A weapons enthusiast who went on the rampage acros
A weapons enthusiast who went on the rampage across west London praised one of his hostages as a ‘hero’, the Old Bailey was told.
Former military man, Hedley Jenkins, was forced to drive his gun-toting captor home after George Knights, 42, went on a shooting spree with an M16 assault rifle.
Urban commando Knights, who was leaning out the window of Mr Jenkins’s electric blue Audi taking pot-shots towards police, said that it was thanks to his prisoner’s composure that the violence came to an end.
Knights said in a police interview read out to the jury that by the time armed officers arrived at his home Mr Jenkins’s ‘calm and cool manner’ had calmed him down.
And Knights crowned his praise by saying: ‘The guy’s a hero.
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And the court has heard that as Knights got out of the Audi just minutes before police arrived at his home in Shaftesbury Avenue, Feltham, he turned and thanked Mr Jenkins for a nice drive.
It emerged in the interviews that loner Knights had been leading a semi-military existence in the run up to the chaos of April 28 last year.
When his high-security home at (121) Shaftesbury Avenue was stormed after a two hour siege officers found a bewildering array of lethal weapons inside.
Apart from the Glock self-loading pistol and the M16 that Knights used in the police pursuit, a Beretta .
40 calibre pistol, a grenade launcher for attachment under the M16, grenade parts, and timing devices were uncovered.
Stunned neighbours who had never even spoken to Knights had no idea about the arsenal that was being amassed on the other side of the wall.
And Knights said that as armed police units surrounded his home he watched their movements using surveillance cameras.
In the interviews Knights is also heard boasting of his huge knowledge of weaponry: ‘I have got a vast technical knowledge of firearms and 50 other subjects.
I have got a very high IQ.
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And to reinforce his high opinion of himself he adds: ‘This is someone who has never been water skiing but who learns to ski in ten minutes!’
Looking back on holidays in Florida Knights spoke about the gun culture he revelled in from a young age.
His father was a military policeman and they would go shooting .
22 rifles together.
And referring to liberal American gun laws he says people can ‘go round to a gun range and shoot pistols and even carbines.
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Knights said while being kept in Wandsworth Prison on May 5 last year he was responsible enough to telephone police and tell them how he had buried parts for an M16 automatic pistol, grenade components and a change of clothes in a rural arms-dump.
Detectives then accompanied Knights to ‘Cupid’s Copice’, an area of dense woodland near Biggin Hill where the cache was supposed to be stashed.
When they went into the wilds behind Clackett’s Lane service station on the M25 they found the pistol parts and grenade ‘husks’ sealed inside a CCTV camera housing.
The weapons were found and Knights was promptly charged.
Knights, denies attempting to murder Dial-a-Bus driver Clive McMahon in, one of kidnap, two charges of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, six charges of possessing a firearm with intent to resist arrest, three charges of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence, three charges of possessing a prohibited weapon, one of possessing a firearm without a certificate and two of possessing ammunition without a certificate.
The prohibited weapons include hollowed out dum-dum bullets designed to cause maximum injury and a projectile missile launcher used for the discharge of fire cartridges.
The trial continues.
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