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Posted on 06/17/2005 11:25:34 AM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Anti-Gun Campaigner Attacks 'Heavy-Handed' Police
By Charlie Hamilton, PA
An anti-gun campaigner today criticised police as “heavy handed” after she was arrested for having a pump-action sawn-off shotgun in her home.
Grandmother Sheila Eccleston said she was locked in a police cell for 12 hours after she attempted to hand in the weapon.
The 51-year-old has been a high-profile anti-gun campaigner since her son Dean was shot and killed four years ago.
She has met Prime Minister Tony Blair and travelled to Boston in 2003 as part of a BBC documentary on tackling gun violence.
Mrs Eccleston was an active member of Mother’s Against Violence, which won the Queen’s Award for voluntary service last year.
She has since left the organisation but still works in the community to reduce gun violence.
Mrs Eccleston, of Martindale Crescent, Longsight, Manchester, said she was given the gun by a youth six months ago and hid it in her bedroom in a suitcase above her wardrobe.
She criticised police saying her arrest sent out the wrong message to those wanting to hand in weapons.
She said: “If people see a person like me being arrested despite all the work I do to get guns off the street, they are even less likely to hand them in.
“I called the police. I told them about the gun. Yet they still arrested me and kept me locked up for hours.
“It was heavy handed and over the top. I was trying to get the gun out of the community.
“They took my house apart searching it and even arrested my daughter.”
The mother of three said she called police at around 1.00am on Saturday to report interrupting an attempted burglary at a neighbour’s home.
She said she told them she had the weapon and invited officers to collect it.
Mrs Eccleston said she was given the gun by a young gang member she refused to identify and kept it, while awaiting a police weapons amnesty.
When police arrived she was taken to Longsight police station where she was kept overnight in a cell.
She said: “It is disgusting. How do the police expect people to feel comfortable handing in guns when this is what happens to someone known as being against gun violence.”
She was released on police bail until August 18 while forensic tests are carried out on the shotgun.
Her son, who was also known as Marcus, a 24-year-old father of two was shot seven times at close range in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, in October 2001. The gunman has never been caught.
"I have a sawed-off shotgun in my house. Come and get it!"
It sounds like she got an appropriate response...
Just imagine . . . the sawed-off semiautomatic machine gun shotgun! The horror!
It proves again that what you sow, so shall you reap.
Wow. Useful idiot AND hypocrite!
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The mother of three said she called police at around 1.00am on Saturday to report interrupting an attempted burglary at a neighbour’s home.
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It was interrupted cuz she was armed. You think a grandmother can stop a burglary any other way?
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