Man who had ‘largest haul of unlawful weapons ever seen’ in village jailed | UK | News | EUROtoday

A person discovered hoarding a chilling arsenal of weapons at his house – together with gun elements illegally imported from America – has been jailed. Investigators raided 58-year-old Philip Maylen’s home in Kingsclere, Newbury, in December 2024, after Border Force officers intercepted a parcel from the US addressed to him and containing gun elements.

National Crime Agency officers arrested Maylen and carried out an intensive two-day search of his house, throughout which they uncovered 28 viable weapons, 11 duplicate firearms, 100 bullets and quite a lot of gun part elements. Among the viable firearms have been 17 shotguns, 4 deactivated Glock pistols that Maylen had reactivated and three clean firing pistols which he had transformed to fireplace stay bullets.

Investigators subsequently trawled by means of Maylen’s telephone messages, emails, handwritten notes and monetary paperwork to construct an image of his criminality.

Messages and monetary paperwork recovered by officers proved Maylen had spent a minimum of £16,000 on weapons and part elements between 2019 and 2024, bought from firms within the US, Canada, New Zealand, Estonia and the UK.

They additionally recovered emails Maylen despatched to an organization in Canada after Border Force notified him that they had seized the parcel from the US, trying to cancel orders he had positioned for shotgun elements.

Maylen’s orders had already been dispatched and Border Force officers sifted by means of round 1,000 parcels to retrieve the gun elements.

NCA Senior Operations Manager Tim Lambert mentioned: “This is one of the largest caches of illegal firearms I have seen at a single address. Maylen’s arsenal had huge potential to cause harm in the wrong hands.

“Maylen also put himself at risk of being targeted by criminals who might have attempted to take the guns from him, had they known about them.

“The NCA and Border Force together have ensured these dangerous guns have been safely removed from the community and that Maylen has faced the consequences of his crimes.”

The NCA investigation did not uncover a particular motivation for Maylen’s stockpiling and changing the firearms.

Maylen pleaded responsible to fifteen counts of possession of a prohibited firearm and one depend of possession of ammunition with out a certificates, and was jailed for 5 years at Reading Crown Court on Wednesday.