes said: "Those weapons, along with ammunition, are in circulation somewhere."
Guyatt would legitimately go shooting regularly with his father when he was younger.
He left school in Arnold at 16 and trained to be an electrician, then helped his mother with property development.
He had no previous convictions and gave no comment in police interviews.
In court he pleaded guilty to possessing a Glock pistol and ammunition with intent to endanger life; ammunition without a firearms certificate; converting an imitation firearm; selling a firearm and ammunition and possessing a knife and drugs.
After the hearing, Detective Sergeant John Armstrong said: "He was essentially running an illicit manufacturing enterprise, possessing all the relevant component parts and tools to potentially make thousands of rounds of ammunition.
"To convert a deactivated weapon into a fully functioning illegal gun using live ammunition requires a lot of effort and planning. It is underhanded and it is dangerous.
"The deactivated Glock that Guyatt had converted was once again a lethal weapon. To have it loaded in a sweet tin in the living room is beyond irresponsible.
"For reasons only known to himself, he decided to go rogue, using his specialised skills for crime and bringing deadly guns to Nottinghamshire.
"Guyatt, now a father, had ambitions to go to the Olympics. But now he's in jail and will certainly never be able to gain a licence to compete again."
