Jury hears evidence after gun found in pupil’s rucksack at Kempston Challenger Academy

Kempston Challenger Academy
Kempston Challenger Academy. Image: Google Streetview 2013

A jury has heard how a Kempston headteacher called in the police when a 15-year-old student came to school with a sawn-off shotgun in his rucksack in 2018.

Other pupils alerted staff at the Kempston Challenger Academy and the boy was taken to Ian Evason’s office.

When the black rucksack was searched, a gun was found wrapped in a t-shirt and tracksuit bottoms inside a sports shop bag. There were also six live 12 bore cartridges, Luton crown court heard today (Tuesday).

Prosecutor George Heimler told the jury that as the boy was being taken from the school, the defendant Keesha Kalyan, now 20, took a photo which she circulated on social media.

He alleged that she attached a caption that read: “Free my yung G… got bag with the Dotti”

Mr Heimler said that Dotti was urban slang for a shot gun and G stood for gang member.

The jury was told that Keesha Kalyan’s fingerprint was found on the drawstring of the sports shop bag inside the rucksack.

Keesha Kalyan, previously of Bedford but now living in Church Road, Cowley, Uxbridge, denies being in charge of a prohibited weapon on 10 October 2018.

The jury was told that the boy had pleaded guilty to possessing a prohibited weapon at the school at 9.15 in the morning of Friday 19 October 2018.

Mr Heimler said messages were “critical” in the case. On 10 October 2018 he said Keesha Kalya had texted the boy saying: “I am grabbing a dotti ffs don’t tell anyone.”

Keesha Kalyan’s case is that when she used the word Dotti it had nothing to do with a shotgun. She said she was referring to a religious artefact she had got as a present, relating to the Hindu festival of Diwali.

She told the police she sent the photo of the boy being escorted from the school and had deleted it. She said somebody else had added the caption: “Free my yung G…….”

The case is proceeding.

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