Worcester gun raid pensioner: ''I'm innocent''

Sep 12 2010 by Ben Goldby, Sunday Mercury

A PENSIONER and gun club chairman whose home was raided by cops and army explosives experts was labelled innocent and harmless by his daughter last night.

Graham Lane, 65, was arrested last week when cops swooped on his suburban home in Worcester and seized a cache of weapons including firearms, grenades and rockets.

But his daughter Tatania sprang to his defence on a community web forum and said: “My father is absolutely no threat, not a nutter and has complete confidence that all of his weapons will be returned.

“It’s just unfortunate that his hobby is guns and militaria, instead of stamp collecting.”

Tatania also revealed that she used to play with a deactivated hand grenade as a youngster.

“The bomb squad was called in for a World War Two hand grenade,’’ she said. ‘‘This was a great toy of mine when I was growing up – and of course it was completely deactivated like all of his collection.

“He was going to make it into a table lighter, but didn’t get around to it.

“The cannon shells were also filled with sand and not explosives. Dad didn’t want them falling over on anyone whilst giving his cannon demonstrations.