Armed officers rushed to a Sutton Coldfield beauty spot after reports of a man with a firearm – but instead found a man with an Aboriginal instrument.
Police were alerted to the Four Oaks gate area of Sutton Park last Tuesday (June 12) night shortly after 9pm, after park rangers and the members of the public said they had seen a ‘man with an air rifle’ roaming in the Four Oaks part of the National Nature Reserve.
The man left the park in his car and was driving along Park Drive, off Four Oaks Road, when officers swooped, stopped his car and grabbed his keys preventing him from driving off.
An armed response unit was on its way when the man explained why he was visiting the park.
Mark Sleigh from Mere Green said he had been carrying a large white plastic waste pipe which he uses as a home-made didgeridoo!
The 39-year-old told BirminghamLive: “Police in a riot van took the keys out of the car and said ‘an armed response unit is on its way to you – a member of the public has reported you for walking around with a rifle’!
“They weren’t going to chill.
“I explained I had been walking around with a white plastic PVC pipe which makes the sound of a didgeridoo.
“It’s very hard to play. I play it in some of the tunnels in the park.
“The police are very beautiful people and come out and block people’s cars in when someone has a ‘weapon in the park’.
“When I spoke to them they said they had five other calls about weapons in Sutton at that time.
“If I was a genuine guy with a rifle, the police were brave to confront me. Hats off to them.
“From a distance, you might be mistaken as to what it was. It’s not a wooden one as well. But because they saw me putting it up at an angle. As well it could sound like an air rifle when I play it.
“I am in a worldwide didgeridoo group on Facebook for people learning how to play and I said what had happened and someone in New Zealand said it had happened to them.”
A spokeswoman for West Midlands Police said: “Police were notified by Birmingham City Council that a man had been seen on CCTV carrying something resembling an air-rifle and an empty sack in Sutton Park, Four Oaks on Tuesday, June 12 at around 9.10pm.
“A member of the public called police shortly afterwards to report that he also thought he had seen a man carrying an air rifle.
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“Police attended and spoke to a man in Park Drive. He showed them that the item he had been carrying was a four foot long didgeridoo and that no offences had been committed.”
