A 50-year-old retired petty criminal has been jailed after stashing a pump-action shotgun for a "hit man".

Judge Peter Benson said Bradford had a "particular problem" with gun crime, making a prison sentence inevitable, despite Trevor White's age and co-operation with the police. Members of White's family broke down in tears as White, formerly of Mond Avenue, Bradford Moor, was jailed for 21 months at Bradford Crown Court.

Jayne Beckett, prosecuting, said police went to his house on February 14 when they found two firearms hidden in a false ceiling in his shed. One of them - a blank-firing starting pistol with ammunition - was not a prohibited weapon. But the other, a Mossberg single-barrelled pump-action shotgun, was unlicensed, leaving White open for a maximum ten-year jail sentence.

Miss Beckett said officers arrested White at his workplace in Keighley where he admitted the offence. White told them he had stored the weapons for a "hit man" named Landy whom he described as "someone you speak to to get things done".

White admitted one charge of possessing a prohibited firearm.

Andrew Dallas, mitigating, described White as a "retired petty criminal" who had not been active since the 1980s. Since then he had worked as an electrician and then as a Keighley-based delivery driver. The court heard it was through this job he met 'Landy' and agreed to store the weapons.

But Judge Benson told him: " Here in this city and in the surrounding towns and cities I have observed an increasing use of firearms for the commission of crime and for the payment of debts and matters of these sorts."