A man who kept an arsenal of weapons in his three-year-old daughter’s bedroom – including a sawn-off shotgun – has been jailed for eight years.

A haul of 26 firearms was found in the room where firearms supplier Darren Dixon’s toddler daughter slept, and included five handguns with loaded magazines and a pump action shotgun.

Explosives, gunpowder, live ammunition, zombie knives, smoke grenades and garrottes were also found at the 32-year-old’s home in Kentish Town, London, in October 2019.

As police seized more than 240 items from his home, Dixon told officers: “It has become a bit of an addiction with these guns.”

His arrest followed a joint investigation by the National Crime Agency (NCA) and the Met Police, working closely with the Spanish Guardia Civil.

Dixon had purchased six firearms from a Spanish-based website and another three from a Slovenian website in the month before his arrest, receiving the weapons in the post.

Six of these weapons were later sold on by the 32-year-old on a different website.

The firearms supplier also had fake police IDs, as well as a counterfeit search warrant for a property in northwest London, Met Police body armour and a rejected application to join the force.

Officers from the Organised Crime Partnership – a specialist team of NCA and Met Police officers – also seized equipment Dixon had used to fix up decommissioned weapons.

Dixon pleaded guilty to being involved in the importation, conversion and sale of prohibited firearms in March 2020.

He has now been sentenced to eight years in prison.

The NCA’s firearms threat lead Matthew Perfect said Dixon was a “significant importer and supplier of weapons” and had horded an “extremely dangerous” collection.

“This investigation removed these lethal firearms from circulation, along with the risk that they could end up in the hands of organised criminals… These weapons are used in acts of serious violence, often by criminals involved in drugs supply, to coerce and intimidate,” he said.

Detective Inspector Richard Smith from the Met Police said the firearms supplier had an “alarming amount of lethal weapons – with some of them even shockingly being hidden where his child slept”.

“Firearms have absolutely no place in London and we are committed to robustly targeting both those who carry them and those who supply them,” he added.

Since November 2018, at least 522 prohibited weapons and 3,500 rounds of ammunition have been confiscated in the UK by the NCA and police forces working together.

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