A teenager who looked after a '100 year old gun' for 'Premier League' criminals has been jailed. Leon Reinertsen's DNA was found on a revolver discovered when police raided a house in Salford.
The gun, later tested and found to be working order, was found hidden in a loose panel in the kitchen of a property on Clivia Grove in Higher Broughton. The house belonged to a woman who Reinertsen was involved with in a 'relationship of some nature', Manchester Crown Court heard.
The weapon was found with three modified blank cartridges. During the search police also discovered 100 wraps of heroin and crack cocaine, prosecutor Ian Whitehurst said.
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Reinertsen, of Barton Lane, Eccles, who was 18 at the time of the raid in April 2021, was not charged with any drugs offences. He admitted possessing a prohibited firearm and possessing ammunition.
"You pleaded guilty to two very serious offences indeed," the judge, Recorder Imran Shafi KC, told Reinertsen. "The revolver itself could be at least 100 years old, a very old weapon indeed.
"But nevertheless a lethal weapon. Its job is effectively to kill or to seriously hurt someone.
"There is no other reason why anybody would have a firearm. That's why these offences are so serious and why the courts view them so seriously.
"You must have known that those who had asked you to look after this lethal weapon would have been involved in criminality of the highest order, Premier League criminals no doubt."
The judge said that although the drugs were 'nothing to do with' Reinertsen, he told him it 'further fortifies the serious criminality that you were part of'. Reinertsen, now 20, has 24 previous offences on his record. Defending, Tom McKail said Reinertsen had 'embroiled himself temporarily in an extremely serious event in his life'.
He said Reinertsen had become involved with others who were 'far more criminally sophisticated individuals', and pleaded guilty at an early stage. Reinertsen was jailed for five years under mandatory minimum sentencing laws for firearms offences.
His barrister did not argue that there were 'exceptional circumstances' which would mean the five year minimum sentence should not be imposed.
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