A MAN alleged to have set up a "factory" to convert replica machine guns into the real thing was described as "desperately" disorganised by a weapons supplier today.

Grant Wilkinson, 34, from High Wycombe, bought 90 Mach-10 sub-mahcine guns plus ammunition from firearms dealership Sabre Defence Industries based in Northolt, Middlesex in July 2004, a court heard.

Wilkinson, along with co-defendent Gary Lewis, 38, from Blind Lane, Bourne End, are alleged to have converted the guns and ammo, worth more than £55,000, into real firing, automatic weapons, in a pair of sheds in the grounds of a house known as The Briars in Three Mile Cross, near Reading.

The prosecution say the guns and ammunition were then sold on and used in 51 shootings, eight of which were fatal.

Guy Savage, a director of Sabre, told jurors at Reading Crown Court today Wilkinson "wasn't particularly forthright" and not the life and soul of the party.

Ann Cotcher QC, defending Wilkinson, asked Mr Savage if he thought her client was disorganised.

He replied: "Desperately, yes."

Wilkinson, using the name Gary Wilson, placed his order with Sabre on July 1, 2004 and would then drop back to the store to pick the guns up in batches of ten, the court heard.

But Mr Savage became concerned about him when he began "acting suspiciously" and took a picture of Wilkinson on his mobile phone when he next visited the store.

John Price, prosecuting, asked him why he took the picture.

Mr Savage replied: "He was talking in a way that would put the hairs on the back of your neck, stand them up. He was acting suspiciously in the way that we were discussing things.

"He had been particularly difficult to get hold of for several months and then shows up out of the blue. It was very, very unusual and I just figured I would take a picture and if ever it needed to be relevant it would be."

Samuel Sullivan, a former Sabre employee, also thought Wilkinson was disorganised and told the court he came over as "haphazard".

Mr Sullivan added: "I didn't think he appreciated what kind of business we were doing.

"To coin a phrase he didn't know if he was coming or going."

Jurors also heard from witnesses who were living at the Briars as tenants of Wilkinson's.

Stephen Oxley moved into the three-bedroomed semi-detached house with his girlfriend in May 2006.

He told the court Lewis, who introduced himself as Gary and a friend of Grant's, was often at the house doing "odd jobs" before going to the paddock at the back of the house, where the two sheds were located.

Jurors also heard of the time an alarm on the bigger of the two sheds went off while Mr Oxley was home.

He told the court he rang Wilkinson who came round "as quick as a flash" and then ripped the wires from the alarm to turn it off.

"I asked what he was doing in there," Mr Oxley said, "He told me he was into electrics."

He added no one could see into the shed as "the windows were all blacked out with black bin liners".

Machinery also began turning up at the house, such as a forklift truck and a drill, Mr Oxley said.

He added: "On the day the machinery arrived, we just went out the door to see a lot of it there. It was all literally left out over the front lawn.

"A couple of bits just disappeared, I assume they went down the back."

But he said he did not personally see any of it moved into the sheds or to the paddock area.

Police were called to the "factory" in July 2007 after another Briars tenant and a neighbour went into one of the sheds and found "precision engineering tools".

Officers later discovered thousands of spent cartridges and three of the Mach-10s in various stages of conversion in the other shed.

Lewis and Wilkinson were arrested in December last year, and Wilkinson then led police to a further cache of weapons buried in a field off Juniper Lane, Wooburn Green.

Both deny the firearm and ammunition related charges. The trial continues.