Teenager in firearm drama is locked up

?A teenager was locked up for four years today after being caught carrying a balaclava and gloves in a stolen car which was carrying a sawn-off shotgun in West Bromwich.

Conor Cox was just 17 when he was arrested at gunpoint by officers who had been tracking the driver, Craig Hickinbottom.

The red Vauxhall Corsa, stolen hours earlier by burglars in Stourbridge, was rammed off the road by police who had been tracking Hickinbottom after he fled a bail hostel in Aldridge just days before.

Hickinbottom's passenger Dean Isitt escaped from the crash with a bag containing the shotgun and three live cartridges before threatening to shoot a member of the public.

All three were found guilty at a trial of possession of the firearm and stolen car and its plates. The drama happened at a roundabout in Bromford Lane on March 2.

Judge Martin Walsh told 18-year-old Cox: "You were involved in a joint enterprise and the weapon was to be used to cause members of the public fear of violence."

But he told Wolverhampton Crown Court that Cox, of Lyde Green, Halesowen, had been acting "significantly" under the influence of Isitt, 31, and 29-year-old Hickinbottom.

Hickinbottom, of no fixed address, was last week jailed indefinitely and ordered to serve four-and-a-half years, while Isitt, of Waterfall Lane, Rowley Regis, was given nine years.