A man who converted replica Mac-10 guns into lethal weapons, including the one which killed Michael Dosunmu, has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 11 years.

Grant Wilkinson, 34, adapted the guns in a garden shed in Berkshire which were then distributed to criminals in London and used in some of the UK's most notorious crimes, including eight murders.

The sentence was handed down at Reading Crown Court.

One of the victims included 15-year-old schoolboy Michael who was sprayed with bullets from a submachine gun linked to Wilkinson's factory as he slept in bed in Peckham, south London, in February last year.

Mohammed Sannoh and Abdi Omar Noor - convicted of his murder at the Old Bailey in June - mistook Michael for his older brother Hakeem, 26, who was their intended target.

And perhaps the best-known crime linked to Wilkinson's racket was the murder of PC Beshenivsky in Bradford on November 18, 2005. Although she was not killed by one of these guns, one was fired at the scene.

On Wednesday, Wilkinson was convicted of a series of offences, including conspiracy to convert an imitation firearm into a firearm and conspiracy to sell or transfer firearms and ammunition.

Wilkinson was also convicted of possession of a firearm with intent to enable another person to endanger life and possessing a prohibited firearm, namely a Mac-10 submachine gun.

His co-defendant Gary Lewis, 38, of Bourne End, Bucks was found not guilty of nine firearm charges.

The court heard Wilkinson, using the name Grant Wilson, bought 90 blank-firing Mac-10s in July 2004 from a registered firearms dealer in Northolt, Middlesex, saying he needed them as props for a new James Bond film.

This seemed a plausible explanation to Guy Savage, a director at Sabre Defence Industries firearms dealership, who had provided guns for a Bond movie in the past.

Wilkinson then began adapting the guns using hi-tech equipment in two shabby garden sheds in a paddock behind The Briars, a derelict property at Three Mile Cross, near Reading, which Wilkinson took over, then began renting out to various tenants.

The adapted Mac-10s were sold on to figures in the criminal underworld, fuelling a notable rise in shootings over the coming years, the trial was told.

Police investigating the case said the "gun factory" was run on a "commercial scale" seldom seen in Britain before.

The court heard officers found evidence of 11 guns at The Briars and buried at another location near Wooburn Green, Buckinghamshire.

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