Detectives managed to forensically link a sawn-off shotgun they’d discovered to a drug dealer.
The shortened bolt action shotgun was found by police while they were executing a warrant at a Bestwood property.
It was while searching the flat that officers discovered a holdall bag containing a weapon wrapped in a towel.
That was quickly confirmed to be a viable firearm, which was duly forensically tested to see who had handled it.
Those tests – following the gun’s seizure on 8 March 2025 – resulted in Dante Shakespeare’s DNA being found on the trigger.
Criminal proceedings were at that point already underway against Shakespeare, now 19, for crimes he’d committed as a juvenile.
That’s after a car he was in was found to contain an unsheathed machete when police pulled it over in St Ann’s, back in June 2023.
Having seized that weapon, officers investigated Shakespeare further and discovered he’d been dealing heroin, cocaine and cannabis.
This all took place between the start of December 2022 and 10 June 2023 – the day the car he was in was pulled over.
Shakespeare would eventually go on to plead guilty to an array of offences at Nottingham Crown Court in February of this year.
These included possessing a firearm without a certificate, possessing a knife in a public place, and supplying both Class A and Class B drugs.
He returned to the same court on Friday (24 April), where he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in a young offenders’ institution.
Detective Constable Thomas Lowe, of Nottinghamshire Police, said:
“It really shouldn’t need me to explain just how dangerous it was for this gun to be where it was.
“Dante Shakespeare was involved in handling this viable firearm and ensuring it was placed inside the flat – a decision that put everyone in the vicinity at risk of harm.
“Thanks to some great work from our policing teams, we were able to forensically link Shakespeare to the weapon, after his DNA was found on the trigger.
“Being in possession of an illegal firearm is an incredibly serious offence, as is supplying drugs and carrying bladed weapons.
“Shakespeare did all three of these things, so thoroughly deserves the custodial sentence that has now been passed against him.”
