FAC Renewal

[Scapegoat]

Would have to look it up I guess

Where should I keep my gun cabinet keys safely?

Stay informed on Gun Cabinet Keys with Shooting UK. Essential updates and expert advice on firearm rules and legal responsibilities.

www.shootinguk.co.uk

On Sunday August 10 1997 a police officer called at the house of Mr Mark Farrer. He wanted to inspect his firearms security. Mr Farrer was not at home. His mother, then in her 80s, who did not hold a certificate, fetched the officer the key and allowed him access to the gun cabinet. The Chief Constable then declined to renew Mr Farrer’s certificate because he had allowed an unauthorised person access to his guns. He appealed. The case reached the Court of Appeal, presided over by the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham. The court agreed with the Chief Constable.

• Only the certificate owner should have access
• No unauthorised person should be able to open your gun cabinet
• Unauthorised people should not have access to the keys of the cabinet
• You cannot tell a non-certificate holding partner where the keys are
• Keep your gun cabinet keys on you or in a keysafe with a fingerprint lock
• Breaching these conditions is a criminal offence

 

[Scapegoat]

Or alternatively...

Essex Police lose ruling over guns

A prominent solicitor has won a significant High Court ruling against police who took away his firearms licence because he told his elderly mother…

www.gazette-news.co.uk

A prominent solicitor has won a significant High Court ruling against police who took away his firearms licence because he told his elderly mother where he kept the key to his gun safe.

The legal victory was secured by Arthur Farrer, retired partner at Farrer and Co, solicitors to the Queen.

A judge disagreed with the view of Essex Police that all gun owners should in no circumstances allow unlicensed people - including husbands, wives and others close to them - to know where they kept their keys.

 

[Scapegoat]

So one source says he lost his appeal, another says he won it.

Let common sense prevail I'd say. I'm not sure all of us have deep enough pockets to fight the courts in the same way that a senior Solicitor and former Deputy Lieutenant of Essex did.

 

[Scapegoat]

SO here's another source:


Readers may be aware of the Court of Appeal case of FARRER.
Briefly, Mr. Farrer, a Deputy Lord Lieutenant and leading citizen of the County of Essex spent much of his time in London and also maintained a family home and farm in Essex where his mother – a lady of distinguished years lived in a cottage. Mr. Farrer’s shotgun was kept in a proper gun safe in this cottage, and Mrs. Farrer knew where the key to the gun safe was kept. In fact she helpfully offered to assist the visiting Firearms Officer by opening the safe during his routine visit. On learning Mrs. Farrer had access to the shotgun, the Chief Constable refused to renew Mr. Farrer’s Shotgun Certificate. The reason for this refusal was that he had allowed his mother – a person holding no shotgun certificate – access to his shotgun.
After negotiations between the Chief Constable and Mr Farrer broke down, he appealed to the Crown Court, where it was held that Mrs. Farrer was an unauthorised person given access to her son’s shotgun, and that she was the custodial possessor of them. Therefore, the Crown Court concluded, the storage arrangements made by Mr. Farrer were not such as to prevent so far as reasonable practicable access to the guns by an unauthorised person i.e. his mother.
Mr. Farrer applied for judicial review and ultimately the case was referred to the Court of Appeal, which confirmed Mrs. Farrer was an unauthorised person, who had access to Mr. Farrer’s shotgun.
She had the key to the gun safe, which was in her house, and could open the safe and take out a shotgun whenever she wished.
On these facts, the Court of Appeal decided that the practical convenience of Mrs. Farrer having access, and the general good sense in having a wife or close relative able (as in this case) to facilitate police inspection or permit removal in case of fire or the demise of the certificate holder, was outweighed by the strict wording of the Act.
It held Mr. Farrer was in breach of the terms of his Shotgun Certificate by not having it stored securely so as to prevent, as far as reasonably practicable, access to the shotgun by an unauthorised person.



Looking more like he lost the appeal.

 

[8x57]

I for one won't tell anyone where my spare keys are stored.
When a friend of mine passed away suddenly nobody could find the keys to his gun cabinet despite several searches of the house. They knew they must be there somewhere but totally failed to find them. He had willed all his guns to his nephew a serving police officer and holder of a FAC, and it was going to be a simple matter of him obtaining the necessary variations and signing them on. They weren't even certain that the guns were in the cabinet.
Eventually a locksmith was called to open the cabinet but he made no attempt to pick the lock and all he did was to cut open the cabinet with a disc cutter something they could have done themselves.

