TWO men who stored an arsenal of highly dangerous weapons were each jailed for seven years.

Police raided John Marsh’s Laindon home and found in the hallway cupboard a bag containing a sub-machine gun, a silencer, two magazines, a double-barrelled sa-wn-off shotgun and bullets.

More weapons, including two sawn-off shotguns, a pump-action shotgun, a revolver and a rifle with silencer, were discovered in a bedroom wardrobe. There were also hundreds of cartridges and live bullets, some designed to expand and explode on impact.

Mr Marsh, 62, and his co-defendant Joseph Wright, 39, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possessing prohibited firearms on Monday.

Yesterday, during their sentencing at Basildon Crown Court, Judge Rupert Overbury suggested the pair were holding the guns for people higher up the criminal ladder. He told them: “This can only be described as a small arsenal of highly dangerous weapons, plainly intended for use in criminal acts.

“Apart from the rifle, such weapons have no other purpose than to commit crime.

“Neither of you has been charged with any intent to use the weapons.

“Both of you played an important and effective role in enabling unlawful and lethal weapons to be available to those with the necessary intent to use them.

“Such a role is obviously vital to those higher up the criminal ladder than you.

“The courts must deal with your activity in a severe way if weapons such as these are to be removed from circulation.”

Marsh was arrested at his home, in Hermitage Drive, shortly after the police raid at 5.30am, on February 14, last year.

He claimed during interview, a friend, who he refused to name, had visited him and asked him to look after something for him.

And although he didn’t know what it was, he admitted he suspected there was a gun in the bedroom wardrobe.

Wright, of New Century Road, Laindon, who has previous convictions for violence, was arrested last July.

He refused to answer questions during interview, but he later accepted he acted on the request of others and brought the guns and ammunition to Marsh’s flat.

The dad-of-one was linked to Marsh and his address via police intelligence and telephone records.

Wright’s DNA was also found on latex gloves, which were with the bundle of weapons.

Judge Overbury accepted Marsh’s claim he was not aware of the bag hidden in the hallway, but quoted the Lord Chief Justice’s description of gun crime as a “contemporary curse”.

He added: “The message from these courts must be absolutely unequivocal.

“The unlawful possession of an arsenal such as this, even if the weapons are not actually used or about to be used, must attract severe deterrent sentences.”

Judge Overbury also ordered the forfeiture and destruction of the weapons and ammunition seized.