Gunman who fled police is jailed
A GANG member was today behind bars after being caught with a shotgun as he tried to flee in just his vest and pants when police raided his girlfriend’s flat to look for a stolen puppy.
Andell Butcher dropped the sawn-off shotgun and cartridges when he leapt from a rear bedroom of the flat in Handsworth in January, as police knocked on the front door.
The 26-year-old – described in court as being on the periphery of a Birmingham gang – was chased along Robert Road by Det Sgt Stuart Nicol and arrested.
Officers, who were carrying out a search for a stolen dog, were stunned when they opened the bag and found the weapon and four cartridges.
Butcher, 26, from Avon Close, Tipton, was jailed for eight years on Wednesday after being convicted at an earlier trial of possession of a firearm.
Judge Philip Parker QC said: “Left to your own devices, you would have gone on to use that gun, either yourself or as part of a group.
“It would have been used to hurt someone or frighten the living daylights out of them. That is the only purpose for having a weapon of that sort.
“In the pre-sentence report, you acknowledge you are on the periphery of a Birmingham gang. It was the view of the author that you do pose a significant risk.”
Peter Cooper, defending Butcher, said he acknowledged he had to cut his ties to associates in the city and restart his life elsewhere to turn his back on crime.
Three years ago, Butcher and another man were acquitted of killing Ezron Germaine, 19, who was shot in the chest at close range with a ball bearing gun after being chased from a Perry Barr flat in September 2003.
Det Con Jenny Ellse, from the Thornhill Road guns and gangs team, said officers from a neighbourhood team had gone to the flat and saw Butcher jump from the window with a bag in his hand.
“He dropped the bag and ran off up the road. After being asked to stop he was caught around the corner,” she said.
“When officers looked inside the bag they found the shotgun.”
Butcher’s girlfriend, Cassandra Marsh, 30, who lived in the flat in Paul Byrne Court, Robert Road, was also convicted of possession of a firearm and jailed for five years.
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