A BUILDER who kept a sawn-off shotgun he found has been jailed for five years. Mark Cleere, 36, had hidden the weapon under a spare room mattress.

It was found when police searched his home after catching him burgling a shop.

Cleere received a minimum jail term under new anti-gun laws after admitting possessing a prohibited firearm at Swindon Crown Court on Friday.

DC Paul Clifford, of Trowbridge police, said: "Possession of a weapon of this particular nature means it would have been used in criminal activities and it is one less weapon we have to deal with.

"The courts have to make a stand because anybody in possession of these guns is clearly a danger to society."

Police searching Cleere's home in Ladydown, Trowbridge, also found shotgun cartridges and two passports and a driving licence, which he also said he found.

Claire Marlow, prosecuting, said police in Trowbridge were alerted by a burglar alarm at Chantry TV, on Bradley Road, last June. Cleere and an accomplice were found hiding nearby.

Miss Marlow said: "He said he had found the gun wrapped up in a sheet by the railway line which he was using as a short cut.

"He took it home and hid it and bought the cartridges, from a source he would not name.

"He was to use it in the backyard of the property. He said the passports and driving licence were found in a sock by the railway line and he hadn't stolen them."

Cleere, formerly of Cross Street but now living in School Lane, Staverton, admitted burglary, possessing a prohibited firearm and the theft of the passports and driving licence. Robin Shellard, defending, said: "The offences for which he has been convicted of in the past have been essentially petty crime. He faces today a substantial prison sentence which does not bear reflection of the criminality."

Cleere was trapped in his Cross Street flat when Robert Smith, 40, triggered an armed siege in November 2003.

Smith holed himself up there for 16 hours, during which he fired at police.

Cleere escaped through a window hours after his 18-month-old son Kyle was freed. Smith is awaiting sentencing in Broadmoor Hospital