 

[Scapegoat]

And here we are. He even gets a mention in the Home Office Guidance, albeit the 2013 version

https://www.sceguk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2015/07/Home-Office-Guide-on-Firearms-Licensing-Law.pdf

19.15. The term “unauthorised access” has been held to include the constructive possession that can occur where persons other than the certificate holder have access to the keys for security devices, as well as access gained by criminal entry to the premises etc. Thus any keys to any security device should be kept secure, with access limited to authorised persons. This is especially important if there are children present in the premises. Knowledge by an unauthorised person of the location of the keys or to the combination to the locks may lead to a breach of the statutory security condition. In the case of Regina v Chelmsford Crown Court, Ex parte Farrer (2000) it was agreed that deliberately providing information of the whereabouts of the keys was an offence. It was “reasonably practicable” for Mr Farrer not to tell his mother where the keys were kept in this case.

19.16. The Court of Appeal case of Ex Parte Farrer (2000) confirmed the proposition that, if other people who are not authorised to possess the firearm/shotgun have access to it, the firearm/shotgun will not have been stored securely to prevent access by unauthorised persons. The Court of Appeal found that the term “practicable” in the Firearms Rules means “feasible in practice” not socially convenient or “reasonable”. The court found that it was feasible for Mr Farrer to have prevented his mother having access, and that he was in breach of the conditions of the certificate because he gave his mother access to the key. What is required is for the certificate holder to keep the whereabouts of the key or security combination unknown to anyone but themselves.

 

[8x57]

Scapegoat I'm not sure that the Farrer case is the one I was thinking about but it sounds very similar.
My memory may be entirely wrong or perhaps I am confusing two different cases but the case as I recall was much further back than 97.

 

[Scapegoat]

A more in depth read shows that he did indeed lose the appeal in one part. The court held that by informing his mother of the whereabouts of the keys to the cabinet, he committed the offence.

A second matter, related to access to a Winchester .22 rifle. Although it was in the same cabinet, it was further secured using a device which prevented it being fired, and only he knew the whereabouts of the key to that device.

 

[Scapegoat]

Scapegoat I'm not sure that the Farrer case is the one I was thinking about but it sounds very similar.
My memory may be entirely wrong or perhaps I am confusing two different cases but the case as I recall was much further back than 97.

As far as I know the condition to securely store only dates from the 1988 Act, so it won't have been much earlier I wouldn't have thought.

 

[8x57]

As far as I know the condition to securely store only dates from the 1988 Act, so it won't have been much earlier I wouldn't have thought.

Yes but I'm sure there were part 1 firearms involved and not just shotguns.

 

[Scapegoat]

I for one won't tell anyone where my spare keys are stored.
When a friend of mine passed away suddenly nobody could find the keys to his gun cabinet despite several searches of the house. They knew they must be there somewhere but totally failed to find them. He had willed all his guns to his nephew a serving police officer and holder of a FAC, and it was going to be a simple matter of him obtaining the necessary variations and signing them on. They weren't even certain that the guns were in the cabinet.
Eventually a locksmith was called to open the cabinet but he made no attempt to pick the lock and all he did was to cut open the cabinet with a disc cutter something they could have done themselves.

A dear friend of mine died in a car accident on his way home from a game shoot. He was single and lived in his house that also adjoined his late mother's house. I was asked to look for the keys (I was an Inspector at the time) and two of us searched his house top to bottom, searched every nook and cranny of his mother's house which stood empty. We went to the garage where his car had been taken, and searched that thoroughly. We even went to the mortuary and went through his pockets. We never found the keys. Wherever he kept those keys will remain a mystery. We opened the cabinet with an angle grinder in the end.

 

[Scapegoat]

Yes but I'm sure there were part 1 firearms involved and not just shotguns.

