Nightingale: SAS Sniper 'Put Public At Risk'

By David Bowden, Defence Correspondent

SAS sniper Danny Nightingale "put the public at risk" by keeping a working 9mm pistol and more than 300 rounds of ammunition in the bedroom of his shared house, a trial has been told.

Those dangers "were particularly acute in this case given the quantity of 9mm rounds (172) that were stored in the same bedroom as the gun," said prosecutors.

They claim that Sgt Nightingale also had many rounds of other ammunition, including bullets for a sniper rifle, a smoke grenade and signal flares.

Prosecutor Timothy Cray told the court martial there was "no excuse" for what the defendant did.

Sgt Nightingale: 'Stored bullets, a grenade and a flare in his house'

"No matter how he tries to deny it, the gun and the ammunition were in his bedroom because he put them there and kept them there. These are the plain facts which he will not face up to," said Mr Cray.

The prosecution says that Danny Nightingale told police interviewers that he had brought the gun back from Iraq in 2007 and had intended to have it decommissioned and handed over to his unit as a trophy.

Nightingale has pleaded not guilty to both charges of possessing the gun and ammunition illegally.

Prosecutors say the defence will claim that someone else put the weapon and ammunition into the sniper's room and that he couldn't remember because of a brain injury sustained during a jungle marathon in Brazil in 2009.

The prosecutor told the hearing that "no one is saying that Sgt Nightingale was a bad soldier, in fact his service career is deserving of high praise", but added "even good soldiers can make bad mistakes".

The court has also heard that despite defence claims that Nightingale was mentally impaired after his collapse in the jungle, he was passed fit for deployment to Afghanistan a year later.

The court martial has been told that Sgt Nightingale's housemate, who also worked as a firing range instructor for the SAS and known only as soldier N, has already been convicted of similar charges to Nightingale and is serving a prison sentence.

Concluding his opening statement, the prosecutor posed three questions to the panel:

"Did the defendant put the gun and the ammunition in his bedroom, or did somebody else put it there?

"If the gun and ammunition belonged to somebody else, how did the defendant miss it?

"Is this claim of memory loss in respect of specific and detailed confessions the truth or a lie told to try and avoid the consequences of the truth?"

The trial is expected to last into next week and evidence will be heard from serving Special Forces soldiers, including some who will speak to the court martial via videolink from Afghanistan where they are currently on operations.

The judge has already ruled that none of the SAS witnesses can be identified.

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