Father jailed after gun photo found
A man has been jailed for five years – after pictures of him posing with a sawn-off shotgun were found on his son's mobile phone.
Seven tell-tale pictures of 45-year-old Glen Parke were stored on the mobile phone of his 25-year-old son, who is also called Glen, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard. They were discovered when police came across the phone during a raid on the home on Glen Jnr in Willenhall Road, Bilston, said prosecutor Nicholas Smith.
Parke Snr was pictured cradling the gun in his arms. In some of the snaps he was wearing a balaclava. Checks by experts revealed that the weapon in the pictures was a gun found hidden in the Oxley Moor Hotel after an aggravated burglary at the premises 10 months after the photograph had been taken.
Parke Snr admitted illegal possession of the shotgun but claimed to remember neither where the picture was taken nor who took the picture. He blamed a savage attack six years ago that put him in a coma for eight weeks and required years of rehabilitation.
Parke Snr, from Arthur Greenwood Court, Bilston, told the court that the incident had wrecked his life and ruined his memory.
But Judge Nicholas Webb said when jailing him: "I am sure that he has a much better recollection of where and by whom the photos were taken than he is letting on.
"The pictures were on the phone of his son who is a convicted drug dealer. He admits that he is the man photographed holding the gun.
"There is no doubt that the defendant is not fully physically fit after the attack and that it dealt a fatal blow to his hopes of becoming a physical instructor but there is no evidence that his memory was seriously impaired at the time the photographs were taken."
According to the timing on the mobile phone, the photograph was taken in January 2007, the court heard. The same sawn off shotgun seen in the pictures was found hidden in a woman's boot in a cupboard after an aggravated burglary on the Oxley Moor Hotel in November of that year, said prosecutor Mr Smith. The phone was discovered in a police raid on the home of Parke Jnr last year.
They also found cannabis being grown at the premises and Parke Jnr is currently serving a 17 month prison sentence for cultivating drugs.
He appeared in the dock at Wolverhampton Crown Court immediately before his father yesterday. An order was made to confiscate £9,876 from him because it was the proceeds of crime.
