Bristol man jailed for possessing handgun

A 23-year-old Bristol man has been jailed after pleading guilty to four firearm offences.

Omari Sharpe, of Southmead, was sentenced to five years and four months in prison at Bristol Crown Court earlier this week.

Sharpe was arrested in August after being forensically linked to a handgun police recovered the month before from a vehicle on Maggs Lane in the Whitchurch area of the city.

The handgun, a 9mm Parabellum self-loading pistol, was found along with four rounds of ammunition.

An examination of the weapon suggested it hadn’t recently been used.

As part of the police investigation, a significant amount of CCTV footage was reviewed which also linked Sharpe to the vehicle the gun was found in.

Appearing at Bristol Crown Court on Monday (10 October) Sharpe was sentenced for possessing a firearm, possessing ammunition for a firearm without a certificate, possessing a firearm when prohibited and possessing ammunition when prohibited.

Detective Chief Inspector Adam Smith, of our Specialist Operations unit, said: “I fully appreciate how concerning incidents involving viable firearms are to our communities but I’d like reassure people they are extremely rare in Avon and Somerset.

“Tests indicate the firearm Sharpe handled had not recently been used but clearly it had the potential to cause serious harm.

“The Specialist Operations Unit, with help from all their frontline policing colleagues and partners including the National Crime Agency, are relentlessly pursuing the small number of serious and organised criminals that operate in the South West to disrupt and apprehend them.

“Together, we are committed to doing everything we can to keep the public safe and will utilise all possible tactics and police powers to prevent people from coming to harm.”