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Psychotic Man Who Tried To Hand In Gun At Basildon Police Station Was Told It Was Closed Due To Budget Cuts, So He Would Have To Report Himself By Phone Or Email Instead
Thur 4th Jan 2018 , Yellow Advertiser

A ‘PSYCHOTIC’ man who tried to hand a gun in at Basildon police station was told that it was closed after a series of budget cuts, so he would have to dial 101 or report himself to police by email.

Seamus Boyle, 27, of Albemarle Close, Grays, attended the police station on the evening of November 7, 2016, to hand in a revolver he had bought days earlier for his own protection.

When he called police to tell them he was trying to hand in a gun, a team of armed police descended on Basildon town centre and arrested him.

Unbeknownst to Mr Boyle, he had tried to hand in the weapon in the middle of an Essex Police gun amnesty – but the force refused to honour it and prosecuted him.

Basildon Crown Court heard on Thursday, January 4, that Mr Boyle had obtained the gun a week earlier because he feared for his safety.

A short while earlier, his home had been raided by intruders who had tried to attack him. He bought the gun for his own protection, the court heard, but became ‘paranoid’ about keeping it around his family and decided to hand it in.

But he arrived at Basildon police station at around 10pm to find it closed.

The station’s front counter had previously been open 24 hours a day, but its opening hours had been repeatedly slashed since 2010 due to Government austerity measures and budget cuts.

Six months before Mr Boyle attended, it had started closing at 5pm.

Outside the police station, Mr Boyle had a brief conversation with an off-duty female PC, but did not realise she was an officer because she was in plain clothes and did not identify herself as one.

As she saw Mr Boyle outside the building, she told him it was closed and that if he wanted to file a report, he would have dial the non-emergency police number or go online.

Defence barrister Jon Harrison said the closure of the police station had left Mr Boyle with a ‘quandary’: “He could either maintain possession of the firearm for the next 12 hours, or he could do what he did.”

He could have left the firearm somewhere, called police and told them where it was, Judge David Owen-Jones said, but then would likely have faced criticism for leaving a loaded gun in a public place where anyone – perhaps a child – might have picked it up.

The court heard that minutes after being turned away from the police station, Mr Boyle called police from a payphone outside a Basildon pub and reported that he had a .22 revolver in his right pocket, loaded with four bullets.

He told police he felt ‘paranoid’ and ‘psychotic’ and wanted the force to come and take it away from him.

When they arrived, he was ‘fully compliant and cooperative’.

Records read out in court showed Essex Police had been running a firearm amnesty at the time, under which, “those who attended police stations and surrendered firearms would have protection from prosecution for possession of the same.”

But Essex Police refused to honour the amnesty and charged Mr Boyle with possessing a firearm and possessing ammunition – offences which carry a mandatory minimum sentence of five years unless ’truly exceptional circumstances’ are shown.

He pleaded guilty to both offences and remained in custody, awaiting sentence, for over a year.

The court heard Mr Boyle had acquired the gun because he believed people were going to come to his home and hurt him.

Mr Harrison said the belief likely arose from an attack his client had suffered a short while before he bought it.

He told the court Mr Boyle had been forced to stand trial, charged with a Section 18 wounding offence, after he retaliated against an attacker who was trying to harm him.

A group of people had showed up at Mr Boyle’s home and tried to break in, smashing his windows in the process. One of them entered the home, at which time Mr Boyle injured them.

He was acquitted by a jury after raising a self-defence case, but had been left fearful of reprisals and had bought the gun as a result, Mr Harrison suggested.

But days later he became so worried about keeping the weapon in his family home that he decided to ‘turn himself in’ for having bought it and hand it over to police.

Judge Owen-Jones said on Thursday he was reducing Mr Boyle’s sentence to four years, citing several ‘exceptional circumstances’ – including the fact that the defendant had tried to hand in the gun but found the police station closed.

The judge said the case had taken a year to reach sentencing because of the number of reports which had been commissioned to determine whether the defendant was mentally ill, after he described himself as feeling ‘psychotic’ when he handed in the weapon.

The court heard that since being remanded to prison, he had confessed to a number of crimes which subsequent investigation had found never occurred.

Mr Harrison added: “Mr Boyle’s position now, odd as it may seem, is that he acquired this firearm by magic and magic made him do as he did.”

But psychiatrists determined that Mr Boyle did not suffer from an acute mental illness, and one suggested he may be feigning mental illness to secure privileges in prison.

The rulings prevented Mr Boyle from pleading not guilty on grounds of diminished mental capacity.

Nonetheless, the judge said, “it seems to me, reading between the lines, that there is certainly an odd personality.”

He told Boyle during sentencing: “I think it goes without saying in this case that your behaviour from time to time clearly is extremely bizarre and odd.

“I’ve read the various reports about you. I’m clearly of the same view as the experts that you do not suffer from a mental illness, but the behaviour you have exhibited clearly shows bizarre, odd and strange characteristics.”

Mr Harrison told the court Mr Boyle should receive a reduced sentence so he could be treated for his unusual thought patterns, stating: “That bizarre behaviour, it’s plain, is not being addressed in prison and certainly, members of Mr Boyle’s family suggest, that that needs to be addressed and will be addressed as soon as they are able to do so.”

Judge Owen-Jones said, handing down his sentence: “Taking as I am a holistic approach the events, I am just able to find truly exceptional circumstances for not imposing the minimum term of five years, but the reduction is a small one.”

He cited several ’exceptional circumstances’, including Mr Boyle’s inability to hand the gun in because of the police station closure, his compliance with the officers during the incident, the short time he had possessed the gun for, the fact that he had not used the gun in any criminal activity and his tendency to exhibit ’bizarre’ behaviour.

He did not take into account that the incident occurred during a gun amnesty, as Mr Boyle had not known it was in force and his visit to the station had been coincidental.

He sentenced Mr Boyle to four years on each of the two charges, to run concurrently.

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