TWO men are on trial for their alleged part in a gun factory operation found by police inside a Wokingham house.

Mark Dyson, 52, of Seymour Court, Finchampstead, and Deyonte Bryan, 29, of Severn Way, Tilehurst, are on trial at Reading Crown Court charged with conspiracy to sell or transfer prohibited weapons, contrary to section 5(2)A of the Firearms Act 1968.  

A third man, Jacob Peters, of Brunswick Hill, Reading, was also due to stand trial starting on Tuesday (September 19). However, before the jury was sworn in, the 37-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of possession of a firearm without a certificate on October 9.

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Opening the trial, prosecutor Ian Hope explained Dyson and Bryan had been arrested after police found ‘dozens of handguns strewn’ throughout a home in London Road, Wokingham.

The address was searched on October 31 last year.

Three other people were also arrested at the address, Benjamin Phillips, 43 and Kenneth Britton, 33, who lived at the address, and Britton’s partner, Katie Lee.

Phillips and Britton have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to sell or transfer prohibited firearms and conspiracy to sell or transfer ammunition.

Lee, 30, of Munnings Drive, Sandhurst, has pleaded guilty to two offences of encouraging or assisting the manufacture of prohibited weapons and encouraging or assisting the sale or transfer of prohibited weapons.

They are due to be sentenced at a later date.

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Mr Hope explained that due to the scale of the operation, police believe that the guns were ‘destined for sale or transfer to organised criminal groups’ and it was ‘an organised criminal group that was preparing and selling them’.

The prosecution described the home as a ‘gun factory’ where blank or gas cartridge-firing self-loading pistols were found with the barrels drilled out, re-sleeved or replaced with hard metal tubing.

Mr Hope said: “For reasons we will come onto, it’s obvious from the sheer scale, that these guns were destined for sale onto organised criminal groups.

“They were strewn throughout the ground floor rooms. They appeared to be being worked on.

“Police had entered a gun factory where pistols were having the barrels drilled out and then being resealed with hard metal tubing.

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“There were imitation firearms coming in that were being worked on to become illegal weapons. Previously used cartilages were being cleaned out…and filled with gunpowder and projectiles.”

The trial, which is expected to last three to four weeks, continues.