Grant Wilkinson drove a Porsche and entertained his girlfriend in five-star hotels with the profits he made from converting replica machine pistols to fire live ammuntion...ballistic tests linked a spate of shootings to the same batch of guns. Officers visited Sabre Defence, in Northolt, West London, where Wilkinson had bought the replica weapons...claiming that they were for use in a new James Bond film.
It is believed that he sold his weapons, for between £1,500 and £2,500 each, to a network that could trade with gangland leaders.
Amazingly enough, this wasn't a small bedroom style operation.
Tenants of The Briars, a property owned by Wilkinson in Three Mile Cross, near Reading, became curious about the ramshackle sheds at the end of the garden and opened the doors. Inside they found computer-operated lathes, workbenches, firearms and weapon components in one building and what appeared to be a test-firing range in another.
