Zim man caught with gun at airport gets 9 months

Zim man caught with gun at airport gets 9 months

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By Staff Reporter

A ZIMBABWEAN nurse seized at London's Gatwixck Airport trying to smuggle out a pistol has been jailed for 9 months by a British judge.

Simon Mandiveyi, 36, was arrested in September after security spotted the handgun in his luggage as it passed through the scanners.

When quizzed by police the dad-of-three claimed he had smuggled the weapon into Britain by accident as it had been put in a video camera case.

He said when he returned to his Croydon home after visiting his farm in Zimbabwe and went to use the camcorder, he discovered the gun and was simply trying to return it.

Mandiveyi, who works as a nurse for the South London NHS Trust, admitted possession of a prohibited article on a plane and was jailed for nine months.

Rossano Scamardella, prosecuting, told Hove Crown Court, he was not charged under the more serious Firearms Act because police believed his story.

She explained that Mandiveyi said he had mistakenly brought the gun, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol, from Zimbabwe two weeks ago in a video camera case.

Sarah Thorne, defending, said: "He appears to have made a stupid and ridiculous decision to deal with something of this magnitude on his own instead of contacting the appropriate authorities.

"In Zimbabwe it was legal and legitimate for him to use it for his own protection, because as a farmer he had to carry money to pay employees and had been threatened before."

Jailing Mandiveyi, Recorder Margaret Bowron QC told him: "This is a sensitive state where everyone is frightened of guns and terrorism.

"What you did was about as wrong and stupid a thing as you could have done."
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