Student house targeted by armed police in gun raid
A YORK STUDENT house was raided by armed police following the reported sighting of someone with a handgun inside.
Police teams were called to the Mansfield House block of properties in Lowther Street at 9pm in the last week of October.
The flat was stormed and some of its student occupants bundled into three police vans, while the property was cordoned off and guarded by eight officers. Local residents were told to stay in their homes.
The police received a report from someone working locally, who thought they had seen a handgun through the front window. But the weapon was in fact a legal ball bearing gun.
Up to ten students, tenants and their friends, were on the premises when it was raided. Neighbours spoke of seeing the police enter with guns and come out restraining a number of people. They were held in the police vans and questioned for up to an hour before their release without charge.
However the students’ friends have contested witness and police statements, insisting that they are peaceful and would not have been seen brandishing a gun.
One friend, Ally Brown, 21, who herself witnessed the raid, said: “The police got it all wrong. I think somebody must have walked past and seen someone carrying something else.
“It’s terrifying to see your friends arrested by armed police who just turn up at the door.”
But Sergeant Jim Turney, in the York police control room, attempted to clarify the facts and to defend the police’s procedures for dealing with reported sightings of armed activity.
“We found a BB gun, which is not a firearm.
“We had to treat the incident as if we were dealing with a live firearm until we found out what had happened. People can be charged with threatening behaviour and causing harassment for having imitation firearms in public places. But this was on private premises.”
The incident was concluded without anyone being injured, or any charges being made. However imitation firearms present a regular challenge to police procedures and a substantial demand on their time.
A neighbour of the students, 55, said: “Three cops just marched straight in with guns and I saw them drag at least four from the flat.”
He continued: “We were alerted because the dog barked and we opened the door to see what it was, but the policeman shouted: ‘Get back inside’.”
This is not the first gun related incident that has been associated with the University recently.
In early November, a campus Costcutter employee caused a five hour armed seige outside his home after police received reports that he was drunk and inside a house bordering the University with a gun.
The man, David Jonathon Roustoby, who worked in the Market Square branch of the supermarket, had a previous conviction for offences with a replica weapon, and was arrested on Windmill Lane.
The siege, it was alleged at the time, occured because Roustoby had been showing his copy of James Bond’s Walther PPK to his partner’s 16-year-old son, stating he felt safer with it in the house. The siege only ended after Roustoby went outside following repeated requests from the police.
It is still the case that replica guns are widely available in the UK and are currently on sale in York. The debate over the legality of selling replica guns still rages on and is thought unlikely to be resolved for some time.
By John Prebble - NEWS CORRESPONDENT
