FRIDAY, JULY 20: Prosecutors have filed record numbers of gun charges over the last three years in the midst of gang violence.
This year alone the Department of Public Prosecutions has put 11 firearm indictments before the courts.
That figure is just one less than the total number of gun charges that were brought between the beginning of 2006 and the end of 2009.
And it is rapidly approaching the 14 firearm indictments that were filed during the whole of 2011.
Prosecutor Cindy Clarke said offences of violence involving firearms were “on the increase and of growing concern”.
Her comments came during the sentencing of gunman, Pelealkhai Williams, who shot a man in the back of the head outside Gravity Night Club last October because he was ordered to by members of the 42 gang.
Ms Clarke told the Supreme Court: “There were no firearms indictments filed in 2006. In 2007 there was one firearm indictment, but the weapon was not used.
“In 2008, five firearms indictments were filed, but the firearms were not used in four of those five cases.
“In 2009, we had six firearm indictments filed. In three the firearm wasn’t used, in two the firearm was brandished to intimidate and in the remaining indictment the firearm was discharged and wounded two people.”
Ms Clarke said that the damage caused to the community by forearms offences was ‘immeasurable’.
She added: “In 2010 we filed 16 firearm indictments. The firearm was not used in one, it was brandished to intimidate in two indictments. In nine indictments the firearm was discharged. On seven occasions it wounded victims on two it did not.
“The remaining four are murder indictments. In 2011 we filed 14 firearm indictments. In 2012, we have already filed 11 firearm indictments.”
Williams, 21, and his co-defendant Jonathan Dill, 20, who drove Williams away from the scene of the shooting on his motorbike face lengthy prison sentences when they are sentenced at Supreme Court this morning.