SENTENCING STATEMENTS

On sentencing, Lord Arthurson said:

“Karl Henry Matthews, on 4 February 2026 at Glasgow High Court, you tendered pleas of guilty to a section 76 indictment libelling no less than 13 offences under various provisions of the Firearms Act 1968, as amended.  Five of these charges are related to your unauthorised possession of five separate prohibited weapons, and seven are related to your possession without a firearm certificate of certain ammunition of various types.  The remaining charge relates to your possession of a rifle and five handguns without a firearm certificate.

You are now aged 48.  You have accrued to date only one previous conviction in this jurisdiction, for drink driving, in 2007.  In England between 1997 and 2005 you had prior to that conviction, however, accrued some ten groups of previous convictions, including up to Crown Court level, and at Magistrates Court level two separate convictions for the possession of an offensive weapon in a public place.

On 5 August 2025 officers obtained a firearms warrant to search your home in a housing estate in Castle Douglas.  The warrant was duly executed on 10 August 2025.  A rifle and five handgun and pistol style weapons were recovered, along with a substantial quantity of various types of ammunition, much of which could be used with the seized firearms.

This material was located in the fully floored loft space of your property.  Within one area of the loft a large collection of water and dried foods was stored.  The agreed narrative of facts in this case refers to this as appearing to be some sort of ‘survival cache’.  Towards the far side of the loft hatch officers observed two large cases, two large holdalls and one black softshell rifle case, from which the libelled items were recovered.  All of the recovered prohibited weapons were capable of discharging bullet cartridges.  In addition to the firearms and ammunition, officers recovered magazines which could be used with some of the recovered firearms.

On charges two to six the mandatory minimum sentence is 5 years imprisonment.  Your counsel has advanced certain mitigatory submissions on your behalf.  In particular he has contended that exceptional circumstances exist in your case which would justify the court departing from that mandatory minimum, and that the imposition of the statutory minimum period would result in an arbitrary and disproportionate sentence. It was submitted that a custodial disposal could be justified in this case, but that the sentences imposed should be concurrent and for a lesser period than the statutory minimum.

Regarding the circumstances of the offences, your counsel prayed in aid the age of the weapons, their lack of actual or intended use by you, your inheritance of them at a time when you also obtained a residence order in respect of your child, after which you, as your counsel put matters, simply ‘put your head in the sand’ in respect of the prohibited weapons stored in your loft. Regarding your own circumstances, you have been since early 2021 the primary caregiver of your child, your convictions are of considerable antiquity, you have stable accommodation and employment as well as a stable family life with your daughter, and you have been assessed as presenting a low risk of reoffending. Finally, your counsel referred to the utility and early nature of your pleas of guilty.

In this case a significant quantity of functioning firearms and ammunition has been recovered, under warrant procedure, from your loft.  Nearby a ‘survival cache’ was also observed.  You did not approach the authorities at any time about this matter. Your position at your police interview on 11 August 2025 was that your late father gave you the firearms and ammunition prior to his death some three years earlier.  Your position through your counsel today is that you inherited them following your father’s death in February 2021. You had therefore had them under your control for a period of some years, on your own account, while doing nothing to bring them safely under police control.  I note that in your counsel’s lengthy submissions this morning no explanation has been put forward on your behalf in respect of the ‘survival cache’.  The weapons were kept together in unsecured conditions, in a home where a young child resided. Notwithstanding their narrated age, all of these prohibited weapons were apparently in working order, and were available with appropriate ammunition, and of course magazines, for their potential use.  In addition, the number of firearms is also of significance in this case.  This was not a single long-forgotten antique weapon; far from it.  I further note from the now available background report that you had as a young person an addiction to heroin and that you, on your own account, occasionally smoke cannabis.  In your criminal record you have two relevant convictions, in 1997 and again in 2005, for weapons-related offending.  The welfare of your daughter is very much a consideration for the court, but it is not the paramount one. In any event, she is presently well cared for by her mother in satisfactory circumstances. Finally, you knew very well that the firearms stored in your loft were illegal.

In these circumstances I hold without difficulty that the requisite high threshold of  the exceptional circumstances test has not been achieved in this case.  The question for the court then becomes how to proceed to disposal, standing the sheer number of weapons and ammunition charges before the court in this anxious matter, all in the light of the substantial mitigation offered and the early timing of the tendered guilty pleas.

Turning to disposal, in the light of my conclusion on exceptional circumstances, plainly the mandatory minimum custodial tariff requires to be applied by the court today.  The public policy sentencing objectives of retribution and deterrence are very much at the forefront of the court’s approach in matters of this nature.  Taking into account the whole material available to me, and having regard also to the important sentencing principle of totality, I now accordingly sentence you on this indictment as follows.

On each of charges two, three, four, five and six, I have selected concurrent notional headline periods of 7 years imprisonment, all reduced due to the timing and utility of your pleas to mandatory minimum terms of 5 years imprisonment, and all backdated to the date of your initial remand into custody in these proceedings, namely to 11 August 2025.  Concurrently, you will serve on each of charges one, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve and thirteen terms of 2 years imprisonment, reduced from notional headline periods of 3 years, and similarly backdated. I have carefully considered whether these latter periods should be made consecutive, but have on balance drawn back from that on the basis that I have already taken into account the presence of compatible and usable ammunition as a factor in determining the issue of exceptional circumstances, and that to impose an additional penalty therefor would on one view operate as double counting.

Finally, I record that the Crown has sought, by way of unopposed motion, destruction of the items specified in the charges, and the court now grants that application.”

04 March 2026