Cheshire Constabulary joined fellow English and Welsh forces and the National Crime Agency in supporting a month-long amnesty operation to prevent black-firing firearms that can be easily converted to lethal weapons from falling into the hands of criminals.

The four-week amnesty campaign to remove Top-Venting Blank-Firing (TVBF) firearms from Cheshire's streets, and prevent their use in criminal circles, ran from Monday 3 February to Friday 28 February.

In their original and legal state, TVBFs have a fully blocked barrel designed to discharge only blank cartridges.

However, recent testing from the National Crime Agency has found that TVBF brands Retay, Ekol, Ceonic and Blow can easily be converted with household tools into lethal weapons and have been responsible for at least four homicides across the UK in recent years.

In Cheshire gun-related crime remains low, however, throughout the amnesty, several of these now-illegal firearms were handed into police (Cheshire Police).

Even in cases where the weapons have not been converted, they have been used in relation to crime, with many of the weapons that have fallen into the hands of criminals having had their typically bright-coloured exteriors painted black to imitate real firearms.

Following the conclusion of the amnesty, the aforementioned weapons are now illegal to possess in England and Wales. Anyone found to have any of the TVBFs could face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

In Cheshire gun-related crime remains low, however, throughout the amnesty, several of these now-illegal firearms were handed into police, including one Retay handgun handed over to officers at Wilmslow Police station.

Since being handed over, these weapons since been made safe by specialist officers within the Constabulary and will be destroyed, permanently preventing them from falling into the wrong hands.

Anyone found to have any of the TVBFs could face a sentence of up to 10 years in prison (Cheshire Police).

Superintendent Gareth Wrigley, who led Cheshire's amnesty operation said: "Our officers work around the clock, 365 days a year to disarm and destroy the criminal groups active across our region who feel the need to carry a weapon.

"We are very lucky that, as a county as a whole, Cheshire has some of the lowest rates of gun-related crime in the country, and now that these weapons have been handed over to officers, we have taken further steps to make our streets even safer.

"On a local level, your neighbourhood officers will be continually working with our partner agencies and organisations across the county in providing education surrounding the dangers, rules and regulations of firearms to ensure that gun crime remains low and does not become a prevalent problem for the people of Cheshire in the future."

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