Man jailed for rifle and drugs haul in Glasgow flat hit with crime prevention order

William Wilson was imprisoned for five years last month after police found him with heroin and cannabis worth £190,000 on the streets and the gun and ammunition

Published 19th Jan 2018

A man who was jailed after he was caught with a rifle and a haul of drugs became one of the first offenders in Scotland to be hit with a serious crime prevention order today.

William Wilson was imprisoned for five years last month after police found him with heroin and cannabis worth £190,000 on the streets and the gun and ammunition.

Benefit claimant Wilson was under a life licence at the time after being jailed in England for six and a half years.

Officers forced their way into a flat in Gartloch Road, in Glasgow, after breaking a door from its frame and discovered Wilson behind it trying to hold it shut.

Wilson (37) admitted he kept drugs at the property and revealed a firearm was on the premises.

A Winchester rifle and five live bullets were found in a cupboard next to the front door.

Items used to mix and cut drugs were discovered in the kitchen along with more than half a kilo of heroin and quantities of the common adulterants caffeine and paracetamol.

A further 19 kilos of cannabis was also recovered. Most of the drugs were inside heat sealed packages.

Wilson, who was at the flat with its occupier, said: 'All the stuff in here is mine. I just use him. I pay him in green.'

Police carried out a further raid on a flat in Rigby Drive, in Glasgow, on the same day and found a further two kilos of heroin wrapped in seven brown taped packages.

The heroin recovered was worth an estimated £134,000 on the streets and the cannabis was valued at more than £53,000.

Wilson earlier admitted being concerned in the supply of both heroin and cannabis on August 9 this year.

He also pled guilty to illegally possessing the gun and ammunition as he had previously been sentenced to more than three years imprisonment.

A judge told Wilson, a prisoner in Glasgow's Barlinnie jail, on sentencing him that he would have been jailed for seven and a half years for the latest offences, but for his guilty pleas.

Lady Scott said: 'You are assessed as presenting a high risk of re-offending.'

The Crown today returned to the High Court in Edinburgh to seek a serious crime prevention order for the maximum period of five years.

Such an order allows police to monitor a released offender and in Wilson's case it limits him to having one mobile phone and to inform officers of details of any new one he acquires.

Advocate depute Steven Borthwick said the order was being sought because of Wilson's criminal record, his involvement with drugs and 'a propensity to violence'.

Lady Scott said she was satisfied that the order should be made but would restrict it to a three year period. It will run from his earliest potential release date in 2020.