A 21-year-old man has been given a suspended prison sentence following an armed police raid on a flat in Short Street in May, after the man was twice seen on the streets of Spalding with what appeared to be a hand gun.
Kacper Malkiewicz of Cross Street had admitted at a previous court appearance to possession of the air weapon on two separate occasions in May and the case had been adjourned for sentence and reports from the Probation Department.
Nick Todd, prosecuting at Boston Magistrates Court, said the first sighting was at 8pm on Sunday, May 12 when two members of the public saw Malkiewicz walking down a cut through between Winsover Road and the Victoria Street car park, with a black bag around his neck and holding a black handgun in his
hand in front of him.
He said they were ‘shocked’ but he did not threaten them in any way and they did not report the incident to the police at that time.
However, the next day at 9.30am, one of them was having breakfast with a friend in a cafe in Winsover Road, when she again saw Malkiewicz, this time with a group of three other young men across the street from the cafe, with the gun in his hand.
Mr Todd said another witness who was driving along the road, saw the group of four and that one of them was holding a gun at his hip but not apparently threatening anyone, and then saw him put the gun in his trouser pocket.
He said police were called and armed police units raided a block of flats in Short Street where Malkiewicz was identified and arrested.
Mr Todd said the gun, a 4.5mm ball bearing air weapon, which looked like a self-loading hand gun, was found inside a black bag in a kitchen unit.
He said Malkiewicz told police he had found the gun, knew it to be a BB gun and that it didn’t work. Malkiewicz told officers he had been messing about with it and not threatening anyone.
The court heard he claimed he had found the gun in a bag outside the Aldi supermarket and had taken it to show to friends with the intention of disposing of it the next day.
Speaking direct to the magistrates through a Polish interpreter, Malkiewicz, who was not represented at the hearing by a solicitor, said he ‘really regretted this’ and ‘ was sorry’.
“This is not the way I was brought up,” he said.
Sentencing him to five months custody suspended for two years, the magistrates said this was ‘probably the scariest thing people will see – someone walking towards them with a gun’.
They said that ‘in the present climate, it was beyond stupid’ as he ‘could have been shot by armed police’.
He was also ordered to carry out 250 hours of unpaid work for the community and to observe 15
rehabilitation days.
He was also ordered to pay £200 in costs and charges.
