
A man who fought in the war in Ukraine was found with a cache of grenades and military-grade ammunition used in the conflict when police searched his home near Leeming.
Stewart Wright, 45, volunteered to fight alongside the Ukrainians in their ongoing conflict with Russia and ended up on the front lines, Teesside Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Dr Richard Wood said that Wright had been “back and forth” between Ukraine and the UK during a two-year period after taking up arms against Vladimir Putin’s forces in 2020.
He returned to the UK for good in December 2023, but on this occasion, he came back with a cache of weaponry – including four “high-explosive” hand grenades and “multiple” live rifle rounds – which he had brought back from the war.
Dr Wood said Wright had travelled back from Ukraine with another volunteer soldier with a bundle of weaponry from the battlefield.
When they reached the Polish border, security officials seized “eight or nine” ammunition magazines from the vehicle which was driven by the unnamed man who was charged with smuggling them across the border and given a suspended jail sentence in Poland.
However, border officers failed to spot the grenades and ammunition that were ultimately found at the remote property, between Leeming Bar and Leeming Village, and he was allowed to go on his way.
He arrived back in North Yorkshire in December 2023 and stashed the illegal weaponry inside his house without telling the authorities. About a month later, on January 31 last year, police acting on a tip-off executed a firearms warrant at the property.
On being arrested, Wright told officers: “There’s things in the house that came back from Ukraine. I was searched at the borders and I’ve got stuff here that wasn’t found.”
A specialist military search team combed the house and found four hand grenades on a cupboard shelf in the hallway. They also found a bag containing multiple rounds of ammunition including an AK47 magazine loaded with 39 rounds and 108 Russian-made, 12.7mm rounds.
Officers also found 29 rounds of 5.45mm cartridges originating from Ukraine and a further 104 rounds of Ukranian-branded ammunition.
All the cartridges were found to be functional and Wright did not have a firearms certificate required to possess such ammunition.
Two of the hand grenades were of the Russian-made F1 variety, similar to the American Mk 2 “pineapple grenade”. The other two were “unidentifiable”.
All the grenades had their fuses removed but were prohibited under the Explosive Substances Act.
F1 grenades have a “lethal range” of 20 metres but are capable of killing or maiming anyone within a maximum radius of 200m.
The ordnance disposal team transported the grenades to Salisbury for examination and they were found to be viable military weapons.
Prosecuting barrister Dr Wood said that before the search, police had found pictures of Wright on Facebook, dressed in full military uniform and holding a firearm and the remains of a rocket missile. It’s thought these pictures were taken in Ukraine.
Police seized Wright’s mobile phone on which they found photos of a plastic shopping bag containing ammunition and a cardboard box containing grenades and a small black handgun.
Wright claimed he didn’t realise that the other man had secreted the grenades and ammunition in his own vehicle until he unloaded the car when he returned to the UK.
He said that when he returned home, the other man asked him to search his vehicle, whereupon he found the grenades and ammunition hidden under a spare tyre.
Wright was charged with the illegal possession of an explosive substance, namely four hand grenades, and possessing or acquiring ammunition without a firearms certificate. He ultimately admitted the offences and appeared for sentence on Friday.
Dr Wood said that since his arrest, Wright had been sectioned at a mental health unit at Salford Royal Hospital. He had suffered with mental health issues all his life, but they had been exacerbated by his experiences in Ukraine where he had seen people killed “at close quarters” and he was now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The prosecutor said that checks of Wright’s phone showed there was no evidence that he had any intention of using the weapons and ammunition in any “sinister or nefarious” way.
“There doesn’t appear to be a clear motivation as to why he would want to bring them back (to the UK),” added Dr Wood.
He said that Wright had previous convictions for possessing an offensive weapon, namely a knuckleduster, and a burglary for which he received a suspended prison sentence in 2007.
Defence barrister Robert Mochrie said it wasn’t Wright but his “travelling companion” who brought the weapons and ammo back from Ukraine and that his client was initially unaware that they had also been stashed in his car.
He stressed that Wright had not been charged with smuggling weapons into the UK but should have declared them to the authorities when he returned to the country.
He said the grenades and ammunition were simply “trophies or souvenirs from the battlefield”.
He added that Wright – who was initially remanded in custody for about three months following his arrest and was thereafter subject to an electronically monitored curfew – had the grenades and live ammunition in his home for about a month after returning from Ukraine and conceded that they were “a risk to him and others in the vicinity”.
Judge Richard Clews said that Wright had been “brave”, if a little “foolhardy”, to fight alongside his Ukrainian confreres and that the weapons and ammunition were of the kind that “Ukraine needed to help defend itself against an enemy invasion”.
He told Wright: “For whatever reason, you decided to go to Ukraine and offer to fight on the Ukraine side.
“Some people might think that was a foolhardy thing to do: you could easily have got yourself killed and you nearly did by the sound of it, and you saw that happen to other people – seen at close quarters.
“But on any view, your actions must properly be described as brave and…they can also be described as noble and altruistic.”
Mr Clews said he accepted that there was no “sinister purpose” for Wright keeping the weapons in what was a “very unusual” case.
He said it was evident that Wright’s experiences in Ukraine had “taken a toll” on his mental health and that he “wasn’t thinking straight” at the time of the offences.
He also accepted that Wright had kept the weapons merely as “some kind of macabre souvenir or trophy of the battlefield.”
He said although no harm was caused by the weapons stash, “the capacity for there to have been harm (to others) was considerable indeed”.
He said that a “deterrent” jail sentence was required but that it could be suspended because of mitigatory factors including Wright’s mental health problems.
The two-year jail sentence was suspended for 24 months. Wright was ordered to complete 20 rehabilitation-activity sessions.
Be the first to comment