JAILED: Notorious Telford criminal hid loaded gun at mother's home

Reuben Hudson, who in 2012 became the first person in the West Midlands to be given a full gang injunction, hid the converted blank-firing revolver among clothing at his mother's home in Wolverhampton.

The 37-year-old from Telford had initially been arrested after being accused of making threats to shoot a doorman at Gorgeous Nightclub in Wolverhampton during an incident on September 13 last year.

Officers investigating the incident then found the weapon in an upstairs bedroom during a search at his mother's Stafford Road home. It had two bullets in the chamber, but had not been fired.

Timeline of crime

• Hudson has 13 previous convictions for 35 different offences. Here are some of his crimes

• 2002: Given three years detention, aged 19, for wounding over an attack where a man was stabbed six times in the back and left with a collapsed lung.

• 2005: Given an ASBO and banned from hanging around Heath Town.

• 2006: Jailed for three years for supplying crack cocaine and heroin after selling or offering to sell crack cocaine and heroin six times to undercover police in Wolverhampton.

• 2012: Becomes the first person in the West Midlands to be given a gang injunction which banned him from large parts of Wolverhampton including the city centre. He was then known by his street name Smokes and was a member of the Heath Town Crew gang.

• 2013: Shot in the abdomen but the perpetrator was never caught. Later fined for possessing cannabis which he said helped with post-traumatic stress disorder after the shooting.

• 2014:Jailed for four years over a savage attack in Wolverhampton in the early hours of New Year's Day.

• 2016: Cleared of supplying cocaine but admitted possession and supplying cannabis after drugs were found at his then-home in Ketley, Telford, along with phones, cash and a cutting agent.

• 2018: Seen waving a 10-12ins blade during a row at the Station Hotel in Wellington.

• 2019: Hides loaded gun among clothes at his mother's house and locked up for nearly 10 years.

Hudson was found guilty of possessing a prohibited firearm and ammunition following a trial. However, he was cleared by the jury of the making threats to kill allegation.

Sentencing him Judge Amjad Nawaz said aggravating features of the case were the element of intention to endanger life and his lengthy criminal record.

The judge said: "The fact is the gun was in your possession ready for you to use or indeed to hand over to somebody else. Those in possession of such weapons plainly put not only themselves, but others at very serious risk of injury.

"You are someone who has been shot in the past."

"I have considered the issue of dangerousness and I do not go down that particular route." Judge Nawaz added.

He also told Hudson that he himself had created a "debacle" during the trial and had confused the jury by giving different accounts of how the revolver came to be in his possession.

At first he claimed he organised a party while his mother was away and a guest left it behind on a table, then changed his story claiming he found it behind the toilet.

The discrepancies resulted in details of his record being revealed to the jurors.

For the firearms offences Hudson, also known as 'Red', was jailed for eight years on Thursday at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

Mr David Iles, mitigating, said: "He is well known and notorious in Wolverhampton so he moved to Telford. Unfortunately his problems followed him."

He was also jailed for 20 months, to be served consecutively, for possession of a knife in Station Road, Wellington.

That charged related to an incident at the Station Hotel on May 26, 2018, where he was seen waving a weapon described as a blade 10-12ins long during a fracas involving a group of men.

He was also jailed for six months for having a credit card knife at the Trench Lock services, in Hadley, Telford, on May 2, 2019 after officers on patrol pulled over a car he was a passenger in.

He admitted the Telford offences which will run concurrently.

Hudson, of Horton Road, Trench, must serve half of the total term before being released on supervised licence.