South Manchester Woman Jailed Over Hidden Guns

A teaching assistant will spend the next eight years behind bars after she helped hide a load of firearms at her home in South Manchester.

Kimberley Bray was said to have used her job at St Paul's RC High School in Wythenshawe, as a cloak of respectability.

Police raided her home in Newall Green in January as part of an ongoing investigation into a shooting in Wythenshawe in which a 24-year-old man suffered a gunshot wound to the leg.

Bray, 45, answered the door to officers and her boyfriend, Paul Taylor, 46, was found in bed.

Underneath the duvet next to him was a 12-gauge Benelli semi-automatic shotgun and a 9mm Glock pistol thought to be have been imported from the United States.

Officers also recovered a 9mm Tariq pistol and a Skorpion submachine gun from a wardrobe, and also found a cannabis farm.

Taylor claimed he was storing the weapons on behalf of someone else but refused to disclose who.

Research by officers uncovered the guns had been used in other shooting incidents across the North West over the past 10 years, police said.

Taylor pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing at Manchester Crown Court to possession of firearms and ammunition, possession of firearms with intent to endanger life and production of a Class B drug.

He was jailed for 17 years.

Bray was convicted of firearms possession following a trial. She had claimed she was unaware the weapons were in her house.

Following sentencing, Detective Sergeant Paul Walker said: "We know that some of these guns have been used in other shootings in the North West so it is an excellent result not just for the communities of South Manchester but across the region that we have seized these guns before they can claim someone's life.''