This is the shocking moment a loaded gun was found hidden inside a children’s underwear drawer.
It was one of six firearms – including a pump action sawn off shotgun – recovered during a raid on the home of Danny Butler, 44, in Lambeth, south London.
Officers also found class A and B drugs stashed all over the address, which he shared with his wife and three children, including an 18-month-old toddler.
The seizure came amid a wider crackdown on the use of guns in London, with the Metropolitan Police taking more than one off the streets every day last year.
But figures show nearly half of shootings in the capital go unsolved.
The number of cases resulting in someone being prosecuted has hit 52% – the highest rate for 11 years – but that still leaves 48% of offenders yet to face justice.
Man who hid guns in his children’s bedrooms
Danny Butler was an amourer for a street gang in Lambeth.
He was jailed for 18 years after six guns and a haul of class A and B drugs were found during a search of his home.
Three handguns, one of which was loaded, were among the weapons discovered inside his children’s clothes drawer.
Another handgun and a pump action sawn off shotgun was found in their wardrobe, along with a large quantity of ammunition.
Officers found a second sawn off shotgun in a coat cupboard.
Class B drugs were lying on the living room floor within reach of his 18-month-old, while class A drugs were stashed inside the TV unit and a coat cupboard.
Detectives believe this is partly due to fear preventing witnesses coming forward or sharing vital evidence, and some victims wanting to get revenge themselves rather than co-operate.
Commander Paul Brogden said: ‘It comes down to trust within our communities, we need the communities to trust us with evidence, trust us with handling Ring doorbell footage, CCTV access.
‘People are worried, people are frightened, victims are frightened and often are reluctant to come forward.
‘We encourage them to trust us, we will keep them safe. While our outcome rates have improved, there are 48% that we haven’t managed to solve.’
He said detectives have ‘long memories’ and will investigate for years, especially if there is a linked series of shootings.
Detective Superintendent Victoria Sullivan, a specialist crime officer based in south-east London, said: ‘Often the victim themselves who’s been shot do not want to divulge to police and that might be because they’re seeking retribution themselves.
Latest London news
To get the latest news from the capital visit Metro.co.uk’s London news hub.
‘So potentially today’s victim could be tomorrow’s suspect. And that’s why it’s really important that we act really, really quickly to try and dissolve that situation.’
Gunman facing jail over shooting involving converted blank firing pistol
Lloyd Temple was armed with a converted Slovakian Grand Power blank firing pistol when he went to rob someone of a kilo of crystal meth in Lambeth last April.
He held the man at gunpoint and began firing when he resisted, hitting him with three bullets.
One ripped through the victim’s stomach and bowel and also damaged his liver before coming to a stop in a muscle in his back.
Another caused life-changing injuries to his arm.
Officers trawled through hours of CCTV to trace Temple from the scene back to his home address, where the firearm was found stashed above ceiling tiles.
Around half of shootings in London are believed to be linked to gang crime.
Mr Brogden, who is responsible for specialist crime, said: ‘The reality is there is a vicious cycle of violence, often involving money, drugs, firearms and gangs.
‘We know that over half of shootings in London do involve gangs or organised crime groups.
‘While the likelihood of a member of the public being the victim of gun crime is very low, we do see wholly innocent victims of crime, as we saw with the poor young girl recently in Dalston.’
A nine-year-old girl was shot while eating dinner with her family when a gunman on a motorbike opened fire outside a restaurant in Hackney last month.
Mr Brogden said that investigation is ‘moving at pace’, with a background of ‘serious violence and gang involvement’ being a key line of inquiry.
Innocent man shot dead in case of mistaken identity
Tyrese Miller, 22, was shot dead on his way home from an evening at the pub with friends in Croydon on April 4, 2023.
One man has since been convicted for manslaughter and possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life after admitting to shooting Tyrese.
Two were convicted for possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Tyrese’s mother, Jackie Taylor has spent the last year supporting her family who have been deeply affected by the tragic death of Tyrese.
She said: ‘I worry that if this can happen to Tyrese, it can happen to anyone.
‘Once you met Tyrese, you never forgot him. He was loved. He was the centre of our family. He had friends everywhere. Sometimes it was easier to say who he didn’t know.
‘For someone that lived such a short life, he meant an incredible amount to so many of us.
‘No mother should have to bury their son like I have. What happened to Tyrese has changed all of us.
‘None of us will ever really come to terms with what has happened.’
The Met says the number of incidents where a gun is fired, termed lethal barrelled discharges, is at its lowest for 15 years, having dropped from 196 to 145 since March 2023.
Gun-related killings have also fallen year on year for the last three years – from 12 in 2021/22 to 10 in 2022/23, eight in 2023/24, and there have been two so far this year.
Most of the 386 illegal firearms seized across the capital last year were pistols – nearly half of which were converted blank-firing guns.
Detective Superintendent Tim Mustoe said the latter ‘are one of the concerns for us at the moment because we are seeing increasing usage of those weapons in shootings in London’.
He also described 3D-printed firearms as being ‘a key threat’, with technology ‘evolving very quickly’.
Blank guns are commonly used as starter pistols at sporting events, as props in the film and theatre industries and for a range of other legitimate uses, such as scaring birds.
They can be purchased for as little as £100 before being modified to fire live ammunition and sold on to criminals for thousands.
Mr Mustoe said: ‘We aim to prevent lethal firearms firstly coming into London and when they do manage to find their way onto the streets of London, we aim to take them off the streets and out of the hands of criminals who seek to use them.
‘There is an ongoing demand for firearms, and to target that it’s also important that we look at the people who seek to use them.’
But he added: ‘We do unfortunately face some significant challenges with our investigations.
‘Many involve gang members and tragically start in hospital where we work with the victim to understand what has happened. And most understandably, fear and a lack of trust can be barriers to people feeling confident to engage with us.
‘That can make it difficult to understand the motivation of shootings, where they have happened and sometimes the background which can go back many years.
‘This is why we have been unrelenting in our efforts as an organisation to work with our communities and listen to them to try and do this better.
‘The recent shootings in London are a sad reminder that despite the reductions, despite the detections, we must continue to crack down on firearms.
‘I do appeal to communities to share with us any information they may have in relation to where those firearms are or the people who seek to use them.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE : Driver who killed mum while inhaling laughing gas and driving with knees jailed
MORE : Police release image of man they want to find after boy, 12, killed in hit and run
MORE : Grieving widow of aristocrat says his family think she pushed him out of window
Get your need-to-know
latest news, feel-good stories, analysis and more
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.