Accused 'did not know about guns handed over in shoe box'
A man accused of ‘pulling the strings’ when two guns were handed to a criminal has claimed he thought it was a drugs deal.
Sunny Dhatt’s fingerprint was on the Adidas shoe box that held the 9mm semi-automatic replica Glock handguns and a dozen live bullets, Wolverhampton Crown Court heard.
The box was found in the footwell of a VW Sharan driven by Sadaquat Ali, after the vehicle had been surrounded by armed police as it arrived on the driveway of his home in Madeley Road, Dudley.
Four minutes earlier he had left the Spa supermarket car park in Lawnswood Road, Kingswinford, after undercover police officers watched him collect something from a silver Seat with Jermal Simpson at the wheel on August 3 last year, said Mr Martyn Bowyer, prosecuting.
Ali has pleaded guilty to acquiring or purchasing the guns and ammunition, the jury heard.
The prosecutor alleged that 26-year-old Dhatt and Khalad Uddin, aged 35, had been the ‘puppeteers’ who organised the transfer of the weapons.
The Seat was stopped by armed police in Moss Grove, Kingswinford, less than 10 minutes after the supposed handover and almost £2,000 cash was discovered hidden under one of its seats, continued Mr Bowyer.
Dhatt insisted while giving evidence to the court: “I knew nothing about the guns and ammunition.”
He said he was friends with Simpson and the pair had been to the car park of the neighbouring Sainsbury’s supermarket the previous day to collect a half kilo of cocaine worth up to £13,000.
He claimed Uddin told him where to pick up the stash, which allegedly turned out to be sub standard and was supposed to be returned to Uddin after Dhatt transferred it into the Adidas shoe box, the court heard.
There were 36 contacts between the mobile phones of the duo on the day of the alleged weapons transfer as well as contacts between Dhatt and Simpson and Uddin and Ali.
Mr Bowyer concluded: “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.”
The pair were seen together at a pub in Kingswinford on July 4 and July 27, it was claimed.
Uddin was arrested at his home on October 19, while Dhatt was detained eight days later at a BMW dealership in Enfield.
Dhatt of no fixed address, Uddin from Scholars Mews, Oxford, and Simpson, 24, of Parker Street, Bloxwich, all deny conspiring to sell or transfer 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.
