Alleged gunman 'tried to smash window with a bed after being shot in the groin'

Police were called to the address in Cypress Road on Walsall’s Yew Tree Estate after reports of a disturbance during the early hours of January 4 last year, Wolverhampton Crown Court was told.

They found Scott Benjamin trying unsuccessfully to manhandle the base of a bed through a smashed upstairs window, said Miss Laura Culley, prosecuting.

Knocks on the locked front door went unanswered and two officers waited 40 minutes for reinforcements with specialist equipment , some armed with Tasers and protective shields, before forcing an entry, continued the prosecutor.

Then they had to break down the door to the upstairs bedroom where Benjamin – the only person at the address – had ‘barricaded’ himself in, the court heard.

The 30-year-old was under a bloodstained mattress with two sawn-off shotguns nearby.

Used cartridges were also recovered and a fingerprint of the defendant was uncovered on one of the weapons, maintained Miss Culley who added that Benjamin had been wounded in the groin.

Pc Martin Fraser, the first officer at the scene, told the jury a bedside table lay on the ground outside the address and nobody responded to knocks on the door.

He and a colleague waited for back up and did not see anybody leave the house, the court heard.

He followed two Taser officers into the bedroom and recalled: “It was very untidy. As I went in I immediately heard a colleague shout ‘gun.’ I could see a mattress with somebody underneath.

“I looked down and could see a sawn-off shotgun as well as a man under the mattress.

"He looked very confused as if under the influence of drugs or it might have been shock.”

Benjamin was allowed to stay at the address by its two occupants who were not at home when police arrived.

He allegedly told officers he had been drinking and taking cocaine throughout the day.

The defendant claimed up to eight hooded armed men had bust into the house, forced him to touch their guns and ammunition and wounded him while shooting out windows at the address, the court heard.

He reportedly said he threw furniture through the window to get the attention of passers by, the jury was told.

Miss Culley alleged: “His story is complete nonsense.”

Benjamin, from Hilleys Croft, Chelmsley Wood, denies four charges, two of possessing a sawn-off shotgun and two of possessing a firearm when prohibited to do so having been sentenced to imprisonment for six years.

Judge James Burbidge QC warned the jury: "You have heard that he has been to prison. That fact cannot help you decide this case. You must not use that to his prejudice."

The trial continues.