AN eight-month cross-Border surveillance operation centred on Glaswegian entrepreneur Paul Ferris led to his arrest and that of three others, and the recovery of three sub-machine guns each capable of firing 1100 rounds a minute, an Old Bailey jury heard yesterday.

A device had been removed from the weapons so that all of these bullets could be fired in one burst. The jury also heard that the weapons, as long as they were deactivated, could be held legally.

The court was told that a drunken episode on a London-Glasgow train led to the arrest of a close associate of Mr Ferris, and would provide crucial evidence in the case.

Mr Ferris, from Hogganfield Street, Glasgow, who once owned a Rutherglen-based security service business, Mr Henry Suttee from Epsom, Surrey, Miss Constance Howarth from Salford, and Mr David Spedding from Cleveleys, Lancashire, all deny conspiracy to sell or transfer prohibited weapons and conspiracy to deal in firearms with three others. They also all deny charges of possessing explosives, namely four detonators.

The court heard that Mr Ferris was observed by police officers flying to Heathrow to meet Mr Suttee and also picking up his accomplice when he made a return trip to Glasgow.

Telling the jury about Mr Ferris, Mr Orlando Pownall, prosecuting, said he ran a business called Premier Security, had a son by his girlfriend Sandra Arnott, and drove a blue Ford chrome sports car.

The court was told that around 50 similar decommissioned sub-machine guns, which could be held quite legally in their present state, had been recovered as a result of this and other operations.

It was also told it did not take a major engineering exercise to turn these decommissioned machine guns into lethal weapons.

The jury heard that during a surveillance operation centred on Mr Ferris, 34, a drunken episode on board the midnight train from London Euston to Glasgow Central led to the arrest of a close associate of Mr Ferris.

Mr Pownall told the jury that Jim McAuley, linked to a security company, had flown to Gatwick on a one-way ticket, but decided to return by train because he did not want to go through airport security as he had in his possession a hand pistol and 60 rounds of ammunition.

In a drunken state, he started abusing fellow passengers. The police were called and he was arrested as the train stopped at Preston.

In his blue holdall they found a CZ.322 pistol, a silencer, 25 rounds of ammunition for the gun, and 35 rounds of different ammunition.

According to the Crown, Mr Ferris was in London during this whole episode and staying with one of his co-accused in Epsom.

This, the prosecution says, was no co-incidence. They were allegedly embarked on the same illegal pursuit.

When Mr McAuley, having been arrested in Preston, failed to arrive at his Glasgow destination, panic messages were sent out by Mr Ferris, still in London, via mobile telephone and pager messages, the Crown alleges.

The prosecution says calls can be traced to and from the pager and telephone of Mr McAuley which, by this time, were in the hands of the police.

This, the Crown insists, shows that Mr Ferris is not only linked to that incident through the calls, but also to other conspirators in a major gun-running operation. Calls during that incident could also be traced to them.

Mr Pownall told the jury that, following the arrest of Mr McAuley, the surveillance operation on Mr Ferris and his alleged conspirators continued.

It culminated with their arrest in May last year after Mr Ferris and others had turned up at a London address and collected a box containing the sub-machine guns and ammunition.

Mr Pownall told the jury that they would hear a wealth of surveillance evidence. It would, he said, link Mr Ferris with people in London who not only had access to guns, but to one individual in particular who could re-activate machine guns.

What he could not tell the jury was the intended final destination of these weapons. He told the court that much of the surveillance evidence might not be contested.

What the jury might be asked to consider was whether Mr Ferris, when he arrived at an address in North London on May last year, knew when he picked up a box that it contained the firearms mentioned in the charge.

Mr Pownall outlined how Mr Ferris and a fellow accused first of all arrived at that address in Islington, returned later, and left with the box before transferring it to another vehicle being driven by Miss Howarth.

Mr Ferris was observed by undercover police officers bringing out the guns, silencers, ammunition, and detonators in a simple brown box tied up with string from the house.

It was then put in a green Nissan Prairie driven by Mr Suttee and followed in a convoy by Miss Howarth in her white Nova, the court was told.

They stopped a short distance away and Mr Spedding then put the brown box in Miss Howarth's car before she drove off, it is alleged.

The court heard that police found #4700 in Scottish notes placed in a Jiffy bag which had one of Mr Ferris's fingerprints on it. Also found was a machine pistol with a silencer.

The eight-month investigation was brought to a halt and Mr Ferris was taken into custody by another team that had been on his tail.

Throughout, the Crown insisted, there was extraordinary communication between all the alleged conspirators in this case, and others, which would prove that Mr Ferris and his co-accused knew perfectly well what was in that box.

It is expected that the trial, which continues today, will last at least five weeks.