Real-life gun scene

A YOUNG actor and film director from Liscard was caught up in a real-life gun drama when armed police swooped on him and his colleagues after filming in Wallasey recently.

Ryan Kruger, 22, of Seaview Road, who just a few days earlier had a film shown to acclaim in Liverpool, was returning home after shooting an action sequence for his new film, The Mix Up , on private ground near Bayswater Road in Wallasey Village.

Just before joining the motorway, however, Kruger and his crew found themselves surrounded by armed police officers from Merseyside Police's special firearms unit.

Mr Kruger says someone must have seen the guns being used in his filming and jumped to the conclusion something far more sinister was taking place.

He said: "The police jumped out of their cars and had guns to our faces."
I was just thinking I have a boot full of guns and blood on my face from the last scene where somebody gets shot. So that didn't look good or help the police one bit. The acting must have been that good and people didn't see the camera.

The police came at the end of the shoot, blocked me from getting on the motorway with four police cars and a helicopter. They did the same with my friend's car - so that's eight police cars altogether.

"They took my prop guns from me and didn't give them back which I wasn't too happy about, but I do realise they have to do their job.

"The police reacted really well and it's good to know that they are on alert like that."

A spokeswoman for Merseyside Police said they had received a number of calls from concerned members of the public who had seen people "acting threatening and menacing and waving a silver gun."

A spokesman said: "If you go in a public place brandishing a gun and a member of the public reports it then it will be confiscated.

"We have to take the appropriate action because the safety of the public is paramount."

If Mr Kruger had told us what he was doing before he started filming, as most production companies do, then there probably would not have been a problem.

"All it would have taken was a phone call."