The police discovery in a North Face bag that led to tears in court

A stolen motorbike's tracking device led police to uncover a loaded gun hidden in a North Face bag, wrapped inside a Moncler coat. Officers, who were investigating the theft, had raided a house expecting to recover the vehicle but found a self-loading pistol and ammunition instead.

DNA was found on the gun belonging to Kirk Davies, 22, leading to emotional scenes in court as he was sent to prison over the unexpected find. He maintains that he was looking after the deadly weapon for other criminals, whose identities he refuses to reveal because he is "afraid of repercussions".

Liverpool Crown Court heard this afternoon, Wednesday (December 11), that a security firm alerted Merseyside Police to a tracker placed on a motorcycle prior to its theft. This resulted in the bike being traced to the garden of a house on Westhead Avenue in Kirkby on 23 May this year.

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Isabella Denn-White, prosecuting, described how PCs then conducted a search of the address and discovered a loaded firearm inside a black North Face crossbody bag, which itself was wrapped within a black Moncler coat. A total of 27 rounds of ammunition associated with submachine guns were also recovered alongside the weapon, which was later found to be a Glock-type self-loading pistol.

Davies' DNA was located on both the gun and bullets within the magazine. Davies, of Middle Way in Croxteth, has three previous convictions for four offences, including for possession of an offensive weapon in a public place in 2018.

The ECHO reports how he claimed in a basis of plea, which was accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service, that he had been minding the pistol for a "short period of