Man jailed for 10 years for possessing loaded gun

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HAMILTON, Bermuda, Dec 5, CMC — A High Court judge has sentenced a 33-year-old man to 10 years in jail after he was found with a loaded gun on his hip in August last year.
The court heard that Dion Cholmondeley had been out drinking with friends when he was stopped by officers as he drove along a road in Warwick parish. After he was detained he told police he was in possession of a firearm.
Prosecutor Nicole Smith said when he was asked why he had a loaded gun on him, Cholmondeley replied “I need it for protection, guys are trying to kill me.”
But his attorney, Charles Richardson said his client had no memory of making the comment. He told the court that Cholmondeley had found the nine-millimetre handgun in his vehicle earlier in the evening and had tucked it into his trousers.
The defence lawyer maintained that the gun was in a “dirty, rusting condition” and must have been “lying around for a while.
“Only one of the four rounds in the gun actually fired. The gun was sent away for forensic testing to see if it matched firearms used in other shootings, which it did not. He just found it and was not sure what he would have done with it.”
Cholmondeley, who admitted possessing a firearm and ammunition at a prior hearing in October, had no previous convictions.
“I want to apologise to the court and to my family. Life is about choices and that night I made a bad choice.”
Justice Charles-Etta Simmons jailed him for 10 years for possessing the firearm and nine years for possessing the ammunition.
She accepted that any statement Cholmondeley made to police at the time of his arrest had been “drunken” comments.

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