A 34-YEAR-OLD man has gone on trial at Belfast Crown Court, accused of possessing a gun and ammunition found in two separate ceiling areas in a block of flats.
A jury was told on Tuesday that a Browning semi-automatic pistol, a silencer, a magazine and 24 bullets were found in Dunlop House in east Belfast on March 27, 2014.
A Crown prosecutor said that when the items were forensically examined, defendant Wayne Robin Matthew’s DNA was found on the items seized.
Matthews, who now resides at Tower Court in Belfast, has been charged with both possessing the firearms and ammunition in suspicious circumstances, and also possessing the handgun without a firearms certificate. He denies both charges.
Officers attended Dunlop House in the Castlereagh Street area to carry out the search of a flat under a warrant in relation to a different matter.
As the police team were leaving the flat, an officer noticed that one of the ceiling tiles in the hallway just outside the flat was loose.
A silencer found above the ceiling was found to fit the Browning pistol recovered on the basement floor of the same block of flats later that day.
Twenty-four bullets for the gun were also found.
