A MAN who shot at unarmed police officers and dumped the gun in Highgate has been put behind bars. Colt Wesley Welch, 27, received a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to four firearm offences at Wood Green Crown Court on Monday. The court heard how on Novemb

A MAN who shot at unarmed police officers in Crouch End has been put behind bars.

Colt Wesley Welch, 27, received a five-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to four firearm offences at Wood Green Crown Court on Monday.

The court heard how on November 2, 2008, officers in an unmarked police car were patrolling the Crouch Hill area and noticed a white Renault Megane with a faulty rear light.

They indicated to the driver to stop but he ignored them.

The Megane crawled along Crouch Hill with the police car following it when suddenly Welch, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, leaned out of the window, aimed a sawn-off shotgun at the police car and fired it. Shotgun pellets hit the car, smashing the windscreen and causing the car to swerve.

The Megane was later found abandoned nearby by police officers from another unit.

Shortly afterwards Welch was spotted carrying a holdall. When two officers approached him and asked to look inside his bag, he took a sawn-off shotgun out from under his jacket, threatened them and ran off.

Armed officers were called to the scene and Welch was found clutching the loaded shotgun in a garden in Gaskell Road, Highgate and arrested.

It emerged the shotgun had been stolen from a house in Surrey two months before.

Welch, of Chesnut Grove, Tottenham, had admitted possession of a shortened shotgun, possession of a firearm with intent to resist arrest, possession of a firearm while prohibited and possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear at Wood Green Crown Court on July 13.