West Belfast man in court after shotgun and ammo found in attic

A man has gone on trial accused of having a sawn-off shotgun and ammunition in his attic.

Trial Judge Kevin Finnegan QC and a jury of seven women and five men were told the munitions were uncovered during a police search of the Gartree Place home of Gerard Martin McClory, 49, on July 5, 2016.

The court heard on Monday that they found the weapon, together with 41 shotgun cartridges and five rounds of .38 ammunition, in an assortment of bags, inside a larger bag. The bag was just inside a door in an en-suite bathroom leading to the eaves of McClory’s Andersonstown home in West Belfast.

The prosecution claim that McClory’s palm prints were recovered from the outer surfaces of one of the bags contained within the larger bag, and that traces of DNA found on a sock containing ammunition, could not be ruled out as coming from him.

The lawyer added that while it was up to the jury to determine if McClory had knowledge and control of the various items, they would, on hearing all of the evidence, come to the inevitable conclusion he had possession of them.

McClory, who denied knowing anything about the shotgun and ammunition during interview, faces two charges arising out of their recovery, and has pleaded not guilty to possessing the items under suspicious circumstances and possessing the sawn-off shotgun, deemed, under law, to be a handgun, without a firearms certificate.  

The trial, expected to last a week, continues.

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