Police have welcomed tough sentences handed out to a drug dealing couple who kept a loaded sawn-off shotgun under a bed. Leon Boothe and a girl aged 17 admitted possessing the weapon and having cocaine with intent to supply it at Wolverhampton Crown Court. Boothe, 23, of Lawn Road, Parkfields, Wolverhampton, received five years for the firearms offence and four years for supplying drugs, to run consecutively. The teenager was given three years for the firearms offence and 18 months for supplying drugs, also to run consecutively. After the hearing, Sgt Andy Padmore, co-ordinator for West Midlands Police's south sector police team, based at Bilston, said: "This verdict sends a message to the community that we are active in tackling armed criminality and drug dealing." Officers found a double-barrelled shotgun and more than £1,000 worth of cocaine stuffed inside a teddy bear during a raid last November. | 
