The London home of Fifty Shades of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson and her husband, Kick-Ass and Godzilla star Aaron Taylor-Johnson, was raided by armed police Thursday after a machine gun was spotted through a window by a passer-by.
According to a local newspaper, residents in the upmarket Primrose Hill area were woken by police surrounding the property late Thursday evening. The couple were not present at the time. The gun was eventually confirmed by the police to be a decommissioned M16 assault rifle.
“Police were called at 23:40 hours on Thursday by a member of the public, reporting that they had seen from the street, what they thought was a firearm, sitting on a desk by the window of a property,” said a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police. “Local officers and officers from the Met’s Firearms Unit attended and were let into the property to examine the firearm. It was confirmed that the firearm was a deactivated M16 rifle.”
“The firearm was located in Sam Taylor-Johnson’s basement studio and has been confirmed as a certified and fully decommissioned M16 assault rifle that was provided to Mrs. Taylor-Johnson by the international charity Peace One Day as part of an art project entitled ‘Peace One Day M16.’ ”
