WIREDGOV

A man has been jailed for five years and four months after National Crime Agency (NCA) officers seized a haul of 28 firearms, including pistols and shotguns, from his home.

Investigators raided 58-year-old Philip Maylen’s house in Kingsclere, Newbury in December 2024, after Border Force officers intercepted a parcel from the US addressed to him and containing gun parts.

NCA officers arrested Maylen and carried out an extensive two-day search of his home, during which they uncovered 28 viable guns, 11 replica firearms, 100 bullets and a variety of gun component parts.

Among the viable firearms were 17 shotguns, four deactivated Glock pistols that Maylen had reactivated and three blank firing pistols which he had converted to fire live bullets.

Investigators subsequently trawled through Maylen’s phone messages, emails, handwritten notes and financial documents to build a picture of his criminality.

Messages and financial documents recovered by officers proved Maylen had spent at least £16,000 on guns and component parts between 2019 and 2024, purchased from companies in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Estonia and the UK.

They also recovered emails Maylen sent to a company in Canada after Border Force notified him they had seized the parcel from the US, attempting to cancel orders he had place placed for shotgun parts.

Maylen’s orders had already been dispatched and Border Force officers sifted through around 1,000 parcels to retrieve the gun parts.

NCA Senior Operation Manager Tim Lambert said: 

“This is one of the largest caches of illegal firearms I have seen at a single address. Maylen’s arsenal had huge potential to cause harm in the wrong hands.

“Maylen also put himself at risk of being targeted by criminals who might have attempted to take the guns from him, had they known about them.

“The NCA and Border Force together have ensured these dangerous guns have been safely removed from the community and that Maylen has faced the consequences of his crimes.”

The NCA investigation identified no specific motivation for Maylen stockpiling and converting the firearms.

Maylen pleaded guilty to 15 counts of possession of a prohibited firearm and one count of possession of ammunition without a certificate, for which he was yesterday [4 June] sentenced at Reading Crown Court.