There were in Farrer's case..... see above.
"A second matter, related to access to a Winchester .22 rifle. Although it was in the same cabinet, it was further secured using a device which prevented it being fired, and only he knew the whereabouts of the key to that device. "

 

[25 Sharps]

And here we are. He even gets a mention in the Home Office Guidance, albeit the 2013 version

https://www.sceguk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/24/2015/07/Home-Office-Guide-on-Firearms-Licensing-Law.pdf

19.15. The term “unauthorised access” has been held to include the constructive possession that can occur where persons other than the certificate holder have access to the keys for security devices, as well as access gained by criminal entry to the premises etc. Thus any keys to any security device should be kept secure, with access limited to authorised persons. This is especially important if there are children present in the premises. Knowledge by an unauthorised person of the location of the keys or to the combination to the locks may lead to a breach of the statutory security condition. In the case of Regina v Chelmsford Crown Court, Ex parte Farrer (2000) it was agreed that deliberately providing information of the whereabouts of the keys was an offence. It was “reasonably practicable” for Mr Farrer not to tell his mother where the keys were kept in this case.

19.16. The Court of Appeal case of Ex Parte Farrer (2000) confirmed the proposition that, if other people who are not authorised to possess the firearm/shotgun have access to it, the firearm/shotgun will not have been stored securely to prevent access by unauthorised persons. The Court of Appeal found that the term “practicable” in the Firearms Rules means “feasible in practice” not socially convenient or “reasonable”. The court found that it was feasible for Mr Farrer to have prevented his mother having access, and that he was in breach of the conditions of the certificate because he gave his mother access to the key. What is required is for the certificate holder to keep the whereabouts of the key or security combination unknown to anyone but themselves.

Thanks

well, unless the mrs can get the number for the key safe out of my head I’m all good

 

[I. Farticus]

Look at what happened to George and Kate Digweed...
It doesn't matter what level of security you have if a couple of ws are prepared to beat the cr*p out of you to make you open the cabinet.
The best security is probably being careful about who knows you have firearms in the first instance.
That and plugging the cabinet into the mains...

 

[Frank Homes]

As far as I know the condition to securely store only dates from the 1988 Act, so it won't have been much earlier I wouldn't have thought.

I think it was the Firearms Rules 1998.

F

 

[8x57]

The best security is probably being careful about who knows you have firearms in the first instance.

A chap in my old club played absolute hell with the Chief Constable (years ago) when a police officer called at his house unannounced and told his cleaner who was the only one in at the time that it was regarding the renewal of his FAC. Old John made a formal complaint and maintained that it had breached his primary security which was not letting anyone know that he had guns in the house, the cleaner being unaware until then.

 

[Scapegoat]

I think it was the Firearms Rules 1998.

F

It's possible that those rules ensured that the safe storage condition was included on every certificate. But logic dictates that the legal requirement to prevent unauthorised access predates that .... if only because Farrer was originally prosecuted for an offence which was heard in court in 1997.

However. I applied for my first shotgun certificate in 1988/89, and it was already a requirement to store them in a firearms cabinet then.

 

[SimpleSimon]

My keys used to be in the sock drawer. They're now somewhere different, mainly because I A. Have a lot of socks and B. Now have quite a lot of keys.

My logic for the sock drawer was this:
If anyone breaks in at night, they'll have to come past me to get the keys.
If anyone breaks in whilst I'm out during the day, they can find in my home tools more than capable of destroying my cabinets completely. They won't need to look for the keys.

 

[Scapegoat]

So there is case law to support anyone who’s wife knows the whereabouts of the husband’s cabinet keys then

Moot point perhaps now that we've discovered he lost the appeal, but in Farrer's case he had deliberately told his mother where the keys were in case anything happened to him. I suppose it would take another case to determine whether that's the same if a spouse discovers the whereabouts of the keys as she's tidying the sock drawer(!) There would be arguments about "reasonable precautions" as opposed to "careless" or "neglectful" behaviour. I wouldn't want to put my money on a successful defence either way, especially as it's perfectly easy to lock the keys away where she can't access them, even if she knew where they were.

Edit (despite the risk of appearing to be a smart-arse) My keys are in a safe. My wife knows I own a safe which contains the cabinet keys. She doesn't know the combination to the safe. She doesn't know which room in the house the safe is kept. The fail-safe keys (master keys to open the safe if the electronic lock fails) are hidden in a place only I know, and where no one else is likely to look.

 

[Scapegoat]

The best security is probably being careful about who knows you have firearms in the first instance.

Shooting association car sticker anyone?