Judge’s concern over rise in gun crime in Sheffield as former drug addict jailed for six years after being found with loaded pistol ‘capable of killing’

Those were the words of Judge David Dixon as he jailed a former drug addict for six years after he was found with a loaded semi-automatic gun on a Sheffield street.

Sheffield Crown Court heard how Nashad Khan, aged 30, was stopped by police on Wolseley Road, Sharrow, at around 8.15pm on March 2, 2019.

Geraldine Kelly, prosecuting, said armed officers acted on intelligence and stopped a car which Khan was travelling in and they found a loaded 108mm long semi-automatic pistol which had been adapted so it was capable of firing 9mm ammunition.

She said: “The pistol was loaded with 9mm ammunition and when police stopped the car they saw him fiddling with what turned out to be the gun.

“He told police when arrested ‘fair enough’.”

Khan, who was jailed for seven years for kidnap in 2007, admitted possession of a firearm, possession of a firearm without a certificate and possession of ammunition for a firearm without a certificate. Richard Barradell, defending, said Khan was a ‘drug addict’ and was told to retrieve the gun on March 1 and then take it to another location on March 2. Mr Barradell said: “He has a very chequered criminal history and he was in a mess. He had dabbled in drugs for some time but when his father died about two years ago, he drowned himself in drugs and he ran up very large debts and, in the drugs business, these debts one day are clawed in.

“He is terrified to name anybody and will not do so.”

Mr Barradell said the dad-of-two ‘didn’t know whether there were any bullets with the gun or in its chamber’.

Jailing Khan, of Cromford Street, near Bramall Lane, for six years, Judge Dixon told him: “The firearm itself is a semi-automatic pistol. In its chamber there are live rounds capable of discharge and, therefore that particular firearm was capable of being fired and killing people.

“That blunt statement in itself shows how serious this case is.”

He added: “These people that decide to get involved in possessing these items let alone using them contribute to the danger of everyday society.

“This great city has seen, regrettably, a rise in the number of people carrying weapons of all sorts and, certainly gun crime is on the rise.

“Courts generally will not tolerate people carrying weapons of any degree. Here, it is submitted that on your basis of plea that you were simply a custodian and acting on behalf of others and you are not willing to name them through fear – that is a double-edged sword.”

No evidence was offered against Zieshan Khan, 26, of Rock Street. Burngreave, who was originally charged with the same offences.

Judge Dixon ordered for the gun and ammunition to be forfeited and destroyed.